I even tried to repair the green items individually, but that doesn't work either.

I finally downloaded the updates but now there is nothing in the world.. no people, no monsters, no nothing... what up?  Did I do something wrong??

In all the world?  Wow, you explore fast.

Since the rest of us are seeing people, monsters, and stuff, then I can pretty safely assume you did something wrong, or you only looked in a spot where there actually was nothing to see.

Follow the installation instructions again.  To be thorough, start at step 1 and proceed as if you've been playing on the pay servers.  To be quick (but less chance of success), just delete the contents of the AddOns directory and start at step 8.

Huh.. tried redoing them all and still no one in the world (okay no one in Dolanaar or the immediate surrounding area... and some of my skills (like find herbs) won't set.. dammit.. this is really pissing me off...

Admitedly I only tried from step 2 because as I seem to recall step one took me 5oo,00 years to download and install and I really don't want to do that again...

Stupid game...

Didn't you keep those files on your hard drive?

I did keep them all.. but apprently I must have deleted the ONE big one.. sigh.. I tried the complete re-install too and still coming up with an empty realm...
I was gone for the weekend (up in Ottawa for the Sens/Sabres game) so I haven't hada chance to check it all out in depth (as in depth as I get at least) but if I can't get it working soon I'm just gonna give up...

I hope you enjoyed the Sens game!

I checked out Dolanaar tonight, and it *is* empty.  Well, I added a single Darnassus sentry to wander around now, but any of the quest giving npc's, killable npc's, etc are all gone.  No spawn points anywhere near Dolanaar.  If you go down the road to Darnassus though, you'll find it teaming with people.

Problem is, most of Teldrassil seems pretty devoid of life.  So let's just say there was a plague (Maybe the same one the Forsaken have been concocting) that ripped through Teldrassil.  Somehow you were spared.  I guess you're too low a level to leave the island, eh?  They're all level 15+ npc's on the mainland near there.  Maybe you should play a different character type until Teldrassil has recovered?

Won't be fixed by my hand though.  I'm not going through and restoring spawn points one by one.  Next server upgrade should have it restored.

I've checked most of Teldrassil and it's mostly empty, except for Darnassus.  I've also managed to re-add the hippogryph master in Rut'Theran Village so you can get off the island without having to use whatever Portal is in Darnassus (whereever that takes you).

The ship from Auberdine to Rut'Theran appears to work, but flying (or portalling) seems to be the only way off the island.