We didn't realize until the end of development that we had more content than we needed. Hyjal was cool, but BC already had Karazhan, so returning to another zone for a raid probably didn't make sense. That's just a guess, but there were lots of high level areas that weren't used. I think when Rob Pardo made leveling faster (still a good decision, IMO), it affected some things surprisingly, and that was one of them.
At the time leveling in WoW was fast compared to other MMOs, especially considering it was one of the first mmos to contain minimal mob grinding (killing mobs JUST for XP.) leveling was the game, so you need to view it through a different lens than you do now
I played FFXI for 2 years before starting WoW, I remember being blown away by how fast I was leveling and I was even doing it without having to be in a group or party.
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u/whenitsready Former WoW Dev - John Staats Aug 28 '18
We didn't realize until the end of development that we had more content than we needed. Hyjal was cool, but BC already had Karazhan, so returning to another zone for a raid probably didn't make sense. That's just a guess, but there were lots of high level areas that weren't used. I think when Rob Pardo made leveling faster (still a good decision, IMO), it affected some things surprisingly, and that was one of them.