I know its the hip thing to knock the Nexus, but
1) The ports there were extremely limited (if I remember correctly its only DL, GD, NK, and Odus). You also still had to wait up to 15 minutes for them. Going simply between DL and Odus could take as long as 30 minutes if you were unlucky. Character ports were still a much faster way to get around, and the locations you could port to were much more diverse, obviously.
2) It had a foundation in lore. The combine empire built all the wizard spires, and thats who was on the moon. Teleportation was sorta their thing.
3) The world was friggin huge at this point. To get from across the world if you couldn't find a port would essentially be occupying all your playtime. This is a game, and it should be about playing - not getting to where you can play. Even with the Nexus, it still took a long damn time to get to important places on other continents (old sebilis, for instance).
4) The overall map for luclin was a sphere, whereas the old continents were essentially flat. It required some creative tinkering with zone connections to get it to work. The Nexus played a role in the inner passageways of luclin - netherbian to shadowrest.
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