There are a lot of factors that play into it. Familiarity is one, sure, but so is the ability to quickly travel to the place from ports/EC or to do it with less than perfect groups (no CC or no tank or no healer)
The P99 community is a lot more centered on ECom and the buffs/trading it provides so there is very little local population in the Halas/Qeynos area. This means that getting pick-up people for Blackburrow, Permafrost or even Karana is tougher which in turns causes other people to just move to ECom.
At the same time, places like Oasis are favored because they provide very steady streams of steady level mobs that can be camped for, unlike places like the Karanas or Everfrost where mobs are a lot more mixed. And unlike dungeons it can be safely done with groups that don't have all necessary roles.
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