Apologies for repeating myself, but there's a difference between exploring and commuting. Exploring, getting to some place I've never been before via an unfamilar route through unknown dangers, is fun. Traveling back and forth, back and forth, back and forth a half an hour each way, an hour each way, gods forbid even longer, is not fun.

No game, before or since, has balanced this any better than Diablo II did, eight years ago. By the time you got to Act III, the ruins of Kurast, it could take you 45 minutes to an hour to hack your way through dense jungle and swarming enemies to get to the next waystone. But once you did, would there have been any point, either from a story-telling perspective or from an entertainment perspective, to making you repeat that trip? Diablo II had plentiful waystones, but you can't tell me that the deserts of Lut Gholein, the jungle ruins of Kurast, and the vast plains of Hell didn't feel huge to you.