Shattered Kingdoms

I recently did a little bit of leveling in a place I never do any leveling, and I saw a good reason why. I wonder if this is specifically the way its supposed to be or this is slightly buggy? The places I normally use to train, for all sorts of chars, I can normally get at least three levels by the time or even before I hit yellow on my area familiarity. This place, I killed the last guy which put me in the yellow, and also meant that I didn't even get a full level (although almost a full one) before getting there... Other people experience this?

Depends on the area, specifically the low-high range for the area: If it encompasses a lot of levels, then the higher range of those levels will gain familiarity quick. Most major cities are like these, like Exile.

The place I speak of was actually the Crossroads Haven in the mid-upper expert level.

Yeah, you were at the upper echelon of the leveling range, and the leveling range was vast, so therefore you gained familiarity fast, since familiarity is hard-coded on a flat number of xpees, not a percentage of one's level.

Is this optimal? Maybe, I think so. But buggy? Nah.

So after that I trained some in the military encampment, at upper expert levels, and it seems to burn through xp familiarity at a more similar rate. Is this then because this place is Journeyman-Expert versus Crossroads Haven's Apprentice-Expert?

Yeah: In general the higher you are in an area's upper level range, the faster you will gain familiarity, and this is exacerbated if the area has a wide level range. At Champion level, for example, you'll gain familiarity a lot faster in somewhere that is NOV-GM than a place that is MASTER-GM.