[ss248]

>because the players were human

It's a very compelling story, but that wasn't actually the case. The real reason was the flawed design. People just had to kill everything for the materials because of the way equipment was implemented.

[justmedep]

I think one YouTube comment named another good reason: The animals were too easy to kill.

"The problem is obvious. The animals were too easy to kill. Imagine trying to chase down a real rabbit or deer with a sword. You will never catch either one and if by some chance you corner them the deer would actually stand a chance of beating you."

[PeterStuer]

Mmo designers are very constrained in their game mechanics because they always have to deal with players that will exploit every possibility to grief. This unfortunately leads to things like extremely unchallanging encounters for random matchmade groups as any group will have players trying not just to get a free ride but actively trying to get the party to fail the objective.