There were black loading screens if you switched regions, if you teleported, if you went into instances, if you went to the market wards, if you used the ferry and airships and so on.
But yes, so long you ran around in the open world within the same region there was no loading screen. Instead you had long canyons you have to run throught for 1-2 minutes between that what we have now as zones. 2.0 zone loading is faster than 1.0 canyon running.
