By the way, your story either didn't happened in vanilla as you're implying or you're misremembering the level. Mounts were 40+ in vanilla.
You are correct.
I was typing a lot, so I misremembered the exact level. It was lvl45.
I deleted my WoW folder with all my screenshots at one point. The screenshots from this trips are the only screenshots from vanilla that I have left.
What I don't understand is why you appear to believe that removing flight will cause people to get out more.
They might not go out more. But they probably don't go out much today. But if people go out, I am sure it will help them have the feeling they are in a fantastic world in a fantasy game. WoW once started as a fantasy game. That aspect has been snowed under over the years.
"Hey, I do the grind, here's my proof. Do you have proof you do the grind, or were you just hypocritically blowing smoke to complain about something?"
The reason why I find it irrelevant for this discussion is as follows.
The last 5 years everybody seems to agree that the last current tier of heroic raiding is hard. (Oh, and high-rating arenas too, for pvp-players). And everything else is easy. Leveling, questing, battle-grounds, heroic dungeons, getting rep, getting half-decent gear, everything. Everything that is easy is just a matter of time. And everything that requires time is a grind. And grinding is bad.
Result ?
People have no respect for any form of content besides heroic raiding. They don't seem enjoy anything that is deemed easy, is deemed a grind. They constantly call out for nerfs. For *everything*. Even for such a ridiculous thing as making your own poisons. I can imagine hunters getting sick of ammo, because they needed a full bag of ammo. And ammo costed a non-insignificant amount of gold. Poisons were just fluff. There was absolutely zero reason to change the system. The same is happening with so many other aspects of the game. All fluff is removed. All color is removed. All flavour is removed. What remains will be a bare-bones pale boring click-fest.
Have you ever realized what the difference is between a fully-zoomed out camera, and a "over-the-shoulder" camerea ? (Like in the Witcher). In Vanilla I played with a over-shoulder camera. And the world felt much more real to me. Nowadays, I play with a zoomed out camera. Because it is more efficient. I try to zoom in when soloing or questing. But for raiding, and also flying, zooming out further is unavoidable. I think the whole (raiding) game is now assuming you are zoomed out to the max. It makes things more efficient. But I think it makes it also less fun. Unless an improved result is the only thing you care about. I find that a shame.
maybe grab a heroic boa or two before the expansion
For leveling your characters from 90 to a 100, I guess ? I see a lot of people who want the Garrosh-heirlooms for that reason. But why rush your leveling ? It's a once in a lifetime experience. When I came back to Pandaria, I froze my xp at lvl85. I spend 2 weeks in Pandaria at 85, exploring the whole world, getting my professions maxed, fishing maxed, etc. Without flying. That was great fun. I even killed every blue rare in every area as level-85 in my Cata-gear. (Except the 8 in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Level-91 blues were too high. Too many glancing blows). When I tell people that, they react as if I am the most stupid person they ever met in WoW.
I deleted WoW and my chars at the end of vanilla. Came back in TBC 5 months after release. I only had a naked lvl60 rogue, a naked lvl40 warrior, and 100g a friend gave me. I bought 2 green daggers from the AH. Put poisons on. And when to Hellfire Peninsula. Leveled all the way from naked to 70. That was also an awesome experience.
I played WLK a few months after release too. I used my 8/8 Devout set. Yep, that was the level-60 T0 priest set. I had gathered one during TBC. Spirit and intellect. With my BT/MH trinkets and rings, and my Season 3 swords. No problem to level from 70 to 80 with that gear at all. If you know how to play a rogue (stunlock=control=no incoming dmg).
If I play WoD, I will probably do it with some crazy gear. I'm thinking of using my 2 warglaives (if the 2nd one will drop). Maybe with an old set or something. Warglaives with 8 pieces of some T0 set is probably too weak.
I try to enjoy the ride. Not just the destination. I will make sure I get there. But it doesn't need to be as quick as possible at all costs.
No leaving for greener pastures.
Totally unrelated to the discussion. But I understand exactly what you are saying. Cross-realm raiding is awesome. The "new" lockout system is awesome. Without it, I would not have raided this expansion. I have no idea why Blizzard insists on making Mythic raiding non-cross-realm. And keeping the old id-based lockout system. (If it wasn't for the id-based lockouts, I would probably have raided a few times with my guild as backup. No chance now).
I would imagine you like the RP part of MMORPG more than most.
Probably. But that is because I realize I like it. Because I try to understand what attracts me to games like WoW. Not the hamster-threadmill. Not the numbers-game. If people only focus on "gimme gimme gimme, how do I get X as quickly as possible", then why are people playing this game ? If they truly wanna achieve something, they should go study medicine or get a PhD.
This has little to nothing to do with convenience and a lot to do with the combination of having a 10 year old game and a general shift in gamers away from MMOs.
That change happened because of something. I think no company has produced a really good MMO yet. Besides WoW. Every new MMO I have played, there were some obvious and huge blunders. GW2 had a beautiful world, but the PvE-gameplay was just retarted. Vanguard was a terrible mess in many ways. Tera was nice, but the endgame was terrible too. For some reason it seems no game-company truly understands what is needed to make the best MMO. Blizzard does a decent job, but sometimes they don't seem to understand their own game even ! I am amazed.
If Blizzard had done a better game during the last 5 years, there would be a lot more people playing WoW. I can write pages and pages full of what went wrong. (Reference: it started with the Trial of the Crusader patch in August 2009).
Anyway, Blizzard finally seems to understand that flying is actually destroying value in their product. And they seem quite dedicated to not cave in this time.
On the other hand, I have the suspicion that WoD is made by the same team that made Cataclysm. And to be honest, that means I have very low expectations for WoD.