Originally Posted by
smrund
My concern is that the world will end up being too flat in order to enable you to access things they want you to access without flying. Maybe it won't be, but I like the idea that there's stuff on top of mountains that you can't access without flying. Rare items to find, max-level quests, rare mobs, whatever.
EX: a lot of the old world (even after the revamp) and BC feels flat. Everything you need to do can be accessed by horse with only a couple exceptions for end-game content (raids, Netherwing dailies). Wrath feels the same in the pre-77 leveling zones, Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Zul'whatever, Dragonblight. After those zones, the Storm Peaks and Icecrown are very vertical zones, where a great deal of the zone is missed or simply inaccessible if you can't fly. Cata was sorta 50/50, the zones integrated with the old world, Uldum, Hyjal and Twilight Highlands, were also very flat, even though you could fly right away in the new old world, there was very little vertical design to them. Deepholm and the Naga lands (swimming is basically flying underwater) had a lot of *drumroll* depth to them, there was a lot of hidden caves, cliffs and other things that made the world feel very 3D.
MoP seemed designed for flying from the first zone. There was a LOT of vertical pillars, cliffs, hills and it only increased once you got out of the starting areas (Jade Forest, Karasang Wilds, Valley of the Four Winds), it only became more 3D.
So I think there's enough evidence to say that zones that are designed without flying have a history of being flatter in order to enable mount-based access. I find this to be more personally jarring to my experience in the game than not seeing other people out. World's are not flat, making them unrealistically so in order to allow ground-mounts to get everywhere just makes things dumb, IMO.
So anyway, that's really my concern about a flying-less Draenor. Sure we might get flying once 6.1 comes, but that doesn't feel certain. So far the Dev posts on the subject have been "we'll see how it goes." not "yes you're getting flight in 6.1 for sure". So I'm not holding my breath.