Design decision of the week: We are going to enable all mounts to work in battlegrounds with #Warlords.

— Mumper (@mumper) March 14, 2014

Note, it means that we will enable all mounts to be used on the ground. Still can't fly in them. :)

— Mumper (@mumper) March 15, 2014

Note, this should mean that those mounts will work on the ground anywhere that flying is not allowed. Timeless Isle for example.

— Mumper (@mumper) March 15, 2014

Now this is originally and obviously angled at BGs and PvPers, but the wording of that last tweet is such that they imply non BG areas. We can infer from this that they are seriously setting up to have a flightless expansion (completely)

I love flying. .simply because I love flying. I look at everything I can while questing and love it. I also look at everything while flying. I've killed rares over and over in every zone and I've seen every part of pandari. I also am not afraid to land and pvp but I do agree that with all the connected bullshit that collecting mats and world pvp are not even close to the same especially when you see a *by their name. Honestly I will play wod and have fun but I would prefer to keep flying.

For the record, I'm sure Blizzard already has their longterm plans for WoD flight sealed.

They either are doing this to test the waters of player outrage so that they can justify a whole expansion cycle without flight while reasonable objectors quietly wait under the promise that flight will return. When they switch gears to "No flight for all of WoD" everyone will have already bought and be invested in the expansion so sub loss won't be as severe as saying NO FLIGHT AT ALL up front before pre-orders or launch occurs.

OR the restricted flight for one content patch fits into the greater events of Draenor's storyline. They aren't doing this just to cause a fuss. I suspect that shit will hit the fan and the scope of the Draenor expansion will grow in a way that deems flight necessary but largely localized into 5.1 or 5.2 (or whatever) areas. Think Netherstorm.

I'm unsure I would play a grounded expansion at this point. I paid my dues in vanilla. If they remove flying I hope they also remove all summoning stones and Warlock summoning -- as well as the LFD / LFR interface so that people are forced to manually run out to every raid and dungeon every single time. Let's see who still wants to be running around on the ground two months into the expansion then.

Being grounded like on the Timeless Isle or Thunder Isle does not make those areas more imerssive. It makes PVP happen -- which I would usually regard as a positive -- but now that we're vastly outnumbered by the Horde on our server cluster I see that as squarely bad. Have fun fighting over herbs against the Forgotten Coast Horde.

There are conflicting design interests in "We want to get players out into the world" and "Your mobility this expansion is greatly dampened because we say so." If WoD has no flying whatsoever prepare for an era for being semi-AFK in your Garrison waiting for a queue to pop.

Overall I voted no. HOWEVER, I'm fine with no flying during leveling.  It was like that during BC, Wrath and MoP and I thoroughly loved the leveling experience being able to see everything until I hit max lvl or did the quests to gain access to flying.  Cata leveling went WAY too fast and the only zone I really enjoyed was Deepholm.

I think if they tie it to the achievements (ie Loremaster of Draenor, completing all the normal quests in EVERY zone) THEN you can receive flying.  People whine because "omg they have flying so they steal all the quest items while im trying to level"  blah blah.  But that would be resolved if they had already done all the quests in the zone, and then it wouldnt be an issue because all they would really be doing is their dailies, which by that time, flying to complete daily quests IMO shouldnt affect the overall experience a person has in the respective zone anyways.

NOW, while this will allow people, here and on WoW forums, to whine and bitch "THAT MAKES IT A REQUIREMENT!!", the hell it does.  You have the CHOICE to do it, you are not being forced to do it.  If you want flying that bad, then go do it.  Not having flying still wont prevent you from farming, or doing  your dailies, but it will make your life harder.  So if you want your WoW life and experience to be easier, do the damn content that you bitch you never have enough of.

As I just mentioned, not having flying would make farming (with the connected realms and higher populations inc) almost impossible and be WAY too tedious.  And those that ARE able to farm because they have no life other than WoW will corner the markets, and players utilizing the AH to get what they need for mats/crafting will be way too pricey for some.  And yes, I know there are ways to get gold in WoW fairly easily, but it will make things more difficult for the "casual" player.  Plus, not everyone in WoW, especially the "casual" they are supposed to be catering towards, has the time to ride around on a mount and get maybe 20 of their particular herbs/nodes in an hour because everyone is on ground mounts camping certain spawn paths or having to deal with the amount of mobs near where they need to farm. 

Not allowing flying will deter the casual gamer overall IMO, especially after they have it for almost 1/2 of their leveling experience up to 90.  People whine about being ganked all the time, and not having flying isn't going to make it better for the casual gamer.  Honestly it will make it worse, because now you cant hide behind a tree, rez, mount and fly away from the gankers.  Now you are stuck with a ground mount, and if there is a pali chasing you, you're screwed thanks to their personal crusader aura and you will be camped even worse.  Even if its not a pali, almost every class has some sort of speed buff and if they can get close enough to you, turtle shell and GG, camping continues.  They will get more backlash over not allowing flying mounts to continue than they would if they leave it alone, or at least allow access to it a higher level like BC/Wrath or tie it to achievments.

They have had flying in the game since Jan 15, 2007 (BC release).  They are continuing to release flying mounts in the blizz store, PLUS the CE mount coming with the game is a flying mount!  They wont remove flying from WoD/Draenor zone, it gives players (Aeolyn excluded) reason enough to not buy mounts or the CE of WoD/future expansions since they will not be allowed to use their flying mounts, that theyve spent money on, in 'current' content or to just fly around in SW while they are bored.  It would result in an overall loss of $$ on their end.

I don't doubt there will be restrictions, possibly serious restrictions, on flying in various aspects in WoD, but removing it from the expansion completely will NOT happen.