My first major "WOW..." experience might seem a bit dull to some people, but let me give a bit of background. I started playing in the fall of 2006, but lasted only a few months before giving up. (I was a human mage and just COULDN'T seem to get past level 36 to get my first mount.) I came and went for the next 3 years through the expansions and maybe got 2 more levels done (I hadn't read the patch notes to see I could have bought my mount the moment I logged on again. Whoops.) So by the time I got to Outland I was getting very tired of running around everywhere; the only moments I enjoyed traveling were when I took a gryphon. Just seeing the world spread out beneath me as I soared through the clouds really took my breath away, even if I saw the same vista every time I rode.

Then I got my first gryphon in Outland. O. M. G. It's funny, but that was when I finally got a sense of scale for the worlds the developers created. Knowing that that little spinning up in the sky wasn't just some background object painted there but that I could FLY to it was amazing. I think I spent a good 6 hours that night just flying from rock to floating rock in Hellfire Peninsula, not to mention when I got to Nagrand.

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