Yes, you're right. However I let enemy players go, unless they provoke or attack first. Then I have no mercy.

Used to play for some months, had a few Horde characters but mainly played an Undead Affliction Warlock.
Excellent DPS, fear spells that can also steal health, and minions. Awesome to solo most of the time.
Definitely (ab)use the Auction House. Don't waste your time and money trying to sell low level crap that no one wants, however, there's often low level crap that people DO want.
www.wowhead.com used to be a good resource for finding locations of whatever, but last I played, Blizzard added hints to the world map that gave you a general idea of where to go.
Join a guild, I guess. It comes in handy later on.
Kiss your life, loved ones, and money good bye.

Well. WoW is now more noob friendly and you can even effectively level as a healer thanks for the feature called Dungeon Finder. Also some classes are easier to level than others, like leveling a Hunter is so easy, let your pet tank for you when you beat the crap out of mobs. Druids are good for starters because they provide 4 roles at end game (melee dps, ranged dps, healer and tank) so you can choose that after hitting level 80. Also are rather easy to level (thanks to nice heals over time).
quick edit:
Also there is feature helping you to quest which add marks on map where you can find quest mobs, items, etc. And you can level through PvP now (doing only battlegrounds)

Here's my WOW status.
Used to play, have a level 80 with about 7000 achievement points. Was, probably a bit too much, into the whole server-first thing back in Vanilla, playing in a hardcore raiding guild. Took a lot of my time. Not doing it again.
Was server 3rd to 70 at TBC launch. Would have been first, but my harddrive crashed losing me about 10 hours of gameplay. Not doing it again.
Had a little revival of my raiding lust last autumn. Joined a relatively strict guild for fast progress. Ended up not having time to play anything else. Not doing it again.

I've considered maybe possibly Hunter because I like to solo and that means I need a pet to help me out.

Ah, Hunter. Every noob plays one.

feral druid can solo almost anything

Doing [For The Alliance!] now. Killing every hordie that gets in the way.
Edit: Damn. We did Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff, but got wiped in Undercity.

Play a warlock ...best class ever. Unless they got hit by the nerf bat AGAIN...
You get pets, sort of like a hunter, but no one goes "NOOB!!!" at you every 5 seconds..

Hunters tend to be universally reviled and have somewhat less utility than other pure damage classes. Don't worry about the pet thing -- once you get past level 15ish or so it is easy to level solo with every class given the right talent spec. I used to play one at the raiding level and find the developers have a much harder time balancing them around encounters because much of the damage is tied to the pet and they have issues with scaling and ease of control.
Additionally over the last few years they've effectively removed the vast majority of group quests in the non-instanced areas so, again, any class can solo pretty much any quest. There are a few exceptions but usually you can find people looking to finish it to group up. As far as the dungeons/instances go; it isn't really possible to solo them at a level that would be beneficial in terms of experience and drops. And, if anything, you'd probably need a paladin to do it.

I'm an Affliction lock who is playing very casually. For example I bought the game right around the time the Wow Battle Chest came out, something like 2 - 2 1/2 years ago and I just finally hit 60. But honestly I do really enjoy playing affliction which hits its stride around 30, fortunatly all locks get the voidwalker (blueberry) at lvl 10 which is really nice for the next 15 to 20 lvls. I say go Lock

Talking about WoW, I have something for you. Contact me