Let the Lepors Have It!

Yes, I'm talking about Gnomeregan.  Man is that place horrid!  I ran it twice this weekend and on a third, I...
I ....
I bailed.  
I pulled an Occulus.
I saw those damn steam pipes in the loading screen and when I zoned in, I left and took the debuff.  
I wish I could say I'm sorry or that I feel guilty.  But the truth is, I'm not.  I want to have fun with the game and Gnomer is definitely NOT fun.  Plus, I'm hopeful that the rest of the party, after losing the tank dissipated and the toons found a nice happy RFD run instead.  

So what's my beef with the Gnome city?  Let me regale you with my tale:

On my first run through, I was actually happy to see it come up.  It was, after all, a new dungeon for me and I had just read a simple strategy - somewhere (wow.com, maybe?) in passing - keep moving left and don't jump.  

Well my first group had a couple folks who wanted to jump.  So we did.  And we got lost.  And wiped.  And on the run back in, realized that when you jump, it's basically as if you have to start over.  So we jumped again, only this time landed on a pile of mobs who killed our half-healthed selves.  We start again and actually make progress (I think, we're still lost in my mind, and just killing random mobs).  The jumpers say we're close to the end when we lose two people.  The two new folks don't know where we are at and don't know about jumping, so they die.   And that's when I left the group.  I had just had it and didn't see us finishing up.  

My second try was better only in that we finished.  And that was thanks to a remarkable group of folks (whom I've forgotten, I need to write down names/servers for this stuff).  We zone in and the mage immediately says "uhg, I hate this place."  We all laugh, but start moving.  We have a warrior, though, who keeps charging ahead and pulling, regardless of healer mana or even a rez.  I finally tell him that I'd do the pulling and he responds that he wants to.  I say then he should equip his shield and I'll dps.  The lock in our group chimes in saying that he has no shield.  I say that I'll pull then.  The warrior keeps saying he can pull and why can't he pull and someone, gratefully, initiates a kick vote which succeeds.  The lock leaves with his buddy and we quickly get two more folks and continue on and make good progress.  One of the new folks leaves the group for no reason that I could see and so we get a new DPS.  He's making his way to us, but dies in the 'safe zone.'  (Is that zone safe just for allies?  If so, then that's just not fair.  If there's a quest or something we need to do, then, that still sucks.)  Anyway, we go back and rez him and we still continue on. 


Somewhere near the end, the healer dies.  Not sure how, I think a pat came wandering out from a hallway intersection.  The mage also dies, but 2 locks survive and I.  The healer tells the mage not to release, he'll run back and rez.  See, that's why we stuck this run out, we were all in this together.  If I took a wrong turn, they corrected me and I didn't get huffy.  They also didn't correct me like an asshat either, which helps.  The mage, who hated this place, didn't let it affect him - he just kept plugging and doing well.  


Well, the healer released and ran back...and found mobs.  Vanilla Dungeons respawn?  Really?  How was that ever a good idea?  So the mage releases and joins the healer and they realize the entire place respawned, not just a few pats.  Ugh.  The three of us start making our way back to the priest/mage and they start (slowly) coming back to us.  Forutnately it was a nice mixture - the mage could survive and kill things, if slowly and the locks and I were able to make decent progress back, thanks to healthstones!  


Finally, my group rounded a corner and ran into a pat.  Unfortunately, we hadn't fully healed from our last fight, so things were grim.  Then we saw  "There they are!" in party chat and at the other end of the corridor were the other two.  I started making a beeline towards them and everyone typing "HEAL THE TANK."  I was down to, well, I couldn't see my health bar anymore when our healer got in a big heal that saved us all.  After that ordeal, the mage reiterated that he hated this instance.  We all agreed.  


We finished up with no other problems, but it was still 90 minutes in there.  I haven't been back since.