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. 

What did I get myself into?

No, this is not yet another tale of a good LFG PUG gone bad.  Or even a bad LFG PUG gone worse.  I have, thankfully, had only a few of those.  The vast majority of my dungeons are silent and quick.  Usually after the 'Hi' at the start, the next thing I see in blue text is 'nice group, thanks.'  I have had a few asshats in my runs, and I've had a few runs where we all get along great and chat and make jokes, but those are on the periphery.  And they're not what this post is about. 

No, it's starting to sink in that in order to make this deal of mine work - to level almost exclusively in dungeons through the LFG, I'm committing myself to running instances that I abhor.  It's also refreshing my memory all the Vanilla WoW dungeons got wrong.  Thankfully, Blizzard learned from their mistakes in BC and learned from those mistakes in Wrath.  So without further ado, here's my list of things I hate about Vanilla WoW dungeons -

1. Finding the damn place - Can you honestly say you can find the entrance to the Razorfen Downs - or Kraul, whichever one is on the east side of the road?  I can't.  Admittedly, I never ran it all that often - maybe once as a level appropriate place and 2-3 times at 80 to get the achievement on various toons.  But man, it should be an achievement just to get TO the place!
   
2. Getting to the entrance - A slight variant to #1.  Everyone knows where the Sunken Temple is, right?  It's well, it's the big sunken temple in the middle of the lake.  But knowing where it is is one thing - getting to the entrance is another.  The Sunken Temple is probably my most hated instance in this game for many many reasons, but having to fight through I don't know how many packs of trash and missed turns etc. just to reach the entrance of the instance heads the list.  Uldamann is another example along with Blackfathom Deeps and Mauradon and Wailing Caverns.  In the old days, getting a group together was hard enough.  Getting everyone summoned was also a chore.  Now we had to fight our way in?  No thanks.  Thankfully with LFG this shouldn't be a problem.  We should get 'ported right inside.
3. Pick an entrance, any entrance.  Which one has the colored entries?  And lord help you if you choose the wrong one during a corpse run?  I'm guessing its either Mauradon or Uldaman.  But man is that freaking irritating.  And it always splits the group.  Every freaking time.  I'm to blame most of the time because, again, I'm not 100% confident which way to go on these so I'm just looking for a swirly thing to run through.  And don't try to run out either because remember, we got ported in - all that lovely trash is still there!
4. Levels - You're minimap is basically useless in Sunken Temple.  No, check that - it's entirely useless in Sunken Temple.  You might be able to see the '?' you've been hunting for on your map.  Hell, you might even have your cursor floating right over that '?', but there's no one to turn that quest into.  Why?  Because they're a flight up or a flight down.  And take my word for it - if you go down a flight, they're now up two.  And if you go up a flight?  They're in the basement.  This is the main reason I hate ST, I just never know where I'm going.  They have so many directions and stairs and necessary order to kill or click on things, it was just never worth my time.  I always loved the quest chain leading up to it, but after banging my head against the group finding wall and then having folks leave the group because we'd be lost for hours on end, I just decline it now. 

Now, to be fair, there are a few things I do like about Vanilla dungeons -

1. Trash mobs.  Yup, I said it - I like trash.  Why?  Well, first and foremost, the XP.  Dungeons are the single best source of XP because you're killing mobs all the time.  They kept it up in OL but sadly the trash has diminished in Wrath.  And I understand why.  We all want teh lewtz without working so much for it.  But I'll take a nice tash of trash anyday. 
2. Needing on greens - sadly this won't apply as much to me this time 'round since I have my heirlooms and I expect to run in mostly dungeon blues for the rest.  But I miss the days of looking over every drop, I mean every single one, and checking to see if it had some stats that were an upgrade and if those were worth the downgrade in other stats.  Greens meant something back then man!  Uphill!  Both ways!  IN SNOW!
3. Size - Vanilla dungeons take time.  Not because of a boss mechanic or we have to wait out some intermidible dialog - yes Svala, the sensation is beyond your imaginings.  Copyright that phrase before Dr. Pepper steals it for their next Canadian ad campaign.  No, they took time because they're HUGE.  I acknowledge that this can be a blessing or a bane, depending on your group, but if you have a good party going, it's nice to settle in for awhile and get the job done instead of knocking out 20 minute runs and then entering the dungeon lottery again. 

So anyway, those are my initial thoughts, or preconceived prejudices, or what-have-you on Vanilla dungeons.  They're probably not 100% right, I know they're not 100% wrong, but they are 100% mine!

Feel free to add your own.