TurpsterVision: Return of the King

by Mark Turpin Apr 29th 2008 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Video, EverQuest II, Opinion, Humor, TurpsterVision

Apparently Turpster is a Swear or something

Howdy folks, it's great to be home. Sorry for my prolonged absence. I would love to tell you why I wasn't able to produce the internet's favorite 'funny' over the past 3 weeks, but unfortunately if I told you I would have to kill you -- and I am far too busy "killin' mofo's" in GTA 4 to have time to kill you all as well!

So down to business, review time, and let me just state that I don't like giving bad reviews -- not because they can upset fans or developers, but because it means I've had a bad time reviewing the game in the first place. EverQuest was the granddaddy of them all before World of Warcraft came along. EverQuest II had a lot to live up to, and for this mild-mannered video blogger, it just couldn't quite manage it. WoW was released shortly after and this probably stopped EQ2 ever becoming fun for me; I like having people to play with.

Check out the video, make your own mind up about the game, you are all far more intelligent than me, so I will trust your opinions and past experiences over my ever so limited (but ever so painful) trial of the game.

As always thanks to the fans for tuning in, all two of you! I hope to return again next week and every week for the foreseeable future. For now, let me know what you think about EQ2 in the comments below, I want to know if Massively digs the fae.

Every Tuesday think "T" for Turpster -- or TV for TurpsterVision -- the best Internet video podcast on Massively! (Nevermind that business about it being the only video podcast on Massively...) When not serving up the funny on Massively, Turpster can be found over at WCRadio, as both international playboy and one of the co-hosts of the WoW Insider Show.

Tags: eq, eq2, everquest, everquest-2, fae, featured, review, sucks, turpster, tv

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Poxus said on 8:47PM 4-29-2008

You call this a real article on "Trying" out a trial?

First - Did you even stop to look at the free trail forums for the game? No, you didn't because if you did you would have found one of the nicest group of communities that will do everything they can to help you out in the trial and answer your questions.

Second- If you don't like the Fae, make a quick one. logout again, and almost all the other races are now open up to play and try out, ta-da...go try again now.

Third - thereason there are no people to play with mainly is because this game has been out as long as WoW has. Make an alt on any old server in WoW and level up...you might find a group for an instance but you will have just as much trouble as in EQ2

Fourth - You didn't even make it out of the "Newb" area of the game to even get a hint nor talk about the rest of the game and it's content so how can you expect ANYONE to take your "Information" for granted.

Do us a favor before you go and make another post about you "TRYING" a game out......Level a character as far as you can during the ENTIRE trial before posting about it...you might be surprised what you find out.

I think you need to go back and try the EQ2 trial again for the full 14 days and report back here for a real look into this game.

BTW, I am doing the trial right now, probably won't play it as people I know want me to play LOTRO, but so far I have level 7 different classes through the starting areas up to level 8 at the minimum, on both sides of the factions and constantly find more hidden stuff I didn't find the time before. If they put that kind of fun stuff in the "Newb" areas, imagine what the other parts of the game could hold.

fester said on 5:19AM 4-30-2008

well, that sure didn't take long for the fanboys to reply. Good grief...

M said on 11:14PM 4-29-2008

I agree with Poxus completely.

Bluegrazz said on 3:23PM 4-30-2008

your right....3 day download (but certainly not because of any reason on Sony's end, as we as know they are perfect.) and if you think the beginning sucks you should hit the higher levels AND THEN YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT.
My account was canceled after Soins stellar handling opf yet another developer caught cheating (2 in 4 months) but was planning on leaving this broken, nerfed , wannabe MMO when Warhammer was released anyway.
Good review.

Moopcow said on 1:39AM 4-30-2008

You really can't rate this game without trying out some instances at least. And a lot more fun is had in raiding as well.

Mark Turpin said on 5:27AM 4-30-2008

HORAY! @Poxus: My point was exactly that I couldn't complete the starting noob area and move on to the "better" parts of the game due to, at least in my opinion, a complete lack of fun. This game just wasn't for me...at all. As I asked in the article, I'm after your thoughts on this game to; I wanted the opinions of people who could struggle through the beginning levels, which I couldn't muster without the help of friends.

"Reviewing" an MMO each week is impossible, you just don't have time to really get stuck in and find out the real side of the game in most cases. This means that all I can do is give you my first impressions on a game and tell you if I think it is worth you and your bandwidth to give it a go, I would normally love to spend 14 days straight playing an MMO but in this case, not if you paid me :).

Thanks to all who have viewed and commented so far, please let me know if you have played EQ2 latergame/endgame what it's like!

~Turps

Poxus said on 9:01AM 4-30-2008

@Turpin
This is the problem with your "Review". 5 minutes of gameplay does not make a "Review". You play WoW and I know you research what you do in that game, why couldn't you do that here before starting? If you are going to call something a "Review", be it good or bad, at least give your audience the benefit of spending a few hours if you can't do the full time for the trial.

Example:
"Initial download of the Trial version takes some time, for me it took all of one night to download the launcher then let it update to the current game. Annoying but if you read your pre-download notes carefully, as long as you don't activate your account yet, you can do that once the download is complete for the full 14 days and not lose out on this time.

The start of the trial gives you only one real option to play as a Fae race ( with the second evil race needing an additional download) but if the winged variety isn't your thing, just make it then log back out to the Character Select screen and then you will have more options.

If you have ever played the original EQ, most of the classes are still here, albeit somewhat changed. Take for example my first class the "Shaman". There are now 2 sides to this class, the good Mystic and the Evil Defiler. The basics of the class are somewhat similar to old EQ, but now divided between the two. The Mystic now offers the Healer, Buffer role while the Defiler is now the Healer, Debuffer role. Most classes are set up in the same maner for the most part except for the Shadowknight and the Paladin.

Race selection is nice as you get almost all the races available to try except for the Sarnak which are not in this trial. After choosing your race and customizing the way you look, then comes the part of choosing your class. Based on where you choose your starting location, Qeynos for good alignment, Freeport for Evil, opens up what classes you can choose from........etc,etc"

Something along these lines are what I would call a review. Also for the people ranting about "Fanboy" issues, no I am not playing this game but actually going to LOTRO. I like this site for most of it's articles but think stuff like this needs not be posted if it isn't going to be given more than 5 minutes of play time.

Drakhen said on 10:59AM 4-30-2008

I knew coming into this one where the commentary was going to go. I always think it is comical when someone does a writeup on the game when they have not even given it a fair shake. Playing a game for an hour or two is not giving it it's just due.

There is one thing that sets EQ2 head and shoulders above WoW and that is the community. This comment here "killin' mofo's," told me that you are probably more suited for WoW than EQ2. I do not have an elitist attitude nor do I want any of my guild members to project that, but WoW is more accustomed to leet speak and leaving you high and dry when you need help within the game. There are great players in WoW, but really you have to find a good guild. You might wonder how I know and that is because I have played both for multiple years. I left WoW before the second expansion and will not look back.

SOE does get a knock about the "Trial of the Fae" due to you not being able to join guilds and send tells to people that have full accounts. Without experiencing the community you cannot see the major plus.

Another plus is the breadth of content that EQ2 has. Once you are in WoW and have experienced the Barrens for the umpteenth time then you will understand the misery that is leveling up alts within the game. I have played for a few years now and can say that I still have yet to experience all the zones. More zones do mean more options for places to level, but also spread out people across different areas thinning them out, which is another knock. They do have a fairly good "Looking for Group" system, but alas it was put into game later on and is not used as much as it could be to alleviate the spreading of the population.

Third major plus is mentoring. Within EQ2 you can mentor another friend or guildmate, which essentially delevels you temporarily to their level. This does cut the xp that you get off a fair amount and gives the mentored player a bonus to their xp. Mentoring in essence allows you to experience the content if you have not gone through it or help others out that might need help.

You will notice in my response that I have listed positives and negatives of the game and not just looked at it with blinders. Maybe EQ2 is not your game, because maybe you do fit in better within the WoW community. Your heart might be with WoW forever and any other MMO will pale in comparison to it, not because they are not good, but maybe because you cannot really give it a fair shake.

If you ever change your mind and want to give EQ2 a real try by getting the full blown version, then feel free to look me (Drakhen) up on the Oasis server.

Thylis said on 2:15PM 4-30-2008

to make it clear- no i wouldn't call myself a fanboy because just started playing EQ2 about 6 weeks ago for now i reached lvl 43, after 3 years WoW I can tell you one thing:
If you only play the trial, you have had a very tiny glimpse @ the game. the trial is just too small to have a close look. I decided to buy the game after about 3 hours, and i'm happy i did, because i would have missed so much if i just played the trial.
you miss the huge world which seems to me much bigger than the one WoW has got, you miss the absolutely nicest community i have ever seen in an MMORPG, and i tried out a lot, you miss ...its just too much to name it. If you really want to find out, go buy yourself the RoK box, wether good or evil move your char to timourous deep or start directly there, if you have problems, ask in the channels, you will find people helping you. Read the Questtext, and hold your eyes open, there are plenty nice guilds out there that welcome newbies and are very helpful. Just look into the forums to make sure you choose one of the high populated servers, and you will see more people than i did on the last 3 WoWservers i played on.

The issue with the download taking hours...is simply solved by shutting down the launcher and start it new. I was finished after 45 minutes.

greetings from Norrath

Thylis

ErmanSup said on 10:08AM 4-30-2008

That was exactly how I felt when I tried the game out a long time ago.

What everyone here needs to understand is that he only has a week at best to play the game and this review is openly based on first impressions. At no point does Turpster claim that he knows at all what the game is like mid or endgame.

Unlike those EQ1 days there are now countless MMO titles out and first impressions are ever so important. I simply refuse to suffer through a horrible beginning just to see if it possibly might get better.

The internet is filled with long and thorough reviews that touch the very endgame aswell, if that's what your looking for.

Thank you for the review.

Schad said on 11:10AM 4-30-2008

Hah, all you EQ2 players complain, but this is exactly what I did not 2 months ago.

Of course, I feel the same way when people do this to my favorite game, but MMO's do seem to be lacking the whole FUN thing these days. I've just never been a fan of the everquest model.

danarchy said on 5:15PM 4-30-2008

EQ2 had some interesting concepts at first, but it quickly grew old and stale. It is a pretty game but I found it to be pretty hollow as far as the fun factor. I did play it for quite awhile with my roomate and his girlfriend but once the leveling went from rapid to normal to good-god-am-i-ever-going-to-level I just couldn't ignore the fact that it felt more like a job and less like a game. Made a wow toon, never looked back.

Stormtamer said on 3:00PM 4-30-2008

I may have missed something, but when has Turpster Vision become an equal to a EGM 6 page spread about a game?

If you really take Turpster Vision that seriously, i think youve totally missed the point.

To me TV is abit of weekly entertainment, that shows abit of info about MMO's that arnt WoW. I got this from the fact the first episode had segment based off Zero Punctuation, and was about the Endless Forest MMO.

So while flaming Turpster for not doing a full review despite his RL, Gaming, WoW Radio and Massively commitments, may be in your prioritys, i think that 6 minutes of a funny host showing me some MMO's i havent, played is mine.

Taymar said on 3:24PM 4-30-2008

I think the point is that the review isn't very useful. And those of us left reading Massively who don't play WoW find it depressing to see repeated references to how good WoW is, "but I will try other games to see what they are like ... for half an hour."

The start-game on WoW is exceedingly quiet, same as the start game on EQ2 and these days LotRO. So the starting point feels unreasonable because you are comparing your memory of playing one game for the first time with the reality of playing a different (equally mature) game for the first time.

Zero punctuation is not really a fair comparison - he makes it clear there is no review of the game, the whole thing is about his ability to pull off a monologue. If that's the intent, then perhaps it needs to be made clearer.

Mark Turpin said on 5:14PM 4-30-2008

I do take in all the comments here, and I think some of them are fair, probally didn't give EQ2 a fair chance, but at the same time, have no intention of wanting to play it more. This is the 8th MMO I have looked at for Massively, but it is the first, where the starting experience was not enjoyable for myself...well maybe EVE falls into that, too much thinking, and EVE is an awsome game, so maybe EQ2 is as well, too bad I'll never find out! :P

I do agree that I didn't spend much time in game, it was one of the choices to either go another week without an Episode or to jump back in with something rather than nothing. I will try to make it up to you guys in the future and thanks for the feedback, I do take it on board.

Hope to see you all back next week for something a little more indepth, but we'll have to wait and see I guess.

Thanks again,

~Turps

Taymar said on 8:14PM 4-30-2008

TBH, any review that makes it clear at the start "what I really love is X but I'll try Y anyway..." is a downer from day one. Personally, I don't mind if you don't like EQ2 (or LOTRO or any other game that isn't WoW) but lately it seems like reviews have this disclaimer (not just you) of "obviously I play WoW because it's better, but I tried this game for the sake of it" - personally I'd just as soon you didn't bother reviewing if you've already decided the game you want to play.

More importantly, the email notification for comments gives a link that goes nowhere.

The Chum said on 3:50PM 5-01-2008

Hey Turpster, I gotta say that this weeks show was a bit of a letdown, as you didn't really get far in the game itself, which would have been nice, but I totally understand how you can start a game and instantly dislike it.

I hope you can enjoy your next game review enough to provide more humorous views of MMOs.

Deanta said on 4:20AM 5-05-2008

Good to see you back, Turps! I missed you too.

Never played EQ2, probably never will since WoW and RL are more than enough for me. However I think if I was to play it, I would go more for the community more than anything else. If the beginning really wasn't fun, and WoW an improvement anyway, I don't see much in the gameplay that would attract me.