Musical Parody and EverQuest2

An Interview with Jethal, Artist and Parody Musician

by: Tony "RadarX"Jones

It's always a pleasure for me to meet someone with a talent for art and music. I can't even draw that stupid turtle for an art test which is probably just a scam anyways. Standardized testing stifles creativity! I'm not bitter though. What I find even more interesting is meeting someone with a talent for art/music and a passion for expressing it through EverQuest2. I sat down with Jethal late one night and after I frightened him with my disorganization and trademark sarcasm (thats right you owe me royalties for sarcasm that relates to snack packs). This was a really enjoyable and almost painless interview to do.

RadarX: I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Why don't you give us a little background on your MMO experience?

MMO? EverQuest1 was my first, started back in 2000 when I moved in with my current room mate, she had been playing since beta.. at the time i was playing Daggerfall (elderscrolls 2). Took a small break from EQ with City of Heroes but came back not long after.. and some years in EQ, EQ2 came out and I moved Jethal there.. tried World of Warcraft for a change of pace.. then came back to EQ2.. and in the last few months I've tried Lineage2, SWG and a few others.. but I always seem to come back to Norrath
It took my room mate a while to pry it from my hands.. i had the cheats for it and went around in the best looking armor, basically in a "god mode" hahaha

RadarX: Ahhhh I loved Daggerfall! So how would you categorize your play style? Soloer, Grouper, or Raider?

Soloer with some grouping tendensies.. raiding is definately not for me. Typically you can find me and my girlfriend (elquinjena/elquinjana) duo'ing.. most of my raiding experiance has been with friends guilds.. and honestly it put me off quite a bit. all that work and most of the time, nothing to show for it.
Basically, I'll group when I can't kill the target myself

RadarX: So you won't solo Nagafen? Feh...sissy. Well since you made the move from EverQuest 1, what do you like most about EverQuest 2?

Hmmm.. I love the way the world in general, looks.. characters, landscape, etc. they really did a good job of it. now that they've added the SOGA models, it's even better, though some may disagree with me. not too fond of the new Ogre modles, but the rest seem very nice

RadarX: So you like the SOGA models versus the original ones?

Yes, but i wish they'd give the SOGA models the old style tatoos. If nothing else, the hair is SO much better

RadarX: For real! Why can't I have a sweet looking fade or shave a "K" in mine? What class do you play and why?

Ranger - always a Ranger. Just always been fasinated by Archery.. as a kid I remember making my own bows out of sticked and branches around my house.. and much to my mother's dismay.. those wooden slats that come inside pull-shades, hehe. Rangers are also just a great all-purpose class.. although i really wish we could heal like in EQ1.. wasnt the greatest, but at least it came in useful

RadarX: So you're not real fond of the ninja stealthy scout designation?

Now that they've increased our runspeed while hidden, it's much better.. just coming from EQ1 to EQ2, I feel alittle ripped off

RadarX: Yeah I don't think many people complained about that change.

Not this little elf, haha

RadarX: You said little elf which is a known euphanism for....nothing. Now I heard you used to run EQRangers which was a darn useful site for those people that played Rangers. Tell us about what that was like?

I loved it. I started eqrangers.com when I couldnt find one site with the information i needed.. someone had fletching info, someone else had spells and skills, someone else had "where to hunt" guides.. that was too much of a hassel, so i combined all the info I could find into one site. We became quite popular and got listed on the sony everquest links page. The only thing that I had trouble with was finding info on quests, spells, etc.. that I couldnt do myself due to my level or that i wasnt in a raiding guild.. like the new Epic 1.5 & Epic 2.0 - I couldnt do them so I relied on others to give me the information.

RadarX: Those higher end quest were brutal and I don't miss a lot of them. What do you miss most about EQ1?

Outside of the druid based spells for rangers? Kithicor's Forest needs to be brought into eq2 - I miss being powerful.. I''m 34 in EQ2 right now.. and 68 in EQ1 - in EQ1 I can take a mobs head clean off.. while in EQ2, I really gotta watch my back. But mostly..
I miss OLD EQ1 - back in "the day" (as they say).. with the Knights of the Holy Storm (still the oldest surviving RP guild on emarr, go KHS!).. it was pure role play, we WERE our characters.. hardly any OOC in /gu - fighting evil, god i miss those days. Now, even on a RP server.. one gets ridiculed by the masses for role playing *sigh*

RadarX: Ahhh the good ol days. In my day we sat on a boat for 20 minutes to get to Freeport, uphill, BOTH ways. That was the way it was and we liked it.
Wow! that transitions perfectly into another question...I noticed you Role Play which is becoming more and more rare. How do you feel about RPing in the modern MMO?

*sigh* I made a statement when I left the KHS a few years ago.. and I'm affraid it's mostly true.. RP is dead. or at least on life support. All these new players wanna do is raid raid raid.. it's "All About the Platinum" and the all mighty Uber Gear. I spent 7 months at level 30 in Etched Ivy Armor because RP was more important to me than upgrading. makes me sad really.
By the way "It's all about the platinum" is a song i just posted on kithicor.org, haha - let's hear it for self promotion!
Unfortunately a lot of RPers don't see that. I did a little bit of RP in EQ1 but I wouldn't dare now because it just doesn't feel right anymore

RadarX: The song was funny, and I'm more than happy to promote anything that is funny. You also do EverQuest themed art and videos. What got you into that?

My Videos started out being like wrestlers entrance videos - highlight clips set to music, but now i'm trying to make more meaningful videos.. story lines, music videos, etc..
But as for what actually got me INTO art with an EQ theme.. I draw what I like, and what I'm interested in.. when my friends and I were playing a table-top game, I would draw what we did that night - it continued with EQ

RadarX: Wrestlers? SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM! Sorry...What inspires you to write your songs?

I swear I must be Weird Al's evil cousin or something.. the lyrics just come to me. I do it in everyday life too, I'll just blurt out funny or weird lyrics to songs on the radio. My roomate forced me to start recording them after I kept singing them around the house.. I believe her line was "record it or
shut up!" hehe

RadarX: Tell me a little bit about the process you use to make videos. Is it FRAPS (for the uninitiated FRAPS is software that takes screenshots at a rapid rate making a "movie" of a game)or....

I used FRAPS for a while, but I can't seem to get it to work with EQ2 very well. I'm currently using "GameCam" which works fantastic. I use Adobe Premiere to edit the video, then usually encode with the Microsoft Media Encoder just to make it a more managable size

RadarX: I use FRAPS to record embarassing guildmate moments (*looks at Savanja*) but I've had issues getting the sound to work

Never tried recording with sound. i figure that i'm not likely to use the actual game sounds in my videos, so there's no point, and it makes the file size alot smaller with no sound. When I first got started with videos, i would hook up my computer to the VCR and record for hours then go back and sort through it.. i remember my first video was "jethal travels from qeynos to kelethin".. recorded the entire trip and adjusted the time to make it a 5 minute video.
Of course, stopping to beat the tar out of Grimfeather.. I hate that bird. In EQ2.. I will defeat him.. give me time..

RadarX: Pfftt....I can't ever find that stupid bird. Ok you have a song called "I love Killing Gnolls." Tell us a little bit about "I love Killing Gnolls." Where did you get the idea for it?

That was my first song... the one my room mate told me to record or shut up about it. it's very simple, it's about a group of adventurers going into the qeynos hills (aka antonica in eq2) and hunting gnolls. I updated it for EQ2, but was originally for EQ and made referrance to Fippy instead of "Bucky" Probably my most famous song is "Rangah's Paradise" a parody of Coolio's Gansta's Paradise.. the folks at eqrangers.com and I made a music video for it - took a day of planning and getting folks on the test server

RadarX: Omg I used to love that song. I'm going to have hear it now! Ok, my last question and I'll unlock the leg irons. Based on the name of your site being Kithicor.org you obviouslly have a fondness for it. Being that used to be on Neriak and am now myself on Kithicor, give us a little bit or lore about it for the unintiated.

Ok, the lore itself can be found on www.kithicor.org - but i'll give you the short version here.. the goblin, Nurgal, was a mining slave in HighKeep - he found a stone of magical properties, thinking that it would make him rich he brought it to his mistress in neriak.. who after figuring out what he found.. killed him. the dark elves wanted more so they planned to march on high keep and take it for them selves.. the elves and humans couldnt let that happen, so a show down erupted in Kithicor's Forest. Tephys lead the forces of light, but fell in battle to the daughter of Innoruuk, Laynis.. Tephys' daughter Firiona Vie, took up her sword and killed Laynis.. and the war seemed to be over until...

a dark elf wizard help up the stone which nurgal had found.. and summoned Innoruuk in to the woods.. Innoruuk killed every living soul in the forest, good or bad.. and now those who fell in battle rise from their graves at night to menise the living, cursed for all time.
The stone which Nurgal found is now called the Fuligan Soulstone of Innoruuk, which is the key to the Plane of Hate.

RadarX: Wow...how has Disney not snatched that baby up for an animated film? So why is this particular piece of lore or area of EQ1 your favorite?

Unhappy endings.. I love a story that just doesnt end well.
The movie "Se7en" with brad pitt.. that's textbook unhappy ending

RadarX: Yes but I can't help giggling when he's yelling "Whats in the box mannnnn?" Thank you again for your time and please be sure to check out www.kithicor.org to get a look at this extremely talented individuals work. You won't be sorry.