Some general information regarding The Blade of Fake 2: The Void of Delusions

This role-play was started on

Saturday, August 14, 2004

This role-play was finished on

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

    Well, let's see. The Blade of Fake 2: The Void of Delusions is both a parody of Void of Illusions and a sequel to The Blade of Fake. I think it succeeded in both fronts, in a reasonable way. Although there were some problems with the ever-so-difficult-to-control randomness factor, the RP moved at a nice and steady pace, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, which is always good. Bigger and better than its predecessor, Void of Delusions also had an interesting set of characters. Every one of them had a trait or some thing that worked very well in the group. Prack, Ozzie, Strawley, Quise, Freako, Weirdo, Wolfy, etc., all of them were genuinely memorable characters in my opinion.
    I also took the opportunity to greatly expand on the executive board sub-plot (which was only briefly mentioned in the original), making for a more complex -and hopefully interesting- back-story that goes back several millennia ago, expanding the Blade of Fake myth, and giving a bigger role to Bajalette (who, admittedly, is one of my favorite characters I've created during my RPing antics). This is the key, I believe, that sets Void of Delusions (as well as the other two episodes) apart from the standard course of action in the RP comedy genre: a plot. Yes, I always considered the plot was very important, even in comedy-oriented stories. Excess randomness hurts the plot. Not only that, randomness also quickly loses its effectiveness at creating humorous situations (because of over saturation). In other words, randomness does not necessarily equal humor, so I minimized it as much as I could. Also, while in the topic of humor, I must say I took great care in balancing humor with seriousness in this RP, so that a plot that makes sense could actually exist with as few problems and inconsistencies as possible. I think I did a better job here than in the original (where the mood would drastically change in the last post, with no transition at all).
    Finally, I must mention I wanted to pull an Evangelion here. How so? Well, Evangelion is essentially an allegory of those people obsessed with anime; you know, those guys who have no life other than anime (they are called "otaku" in the land of the rising sun). Evangelion was supposed to be like a slap in their face to wake them up from their lack of social life. It didn't work (very few people realized the allegory). Anyway, I tried a similar thing here, what with several characters becoming aware of the existence of a "real world" and a bunch of "real people" who control their lives. In fact, several characters describe these "role-players" as people with little to no social skills, among other things. The allegory gets to its highest point at the end, where the cast has to face... me.
    Anyway, allegory or not, I greatly enjoyed Void of Delusions. Now, how well does it stand the test of time? I'm not sure, but I sure know it has better chances to pass that test than its predecessor.

    FireMario started Void of Delusions, and was thus the first person to join it. He wrote 51.28% of the story, doing so in thirty-five posts. He now goes by the username GeminiSaint.

    CtrlAltDestroy was unavailable for comment. He was the second person to join the RP, and wrote 13.28% of the story, doing so in eighteen posts.

    This one almost didn't work out. GeminiSaint nearly gave up on it, but then everyone clamored together to get it moving again. Then again, maybe it was just a fake-out on GeminiSaint's part to get it moving again, knowing a premature end would push people forward. That tricky GeminiSaint! 
    That said, this RP, despite being humor, felt as though it had no real direction most of the time. It was a very aimless, thoughtless affair for the better half of the RP. And the 24 (26?) barriers crap took up a huge portion of time and felt rather pointless. I pretty much just kept with it because I liked my character so much. GeminiSaint had an alright idea for a final boss, but the fact that it came down to our characters having little influence on things was a bit of a downer. 
    All in all, not a bad RP, especially for a humor RP, but could've used a bit more direction early on.

    Thalzon was the fifth person to join Void of Delusions. He wrote 10.51% of the story, doing so in twenty-two posts.

    Considering everyone's good words regarding the original Blade of Fake, I simply had to join it. I hadn't read Void of Illusions, but I was okay to enter anyway, and I'm quite glad I did. This was during my "difficult-to-follow-RPs-I-participate-in-because-of-stupid-lazines s" period, but I got all the way to the end, and I was quite thrilled over the very different climax of the story. I had some fun entering that RP by myself and godmodding some against Toki. ^_^ Now the saga is over, though... maybe it's good. All ways have their ends, and it's better off finished before it gets totally out of hand. 
    Then there's this "scheduled-RP-with-not-many-opportunities-to-change-the-storyline" thing, but I'm sure there'll be others complaining about it, so I won't. Thanks this time around, GeminiSaint!

    Horn was the seventh person to join the RP. He wrote 8.11% of the story, doing so in sixteen posts.

    Omega_Boost was unavailable for comment. He was the sixth person to join Void of Delusions, and wrote 4.30% of the story, doing so in eleven posts. He now goes by the username Master Toki.

    While some of the jokes were a bit worn out even then, many incidents in the RP were at least good for a slight chuckle. If there was one thing I had to pick as being the best part of this RP, I'd have to say it was the parodies of the guardian bosses. Especially Luke in Boots.

    Elec was the fourth person to join the RP. She wrote 4.23% of the story, doing so in sixteen posts.

    Lamur was unavailable for comment. He was the ninth, and last, person to join Void of Delusions. He wrote 3.42% of the story, doing so in nine posts.

    Maniacal Gruntling was unavailable for comment. He was the eighth person to join Void of Delusions, and wrote 3.36% of the story, doing so in ten posts. He now goes by the shortened username MG.

    This wasn't a bad RP, but it helped me realize that, under most circumstances, I cannot do forced humor to save my life. In a desperate attempt to be somewhat funny, I gave RobotDude a script of Void of Illusions (which was the target of this parody) and an obsession with following it correctly. It worked... sort of, until I started drowning in the inane randomness of the whole thing and essentially jumped ship. Though I did make one or two more attempts to get back in, I just don't do well in this genre.

    My performance aside, reading this thing today is... well... I just don't find random idiocy funny, and the drama scenes are very out of place given the rest of the RP... so... this thing's a weird mutant or something, really... eh.

    Ricky was the third person to join the RP. He wrote 1.46% of the story, doing so in seven posts.

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