List of RPI MUDs
 

I am currently developing a MUD with a friend of mine and we are trying to make an RPI mud.

I wanted to play more of them so I can get a feel for them and bite on a couple of the ideas. Don't mistake my intentions though I'm not planning on completely copying other games, I have my own ideas already in mind but I still would like to get a feel for other games that are styled like this)

I want to play real RPI games not people that claim their game is an RPI. I want the whole package(perma-death, ROleplay Strictly enforced and rewarded, etc)

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

There are quite a few, some in various levels of development like Black Sands, Lament MUD, and Shadows of Isildur - and some have been around since before I was born like Armageddon, and Harshlands (SoI is arguably the first RPI, but it's going through a transitional period(?) currently). You have small deviations, such as the MUDs with the Inquisition theme (whether The Inquisition: Legacy and The Burning Post are RPIs or not is debatable by some) and Dark Isles (under development).

To get the full measure of what most define as the 'RPI experience' I suggest Armageddon. If you want to play without much player interaction, but want to get a good feel for the type of detail presented in RPIs, I'd suggest Lament MUD - huge, fascinating, interactive world but very few players.

Good luck!

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

I've played armageddon. Very beautiful game but at the same time the theme is kind of corrupt desert post apocalyptic yet still medieval world. Which is very very unique but different from what I have in mind for my project so that is why I want to check out other games that are considered RPI.

I'll check out Lament and I'll even check out the two that you mentioned that were debated being RPI so I can see why that is the case.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

For a different theme and a different codebase, and for a particularly rich "roleplay enforced" experience, there's the cyberpunk Sindome MOO. I don't know if this is helpful - it seems to me that the technology driving the game and the world theme might not be as important as perceiving how immersion is played, how game rules encourage and enforce immersion, and how coded systems can be designed to support and enhance immersion (help you avoid resorting to the OOC or meta communications, even with GM's, as much as possible).

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

This begs the question of what is a real RPI game is? Does anyone know?:D

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Considering how much argument defining that term turns into, I say let it stay confusing.

Personally, I prefer to get to know other players on an OOC level as well as IC.
This opens up more situations where you can take more controversial options with people you know will go along with it well. (Or won't, and you know not to go there)

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

The OP is looking for information, not opinions. If you're not sure what an RPI is, then your game isn't one of them, and you have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

To the OP: I'm pretty sure you've seen mention of all the RPIs available and open for play, including one or two in beta testing.

While Sindome isn't an RPI, it does have an interesting theme and the MOO code might give you some ideas for expanding your own game when you get working on it. Some of MOO's building tools can be adapted to DIKU, and vice versa.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Alright, here's my definitive list so far.

Armageddon: The RPI with the largest playerbase. Set in a desert themed world reminiscent of Dark Sun and Dune. Player death can be very high out in the wilds, and the learning curve can be steep. However, it's a huge world, with a huge history and a lot of secrets, and the intrigue and scope of the mud makes it amazing. I've been playing it the longest and most consistently.



Shadows of Isildur: A LoTR-themed mud, probably the second most populated RPI until it went on hiatus. A favorite bit of this RPI was feeling immersed in a larger-scale environment- standing on the walls of Osgiliath or fighting through the streets of foreign fortresses. Currently languishing in beta.

ParallelRPI: The spiritual continuation of the sci-fi-horror episodic mud Atonement. Parallel takes place on a blasted and post-apocalyptic moon settlement. ARPI generated some of the most intense and harrowing scenes that I have seen and I loved it. PRPI is still trying to find its place, but it's a fun mud nonetheless. Pretty survivable until **** hits the fan IG, and runs an SOIesque codebase.



Harshlands: The original RPI- you'll note that HL, SoI, PRPI and Black Sands all have a similar feel codewise, because I believe they are all based on Traithe's RPI engine. Harshlands is much slower and less on the PC death than any other RPI I've played, seemingly tending towards more social-class RP than the others. A very detailed world/history, tons of unique religions, and lots of interesting concepts (if only there were people to fill them).

Black Sands: A small-scale RPI set in a besieged city. It feels very similar to Armageddon as far as class/guilds go, and is at a very early stage. I've enjoyed the characters I've played there, but it's very situational to find interactions/goals in game.

Evolution of Esos: A very neat, if niche RPI, codebase more similar to Armageddon. The imms will jump in and animate lots of stuff, but it's a very small population, and afaik all the PCs are elves. It didn't have that much to actually do in game, but is very admin-supported.


Disclaimer: I have played all the above, but I mostly 'play' Arm, SoI, and Atonement/PRPI.

Others that are less typical, more OOC channels, more XP oriented gameplay:

Sindome MOO: Cyberpunk MOO. Pretty fun. I'm not that familiar with MOOs, though.

Haven: MOOish? Interesting concept- Lovecraftian Horror meets Vampire the Masquerade meets Twin Peaks...but there's a lot of sexually-centric content (it can seem like a lot of the characters are vehicles for mudsex) and I never really liked the grind/combat system.

Accursed Lands: Big, interesting, lots to do. Really empty, and suuuuuuper grindy. Not very good documentation/instructions on how to do stuff. But you can totally sit and do stuff all day.

Echoes of Albion: I'm not sure this exists anymore.

Dark Isles/The Inquisition/Burning Post: I can never keep these straight, having dabbled in most. They're fun, but I could never really be happy with the emote-for-xp and/or use emote-code-words-in-coded combat kind of stuff. I prefer typing 'kill soldier' and letting the code take it from there, mixed in with free form emotes and focusing on the group dynamics.




I'd also check out FutureMud, a codebase in development for RPIs.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

edited due to lack of interest.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Last edited by beanluc : Today at 02:33 PM.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Do you have a codebase in mind?

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Come on Jazuela, you know I was just trying to start an interesting argument for the enjoyment of all. We all miss the days of long winded pointless arguing over who is Roleplay Intensive and who is not. :p

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

It's called trolling, it's also called crapping on other peoples' sincerely-written threads. Cut it out.

We are also an RPI.
 

Carrion Fields has:

- Permanent death
- Roleplay enforced
- Extensive combat
- No safe zones
- A pretty hands-on Admin team

And so on. We've just turned 20 and we have a decent sized player base. Also many other MUDs over the years have been built on our code. If you're taking a tour of RPIs, don't count us out either.

Re: We are also an RPI.
 

According to your website's help files, when you die you are reincarnated to your home town. There are penalties, but it's clearly not permanent death. Permanent death is only due to old age. But if someone PKs your character, he comes right back to life again. That's not even somewhat like an RPI, or even a little bit like "permanent death."

Also, you have levels, and your emote system isn't a system at all, it's just a single command, and instead, you use the socials that non RPIs use extensively (most RPIs have a couple or three socials available but most RP activity is done via the emote system).

All that being said, Carrion Fields does have a well-written and extensive help file, which any MUD creator would want to look at. They also have a solid and successful history in the MUD world genre and for that reason, if nothing else, new MUD developers would want to take a peek at the very least, to see what they're doing right.

Basically, Bookie, you shouldn't limit your experiences to RPIs, to make your RPI. You should keep your experiences broad, and then narrow the information down to whatever you feel you can use to create your own. If you limit your experiences to a very narrow field, you'll have less to draw from and this will be evident in your finished product.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Jazuela I should elaborate. We do have permanent death, but not as a result of one death. There are several ways to die:
- Age death (by character hour.)
- Constitution loss (constitution is loss for every non-permanent death.)
- Deletion.
- Various other ways such as by questing to become an undead being as a necromancer and failing the ritual correctly.

So if that was unclear, I apologize. You are correct that your first death isn't permadeath though.

The emote system has standard socials (ready made), but there are custom player entered emotes, and various other commands can be used to emote such as customized voices (esay) or custom string for sleeping/resting/waking. It's true that some players opt for ready made socials, but it isn't uncommon to use customized 'emote' for advanced or more in-depth roleplay.

You're right we have levels too. Don't mean to mislead anyone here with misinfo, so take it for what it is.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

It's called a joke. Really. Lighten up. Unless you want a new thread started that is not a joke and takes us all back about 4 years for a 100 thread argument on the term RPI? Let me know, but I'm pretty sure no one wants to start a full argument like shown here:

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

I'm not even going to--

ah ****.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

A friend told me about this thread as I haven't checked this site in quite a long time. Thought I'd pop in and correct the errors they told me about.

First off, there's no debate regarding The Inquisition not being RPI. Years ago, the owner of TI admitted that she started calling her game RPI because she thought it sounded good but that she had absolutely no experience with any other MUD, RPI or otherwise, from which to make such an assessment. The justification for calling it such was supported by a broad definition of RPI that was so broad that it included H&S games which stated that their policy was "RP is discouraged". That hardly makes for a convincing argument.

SoI is not the first RPI. It's not even the second, third or fourth for that matter. Armageddon was the first RPI, followed a couple years later by Harshlands. SoI doesn't arrive until RPIs had been around for a decade with Forever's End and its sequel appearing before it (Chronicles of Ritnarium was also in development around the same time as SoI as well).

The games listed by Bogre all use the RPI Engine but that code is derived from the Diku derived Harshlands' code created by Charles Rand, aka Rassillon. The code evolution began with Harshlands' code which was then used by Wade Gustafson's team to create Forever's End and its sequel. FEM's variation was used to create Dark Horizons which lingered in a state of development for a decade or so and periodically seems to pop back up as its owner decides to work on it again. Harshlands' code was also used by Chad McHenry, aka Traithe, to create Shadows of Isildur. In late 2003 Traithe made an early version of the code available as the RPI Engine. This code was used by a slew of projects, nearly all of which failed to launch or are still in development. Less than a decade ago, Harshlands decided to swap out their original code and begin using the RPI Engine, albeit with modifications, or more to the point removing some of SoI's modifications to the HL code.

Historically there have been three different code lineages used by RPIs. The first is Armageddon's code, used by the RPI of that name. The second is Harshlands' code which is represented today by the RPI Engine variant instead, the original no longer used by any games except Dark Horizon (which itself uses some variations introduced earlier by FEM). The third is Southlands' code used by that game, now renamed Evolution of Essos. A fourth and fifth were started, the fourth being developed by a game that opted not to make it an RPI and reinstated some features from the CircleMUD base they were using and the fifth being the still-in-development FutureMUD code. Technically FutureMUD would be the sixth as my own game started work on what would have been the fifth RPI code attempt but gave up on it as my staff got drawn away by the perils of life, work, family, illness, etc.

Funny enough, the buddy who told me about this thread wasn't the only old RPI friend I chatted with last night. Another old colleague from my days on SoI's staff contacted me last night and we were discussing the old days and the current state of RPIs. Between the two conversations, it was a grim analysis. While there are a few good people still hanging in there on some games, for the most part the RPIs have declined dramatically in the last decade. I have an article on just that topic which I wrote back in 2010 that I should post. In it, which I titled "Why RPIs are Dying (or Dead)" I broke down the reasons for the RPIs' decline over the last decade. Mind you, they're still a source of better role-play than most RP MUDs but the gap between them is much, much smaller. It really wasn't by virtue of other games stepping it up, which they did, so much as the RPIs compromising their own principles and the decline in quality of players and staff. But that, as I already noted, is a discussion unto itself and not one for this thread.

Anyway, just thought I'd pop in and clarify the errors that I'd been told about. Hope everyone here's fine.

Take care,

Jason aka prof1515 aka Falco

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Nice to see you on here prof, hit me up sometime on facebook and we can chat.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

That's really informative, Prof, thanks.

My hope is that with the release of Futuremud some new and fresh projects will start.

Of course, I hope Arm continues to hold steady as well.



And although it's staffing intensive, I really think a procedural mud like Atonement works exceptionally well for an RPI - i.e. episodic story-points proceeding forward, rather than a static world, so maybe one will pick up in that regard.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

AR's had "roleplaying intensive" on its mudconnector description since 1997. But we're not trying to pass ourselves off as an RPI mud. I read a few threads here and I still don't even know what that means. It sounds like bull****. I'd like to see a definition in under 5 sentences.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Here's a definition in one sentence:

RPI isn't a mud, it's a category designation encompassing a specific list of criteria.

There you are. :)

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Thanks for clarifying that, Prof. I can hardly keep all the big players and when they came around straight in my head!

On another note, to the OP: I too will adamantly say that as far as RPIs go, my brief time on Atonement was one of the best experiences I've had. Its spiritual successor, Parallel RPI (linked above in Bogre's better thought out post!) is definitely worth a look. Last I checked on their forums there was some pretty heavy discussion about the state of the MUD, how to keep PKs grounded in storytelling, and other subjects that plague any RP enforced game. Good reads, if you can muck through some of the more hostile posts and want some indication of challenges you might face running a RPI or RP enforced game.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

I really hate when people express opinion as fact. While Prof1515 is articulate he is no more qualified to say what is good, bad or viable than anyone else on the boards. Arm is doing just fine, as far as I can tell. Of course, I just play it -he's the real authority, what having had a little bitch fest with a friend of his the other night.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

So in case you haven't noticed these forums created by old Arm players:

It doesn't really matter what you think, the reality is right there.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Old Arm Players or no, I log in every day and enjoy myself. There are plenty of old players still playing and the ones who are gone, we manage without.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Pretty typical apathetic attitude there. You aren't concerned at all about people/whistleblowers leaving the game you love so much, founding a forum dedicated to ousting the antics of corrupt staff who have little to no empathy for players who were wronged, insulted, even subject to verbal harassment and abuse.

Bleh, why do I even bother with this? You're the typical fanboy; in your little fantasy world your games administration can do no wrong and the fact that you came over to TMS to try and defend Arm shows how much asskissing you're willing to do on your own behalf. Hope you get some more karma for it bud.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

No need. If Fifi is indeed Barzalene, as I believe I recall (though I could be misremembering), they are former staff and have 8 karma.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

I think defending something is the opposite of apathy. Unless you mean that I'm apathetic about the fact that you don't like the game or that you've been banned from it, well, that case - yep.

I think going onto boards and bashing something I invest my time in is pretty ****ty. Maybe you think I'm an idiot for loving a game you've been banned from, but calling me one publicly is is rather rude.

I log in, I play, I try to add to other people's experience as a result I tend to have a lot of fun. If that makes me a fanboy (what a stupid turn of phrase, yours, not mine) alright.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

I was hesitant to respond again because I don't feel it's in keeping with the original post's subject. However, as the above post seems to feel it's appropriate to address me by name, I feel it's only appropriate to respond and elaborate on my earlier statement even if, articulate or not, I probably can't phrase it in words small enough for them to understand.

What Delerak means by "fanboy" is the tendency of some people, ie. those known as fanbois, to view that which they adore with blinders on. Every game has its problems but fanbois tend to ignore the existence of those problems no matter how blatantly obvious they are. However, one can never solve a problem unless they take the first step of actually acknowledging it exists or even can exist. Attacking the messenger because one doesn't like the message doesn't solve the problem, it just ignores the possibility that there might be something in need of fixing. It makes you part of the problem in fact because if one isn't willing to acknowledge the problem exists, it will persist and likely generate more problems, snowballing over time.

Armageddon, like any of the RPIs has problems. For starters, Armageddon's always had the worst *average* RP quality of any of the RPIs. While there are some amazing RPers to be found on the game, there were also players who operated far more as H&Sers and staff tended to let them do so without restraint. The best RP in the world is negated by H&S being allowed; it's the law of averages. In all my years of playing RPIs only once have I ever had the experience of my character being killed by another player without even one bit of RP to accompany it or in response to my own attempts to role-play through it and that was on Armageddon. Staff's response was "it happens". Now, that put me off for a while but I gave it another shot in a different region and found better results but that doesn't change the fact of the staff's response. When a problem presents itself, a game's staff can either address it or not. If they choose the former, how they address it speaks as to their competancy. If they choose not to address it, it's a sure sign that they either don't care about player concerns or they don't really care about maintaining a quality game. The argument that they're catering to different types of players might be used, but the lower quality of player that you cater to, the lower quality of a game you end up maintaining.

In fact, Armageddon's uneven RP as a result of a fairly tolerant policy in regard to H&S-like behavior actually has had detrimental effects on the RPI community as a whole. Trying to match Armageddon's popularity, other RPIs relaxed their standards. This was one of the primary reasons I quit SoI's staff. During my time as an admin on SoI, I banned dozens of twinks and when they were granted amnesty in some pathetic attempt to increase the playerbase, that was a pretty frustrating thing to deal with since every twink allowed in the game was just a potential mess to clean up after and potential bad experience for other players. It was a move that helped increase SoI's playerbase however and seeing that it became a temptation for other RPIs as well. Of course, catering to the lowest common denominator is the best way to alienate the better players as well as staff who get frustrated dealing with the crap. Faced with this, all too often the games accepted the sacrifice of losing one good player for the prospect of gaining three sh*tty ones. However, not only were they losing the very kinds of players and staff which brought people to the games in the first place but also those players whose experience helped other players grow and improve. The bar just kept getting lower and lower and the players and staff coming in, ignorant of what once was, failed to have the perspective to understand what was happening. Years after I quit SoI, I was chatting with someone from their staff who was telling me about the new batch of admins they'd promoted. Amongst the names was only one that I recognized and I was surprised to see a name of someone that, to be quite blunt, would never ever have made the cut years earlier. I asked if this person had improved in the years since I'd left and was told not really. How then, I asked, did they make it on staff? The response, verbatim, "We're scraping the bottom of the barrel to find anyone."

For me, one by one I left each of the RPIs because of problems ranging from staff incompetance to blatant favoritism and hypocrisy regarding their own policies to a lowering of standards regarding both players and staff. What the fanbois and apologists fail to acknowledge is that it's not just one or two players who are fed up with the declining quality of the RPIs though. I can cite eight alone through Facebook and I have never been one to really fraternize that much with my fellow MUDders. I don't think I've ever had more than a dozen people I know via MUDs on my "friends" list so for 2/3 of them to have given up on RPIs for a variety of reasons points to a much bigger problem. If 2/3 of the ones I actually talk to have issues with the games, what about the hundreds of players I don't interact with? Armageddon obviously has a few as Delerak pointed out and I know Harshlands, SoI and others do as well. However, so long as people refuse to acknowledge the problems even exist, nothing will be done to fix them and the snowball just gets bigger.

As someone who loved the RPIs in their heyday and still even after they started to decline, this is both sad and frustrating. From time to time I miss the days when I could enjoy hours on a MUD but I've never been one capable of putting on the blinders that the fanbois do. Call me cynical or negative but I don't see any reason to cater to the lowest common denominator. Screw popularity. Screw bigger playerbases. Screw "playability" as an excuse for appealing to the masses instead of to one's core base. If you have to compromise quality and drive off your best players and staff to attain these things then they're not worth attaining. Quite frankly, though, given that some of the people who own and run the games are the problem it's unlikely that they'll change their attitudes.

I'd like to be able to play a RPI again and enjoy it. I'm not alone as the friends who messaged me the other day expressed the same desire and we're not alone. It's not so much that we abandoned the RPIs as it is that the RPIs abandoned us.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Did you forget that the main admin at SoI quit because 5-6 staff published logs showing blatant favoritism by Kite and company. They all left and formed Atonement RPI. Anyway just mentioning that if you wanted a clear cut example for SOI's complete failure. Oh SoI is still shutdown AFAIK. It's been a couple years now.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Problems with favoritism go back much further, to a time before Kite was possibly even a player (I don't know what his player name was so I can't be sure). When I was an admin I complained to Traithe about some staff showing favoritism and violating several other policies in regard to players, namely their RL friends and/or partners/spouses. He was aware of it but didn't want to address the problem out of fear that they'd quit if he did and as they were productive he was willing to turn a blind eye to their cheating and favoritism. Quite frankly, dealing with such problems is part of leadership and failing to do so is a failure of leadership. SoI floundered without leadership for most of the time I was on staff and it caused a plethora of problems ranging from miscommunication, favoritism, conflicts of interest incidents and undermined work. I estimate that in the 10 months I was active on staff (was on staff for 12 months but spent some of my time in the hospital following my auto accident) I lost about 120 hours of work due to other staff screwing things up in ways which could have been completely preventable with stronger leadership. I wasn't the only one to suffer this fate as well. I was one of several staff to petition for the appointment of a head administrator after Haiwolfe left and Myrkkridia was fired but Traithe wouldn't do it. After I resigned, he finally appointed a head admin but I hear the favoritism got even worse meaning I'd jumped ship in time or I'd have been even more frustrated and probably unlikely to have been as courteous regarding the problems plaguing staff. As you might have noticed, I'm not one to shy away from confrontation. :-D

I can't really speak first-hand as to what all happened when Kite was in charge as that occurred long after I'd left staff. I've heard several versions of the story, none of them very flattering, and seen the aforementioned logs. I wish I could say that was the worst I've seen on MUDs but sadly it wasn't. Harshlands, for example, had and has continued to have some pretty horrible stuff happen too. As dozens of former HL players and staff have said, Blackhorde is an incompetant, dishonest "douchebag" (which is odd because in person he's actually a pretty nice guy, or at least he was when I met him). I can personally attest to the dishonesty and blatant favoritism as I witnessed that first-hand in the incidents that led me to quit the game. It was just lies on top of lies on top of lies (six in all, one after another, in the course of a short six-sentence conversation) to cover up favoritism to say nothing of the incompetence involved in letting well-known twinks repeatedly engage in twinking and player-killing (seriously, if you've punished a player three times prior for the same offense, the problem isn't just the player).

Harshlands didn't always allow its staff to engage in such behavior though. According to someone who knew him at the time and was an original staff member of SoI, while on the staff of HL Traithe was punished for twinking, ie. creating an unauthorized restricted-race character for himself and then inflating the character's stats and those of the PC's weapons. When discovered, his character's stats were nerfed as were the weapons and his character's race was changed from a restricted race to a common one which was why he left to form his own game. The point is that they took action when staff policies were violated, something which has pretty much become nonexistent since but is sorely needed. Of course, when the people violating the policies are the owners/head-admins like Kite or Blackhorde, it's an impossible problem. A head administrator should be the paradigm of staff behavior, not the biggest violator of policies.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Thanks for posting this actually.

Also if you post one that is "sort of RPI" I will still check it out this is just for research and if I can see what is controversial when it comes to the RPI genre it can help me better develop one

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Well, unwritten legends is similar to an RPI.

Heavily enforced Roleplay, a focus on realism of the world and thoroughness of lore, and the emphasis on consequences for actions.

Where it differs is that permadeath only happens as a consequence for serious roleplay actions, and the fact that there are two ooc channels. Also there is a level system in place.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Holy Crap you guys (Delerak, Prof, etc.) If my joke was bending the derailment of this thread slightly, you guys just completely through the train off the track. Create a new thread so we can all argue over the validity or lack thereof in your opinions and the true meaning of RPI.

p.s. I agree with you Fifi, about all the opionions that are posted as fact. It's pretty funny. But I'll hold off commenting for another thread.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

So basically it's nothing at all like an RPI, except that it's a text-based game.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

We did derail it pretty badly. Apologies. Maybe I'm just super excited to be back posting on the glorious TMS forums?

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Southlands - The roleplay is very slow and a bit more formal than in other muds, it can make scenes take a while. The codebase is one of the more interesting ones, if a bit bare bones in some aspects. For instance, all the rooms are save rooms, so your entire world is persistent through reboots, up to and including bits of rubbish or foraged items left on the ground, and I really like that, personally. The last time I played it was still just about all elves, but they were opening up the possibility of playing humans. The staff is awesome, very communicative, and will even send emails to you with ideas for roles you might like after you've been playing a while so they have some idea what sort of roles you enjoy. The movement can be slow at times, and it is exceedingly dangerous to leave a city, depending on where you are going off to. The playerbase seems to be low, but the staff tend to animate a lot and seem to be around/available often if needed.

Black Sands - Currently playing. The game is in beta. It has a vague resemblance to Armageddon that is encompassed mostly in how its magick guilds are referred to, though the practice there is actually completely different. Small but very responsive staff. Animates a lot. Handles issues quickly. The main issue with black sands currently, to me, is that there are still some bugs being worked out in the code and the crafting is currently not implemented (though it is damn near finished, as far as I'm aware). Travel can be slow if you are used to getting around without movement delays, but it is not unbearable. The roleplay is interesting and diverse. Of all the games I have played, it is in Black Sands, where I have found the most 'unique' roles. People that aren't playing that 'I -am- the wilderness' ranger, or that sneaky-sneak assassin, but play out their day jobs which can at times be flavored by their coded skills, or at other times stray wildly from them. The playerbase is low, but the game is designed to encourage players roleplaying together, and there are many small touches that help to make it feel crowded.

Dark Isles - I believe this game is currently down. It had its own very interesting and unique feel with different nobles all over the place and sort of a medieval water-front town vibe. They had their own take on werewolves and vampires which was interesting, but the roleplay was maddeningly slow. It was considered polite in this game in particular to use turn by turn paragraph posting which, I've never played one long enough to know, but I understand is the same sort of way a mush is played. The staff experience seemed hit or miss as to attentiveness and promptness in dealings, though they were always polite and level headed. The playerbase was very low, and the differing factions working as they did did not help to make it feel otherwise.

Armageddon - This game, I actually played for half a decade and spent more than a year on staff there. As you can probably tell by the interaction with Fifi there, I've a bit of a bitter taste left by it. The world is beautifully written, at times the code is fantastic, though other places like the brew skill when it comes to things other than tablets, and wagonmaking are utter failures to implement things uniformly or in ways that are even slightly useful in a decade of them being supposedly worked on. Staff is a very hit or miss thing. Many of them are relatively kind and helpful and pleasant to interact with (Natious, Rahneyvahn), others if you cross them once or disagree with them, your entire career on the game will be **** (Nyr, Adhira). The playerbase fluctuates wildly from sometimes 60-80 at peak times to as few as 2 at other times of day. The game world is vast, and game design encourages it to feel like a ghost town surprisingly often for a game with 50 players on, because everyone is in a private clan hall practicing their skills, rather than doing anything together, or risking bad account notes (and thus never being able to play higher end guilds) by skipping out on their training. It can be a great gaming experience if you keep your illusions about you, but hundreds of people have been wronged enough that they actually created a seperate forum regarding it, complete with logs and emails to document places where they've been egregiously wronged.

Those are the RPI's I've played. I got into a game called Whispers of Times Lost that was RP-enforced, and it was one of my favorites, but unfortunately, as far as I know, it's no longer running, which is a shame. That's really the only non-RPI I played long enough to rate at all. I've tried a couple dozen others, but not typically much beyond character creation if it doesn't seem like it will be appealing.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Moving through older threads, and just thought I'd come back to touch on this, and frankly, plug in . There have been many iterations of the Inquisition theme, most with different head admin(s). I can't cater specifically to what was said, or which game it was said about. However, TI: Legacy meets perhaps every element of being an RPI aside from a lack of public channels.

To the OP: Games like Dark Isles, the Inquisition, and others are a great variation on more hardcore RPIs like Armageddon and SoI, the main disparities being their stance on OOC communication, spontaneous PK, and emote length/courtesy. It's a great way to look at some of the compromises that have been taken between genres within the genre.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Nice thread with lots of info!

I've recently got back into Mudding after a few years break - and feel that I'd like to give RPI a proper go. A few years ago I played at SoI for awhile - and enjoyed it - but at the time I was still heavily involved in a more grind > achievement focused MUD - and I don't think I gave SoI a proper chance, due to the responsibilities I had on my 'main' mud.

I noticed that SoI went offline - I played back when Traithe was still running it - and While I've dabbled around the edges of the new SoI I haven't heard good things. I'll probably continue to try it out, and maybe it will surprise me - but I was wondering what other options there are for Fantasy orientated RPI players. Most of the Genre seems to be focused around post-apoc / Desert Themes, and while I'm sure that's fun - it wasn't really what I had in mind.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

If you are set on a game that is the main basis for the "RPI" tag which is: character Permadeath, No ooc channels or conversation (except in forums), variant coded emote strings, and limits to levels for character, then I would probably stay with SOI. As you said, there are few of these types of games that are in the fantasy medieval genre.

However,

If you are just looking for solid intense roleplay and you haven't tried other enforced roleplay games you might find one that meets exactly what you want. If this is the case I would try New Worlds Ateraan as we have both Permadeath and Resurrection death as well as many features that make the social, political, adventure, and roleplay arena much more engaging.

You might also try Threshold which has a roleplay intensity all its own.

Welcome Back too!

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Shadows of Isildur as it once was, no longer exists. It has a new staff, the game world was scrapped and the new world is in the process of being built. It's in alpha, which means roll-out and bug-testing. It's understaffed, and if you play, you'll be playing as an alpha-tester. If I were looking for an *immersive* world, and was expecting a finished (or mostly finished) game with robust, unbuggy code, so that I could focus my attention on roleplay along with others who do the same, I wouldn't be picking SoI at the current time.

However, if I wanted to get in on the ground floor of a new incarnation of SoI and be an integral member of the creation team from a player perspective, I'd check them out first, before anywhere else.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

For what it's worth, Tiamat and I are working on a project that we think the RPI Community will find quite interesting:

It's an RPI/Rogue-like Hybrid, completely modular, designed for players to create long-term permadeath campaigns of 1-4 players in an immersive world that is different with each incarnation.

It features crafting, permanent death, all of the roleplaying tools that we designed for Atonement RPI, but we're building it from the ground up (a brand new RPI Engine) so that we can allow for both hobbyist and professional licensing of the engine for folks interesting in creating their own RPI.

Combat is turn-based and strategic with a matrix-based combat system (think, a MUCH more complex version of Rock-Paper-Scissors), and we've replaced stats/skills with "Traits". For instance, instead of rolling stats, character generation gives you Trait Points, and you buy Traits (ex: "Brute Strength") that have various affects in and out of combat. You can also purchase negative Traits that give you more Trait Points (ex: "Chronic Illness", "One-Eyed", "Clumsiness", etc).

Therefor combat is exciting and strategic, and building your character requires choosing roleplayable Traits for them, instead of merely gaming whatever hidden systems exist in most RPIs. This also means that there is no grinding skills - at all. The focus of the game is on exploration, combat, and roleplay, all of which are only hampered or bolstered by your personal skill in those areas.

The gameworld itself is basically survival/wilderness/fantasy based with a large number of massive, random and highly varying dungeons with modular lore, stories, goals, enemies, dynamic events, puzzles, and (of course) loot, where you are forced to make difficult moral decisions that will impact the dynamic events to come, and (ultimately) how your campaign's story ends. This is all for the sake of replayability and immersion.

In addition to the campaign setting, we feel the combat system is strong enough to allow for a "for fun/for competition" arena mode separate from the rest of the game.

I certainly wouldn't call this project an RPI. With Atonement, my goal was to create an RPI that wouldn't flounder as many inevitably do. I wanted to create a game with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, where the story was a result of the player characters' actions. It was a unique project, which appealed to me, and it was an amazing three year experience for many people - even if it wasn't for everyone.

And while I wouldn't call this current project an RPI, I think that our ability to design it to feel like an RPI, with all of the tools (and more, since we're designing it from the ground up) of an RPI, will make it a lot of fun for folks in the community who want to get a couple of Hardcore Roleplaying friends together to create their own RPI-like story in a challenging, dynamic world.

And that's all the tease you'll get out of me about it, until we're ready for Open Testing.

Until then, ARM and SOI and EOE are probably the most RPI-like options available. Haven, New Worlds, Carrion Fields, and Threshold RPG are options if you feel like exploring something a little beyond the boundaries of a normal RPI, but still with a focus on meshing coded action and a dedication to roleplay.

Best of luck to all. My ghost is still around here, as always.

Re: List of RPI MUDs
 

Thanks Jazuela.

I hadn't been there in awhile and had no idea about the changes to SOI.