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Old 08-28-2010, 11:19 PM   #6
DonathinFrye
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Name: Donathin Frye
Location: Columbus, OH
Home MUD: Optional Realities
Home MUD: Atonement RPI
Home MUD: Project Redshift
Posts: 510
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

I disagree with some of what Prof has said above. While real life and general disatisfaction with some RPIs have certainly driven off many great roleplayers/players over the years (the same could be said for any genre of MUD, by-the-by), there are always just-as-great players finding the genre and stepping up to become the RPI veterans of today and tomorrow. Additionally, I'd challenge the concept that the best RPIs of today cannot hold a candle to the worst (or any) RPIs of the past. Shadows of Isildur had a hay-day in the old days of Osgiliath and Minas Morgul - and then another hay-day during the year of 2009 in which the Mines of Moria and Northlands existed; unfortunately, those areas are now closed. I cannot speak to the olden days of ARM, but it still remains a quality game.

Beyond that - to plug my own project, Atonement RPI, we achieved things in ALPHA that RPIs have only been able to shallowly promise for years. The ability for players to have complete control over the destiny of the entire gameworld, create society themselves from the ground-up (literally - they all played amnesiacs) through organic roleplay, a sophistication of code and building that allowed for immersiveness on levels far beyond the capabilities of previous games - and a society built upon mutual respect between players and staff, without the corruption and selfish administration that has chased off many great players from other RPIs.

Infact, a lot of the old veterans who quit playing other RPIs were some of the most active and supportive members of our community during our ALPHA campaign.

Despite calling the first four months of play on Atonement "ALPHA-phase", I fully believe that we were able to do things that RPIs have only dreamed about being able to do in the past. BETA will be even more improved, in every way imaginable.

The challenge for the RPI community is not to allow apathy to cause us to stop taking chances, stop creating new games - and to re-integrate itself with the rest of the MUDing community. There's really no experience in any game, text-based or not, which is similar to an RPI. As long as there continues to be energetic new creators to re-imagine what RPIs are capable of, I really do not fear for the genre and its niche.
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