[prof1515]

No one's trying to "create a 'brand'...well after the creation" of anything. The "brand", to use your term, was well established. The term is not a new one. The "brand" has existed since the term RPI was created. It was created to specifically describe a group of games sharing a similar code and policy philosophy. The second interpretation of the term really wasn't some long evolution over time but a rather sudden one over a period of a few years. The problem seems to have stemmed from other games who began to use this term, a term which was established in its use, primarily because they either a) didn't understand it and mistakenly believed it referred to a subjective assessment of the quality of role-play, or b) deliberately attempted to capitalize on the belief that the quality of role-play found on RPIs was of a higher degree than found elsewhere. In most cases I suspect it was the former though in a couple I'm not so sure that it wasn't the latter that motivated and continues to motivate them to use the term. Either way, the use of the term was established to denote a particular style of game even though no one bothered to spell out just what that style entailed. It was sort of like that definition of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

The order is important however, because if they'd called the first RPIs "intensive role-play" MUDs/code/games, the meaning would match the now-erroneous interpretation. They did not however and there is a difference between "intensive role-play" and "role-play intensive". The placement of a word in such a phrase means everything.

An example would be if I were holding a flower petal and said, "I am holding a rose-red petal." In no way does that imply that the petal is from a rose. However, saying "I am holding a red rose petal" would indicate a completely different meaning. In the first example, the petal could be from any flower but in the second example it is from a rose. The order of words in the English language does determine their meaning. Thus, "Role-Playing Intensive" is not the same thing as "intensive role-playing".

Personally I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation that people in a text-based gaming community be literate, at least not those for whom English is their primary language (and no, this is not intended as a flame). I don't know when they're teaching it nowadays but when I went to school this stuff was drilled into our heads by the time we left junior high.

Additionally, the misconstrued use of the term RPI to denote "intensive" role-play is actually something that can't be assessed objectively (or at least not easily, if at all). As has been pointed out by all sides, the quality of role-play, including how "intense" it is, is a matter of opinion. Thus, it's meaningless as a term for describing a game's role-play quality because such a designation is a purely subjective one and relevant as a designation only for the person using the using it.

There is no evidence of an understanding in the general community before the term was created. Perhaps there was an understanding of the term "intensive role-play" though I would wager that the term didn't find its way into use until after "Role-Play Intensive" debuted and was misinterpreted. When you look at the way in which RPI code was developed in comparison to other role-play MUDs, you can see very clearly that the design followed the function they wanted. It wasn't H&S code with a role-play policy and a world design molded to fit the existing code parameters. They didn't have policies of "ignore the levels" or other such rationalizations to deal with unwanted code nor did they have to create elements of theIt was role-play intensive in design, concentrating on their goals of the role-play.

What good does RPI mean if others continue to use the ungrammatical interpretation to describe their games? We're still left with RPI being used in two different contexts, one of which would remain a based on a grammatical error to support a subjective opinion really only valid to the person making the claim.

Perhaps Newworlds' "IRP" designation is a good alternative so far as creating a vague term to describe a subjective opinion of an aspect of a game that really can't be assessed objectively. It really means nothing which is pretty much the same thing the present misinterpretation of RPI means. So long as the distinction between RPI and IRP is made clear, MUDs could continue to hype their games with that term. Though the similarity between the two might still confuse some, it might alleviate some of the confusion.

Trademarking a term costs money and there are other considerations that must be met beyond the simple desire to possess a trademark. I do have some experience with this having gone through the process myself with the name of my MUD. Speaking of which, I need to make a call about that....

Jason