[Throttle]

Jumping into this discussion pretty late since I only check these forums every few months, but I thought I'd give my input on the term "RPI".

The 19 "conditions", as they were laid out by the original poster, seem pretty accurate. They make up what I consider a requirment in order for a mud to qualify as RPI. There can be some deviation and room for alternate features, but if your mud varies greatly from a number of these, chances are that it'll be considered an RPI only by yourself and those who are not established players on any of the "original RPIs", for lack of better term. So, these 19 ideals make up the base that fosters roleplay of a high enough quality that it should be considered RPI, and they each contribute to it in their own way, though ultimately they achieve the same goal.

Permadeath, apart from the inherent realism, makes sure that players weigh their actions carefully and play their characters in a way that as closely as possible resembles the behaviour of real people in that game's world. When death becomes just a setback rather than the end, as is the case in games without permadeath, it's obvious to see that it changes how players will have their characters act. Likewise, the staff-approved character application system makes sure that every character that is let into the game meets the standards of the mud, both for the sake of the character's player and for those around them. If a new player who knows nothing about the mud and its game world can log in and create a character who meets the standards of that mud and its roleplay, I have my doubts about those standards. Once in a while you get a player who got it just right the first time around because they read the documentation extensively, because they're already experienced roleplayers or because they just happened to "get it" without having to try several times first. As a player of an RPI mud who is in a position to review first-time player applications, I'll say that the applications that are approved the first time without need for adjustments and revision make up a tiny percentage. Most need to be rejected between one and four times before it meets the standards of the game. If these players wouldn't have to go through this admittedly stringent and often discouraging process, the game would be full of characters who are extremely jarring and impossible to consider a part of the environment. Each of the 19 points on that list serve similar purposes, providing the building blocks for a game that can be considered the among best roleplaying experiences in the world of text-based gaming, and for each point that deviates from the "recipe", the quality is lessened somewhat.

How the individual mud achieves the goal of each of these points is up to them; it doesn't have to be identical to Armageddon, but the further you stray from the idea that it should improve roleplay, the less likely that the average RPI-player will consider it to be such. It's an inherently selfish and elitist concept because it is indeed subjective whether or not a mud qualifies to be ranked among "the best" in regards to its quality of roleplay. I will venture to claim that, provided that the players play within the confines of its ideals, the structure of the mud itself has much more to do with the quality of roleplay than the playerbase. If the mud doesn't have the necessary "restrictions", as that is essentially what they are, then the players can't be expected to conduct the manner of roleplay that the established RPI muds consider necessary in order to qualify as an RPI. Add levels and experience points and the overall roleplay diminishes a little. Add global chat channels and it detracts a bit. Remove permadeath and the players' actions become a little less consistent and believable - not necessarily everybody, but enough that the end result is a roleplaying environment that is less complete. To make a real-world example, you cannot expect a professional soccer team to consider another team a "real soccer team" if that team plays with twelve players on the field and disregards the off-side rule. Such things may be acceptable elsewhere but it is inevitably a whole different level of the game. It's an elitist concept, but I find it to be true and valid.

So why are these "real RPI" muds so opposed to other muds calling themselves RPI without meeting the proverbial requirments? Isn't that selfish? Why do they care what others do? Well, part of it is the innate human nature of wanting to protect what you have from being sullied by others who don't meet your ideals. That's the more selfish part, the part where you just don't want your own mud to be associated with others that you view as being of lesser quality. It is absolutely omnipresent, everywhere and particularly in online gaming when considering the context. WoW players get fiercely defensive about the class they play whenever someone else tries to impose their opinions and request changes for their own benefit. Counter-Strike clans will hold their particular style of play in high regard while debasing that of others, accusing opponents of cheating and so on. Players of RPI muds will scoff whenever another mud proclaims the status of RPI simply because they've tagged their mud as such and made a few adjustments to their game. I believe much of this has to do with the fact that RPI is a relatively small niche that has always been struggling for players, with each and every one of these muds unable to reach a size of playerbase that is required to fill all of the game's needs. When an interloper then comes along, claiming to be RPI while offering something that isn't (in the former's opinion), the "real RPI" runs a very real risk of not gaining the amount of players they feel they deserve. It's fairly logical. There's great contesting for players in this sub-genre because they're all suffering from a lack of players, and they don't want a perceived poser to cost them any. It's much easier to accept the loss of players to other muds of similar quality, and there's not nearly as much bad blood between "real RPIs" as there is between them and these self-proclaimed RPIs who do not attempt to meet the 19 commandments, as it were.

I don't believe that the RPI muds should have to come up with a new term for their genre of muds just because others have started to use it without meeting those standards. It's not their job to keep themselves separated from other types of muds, it's the would-be RPIs' job to build their muds to meet the standards for which the original RPIs have coined their term. If they won't, calling themselves RPI is inaccurate, and it's as much a question of vanity as it is the very real issue of there not being nearly enough players to go around and the RPIs not wanting the virtual market to be stretched any more thin than it already is.