[prof1515]

I agree there needs to be more community responsibility. I once noted years ago that numerous MUDs on TMS' rankings were inaccurate, from H&S MUDs calling themselves RPI to stock worlds calling themselves "nearly all original". There seems to be no great movement within the community to hold MUDs accountable for their claims.

I believe I mentioned it in one of these threads and have definitely mentioned it before that I favor the removal of such dishonest MUDs from the listings and their placement on a "Liar's List" denoting that they've used deceitful assessments of their games.

Hence the need to identify and denote a set of characteristics that the term refers to. To do this requires an assessment of games defined as RPI. As the term has been used by games ranging from strict IC-enforcement to (sadly) games where RP wasn't even required, how could such an assessment be determined? This range of MUDs share only such basic characteristics that any MUD could be called RPI. And yet, there are plenty of MUDs which would not claim nor would be claimed to be RPI. Basing such a determination on present-day use would hardly give one an accurate definition of the word, especially if the possibility exists of misuse of terminology. How then to know which MUDs were misusing the term? The best way to determine this would be to compare the MUDs which were undoubtedly considered RPI, the ones to whom the term was first employed to describe. Comparitive examination of those games would reveal a pattern of common features for while they were representative of two different code developments, they each had distinct features not shared with the others as well. Discounting the dissimiliarities, a core of features might be determined. This core could then be compared to other MUDs to determine if they too matched up reasonably well.

When done, a group of games begins to take shape. While most are descendents of those first three, there are examples of other games which are not. The feature set reveals a list of MUDs that match those parameters originally described as RPI. Just as those original MUDs were not disputed as RPI, so too can such a positive identification be derived for those games today bearing the same characteristics. The term gains clarity and usefulness once more.

Always a good idea and still a good idea when looking at individual MUDs. The term RPI would serve much the same as the term PK MUD or H&S. It's a means of narrowing the search. Just as someone looking for a pure player-killing MUD would be looking for a set of characteristics quite different than someone looking for a RP-enforced, so too could someone seeking the core features of an RPI use the term to narrow down the field. The term could even be used to eliminate from consideration games bearing such features as are found in RPIs. The point is that it becomes a tool for a player to use in searching the hundreds of MUDs that exist to narrow the parameters and assist in finding those games that have the features that they're looking for or looking to avoid, whichever the case.

Jason