[prof1515]

But most RPIs to open have not used the RPI Engine. In fact, there has been no RPI Engine for half the very existance of RPIs. To define a term off something which didn't come into existance until nearly a decade later and even then was slightly different from anything before it is a very confusing means of identification.

And what if a game chose not to use the features found in the RPI Engine? Harshlands doesn't use the left/right hand feature and until 2004 didn't use an accounts system. Southlands still doesn't use an account system or the stars and bars health and movement feature. At what point do you say that a game which uses or doesn't use the RPI Engine is indeed a RPI? The answer is when you look at the features possessed by all RPIs regardless of their codebase.

This is a massively flawed definition. Arm did not inspire the RPI Engine, it inspired Harshlands. The RPI Engine was derived from Harshlands and borrowed some features from Arm as well as other games while retaining the same core features as Arm, Harshlands and FEM. Southlands neither emulated nor inspired the RPI Engine.

But you're just talking code and there's more to RPI than code. Role-play is not code. RPIs are focused on role-play and yet what if someone used the RPI Engine to make a H&S?

It's a codebase but that doesn't mean anything relevant to defining RPI because it doesn't mean that any game using it is RPI. As I've already pointed out, for half the existance of the term RPI, there was no RPI Engine. Arm doesn't use it. Harshlands didn't use it until 2004. Southlands doesn't use it. FEM didn't use it. FE2 didn't use it. Chronicles of Ritnarium didn't use it. Dark Horizon doesn't/didn't use it.

What's more, there have been games that were not RPI that did use the codebase. A few years back there was a PvP game that used the RPI Engine (I don't remember the game as I wasn't interested in playing it but it was a witches and wizards like Harry Potter type game). Back when I was on SoI's staff, I remember Zapata musing about using the RPI Engine to make a pure PvP game though I don't know if he ever did. There was also at least one other non-RP game that used the RPI Engine. By your definition, they're all RPI because of the code they used even though there was or would have been no RP found on them.

However, the 19 characteristics really can't be picked apart because they're derived from an analysis of the original RPIs themselves.

How many of those characteristics did Armageddon possess?

All 19.

How many of those characteristics did Harshlands possess?

All 19.

How many of those characteristics did Forever's End possess?

All 19.

What about other games from that period that weren't called nor did they call themselves RPI? Some had quite a few but none had all 19 of those characteristics.

But what about later RPIs that still exist today? Let's see.

How many of those characteristics did Shadows of Isildur possess?

All 19.

How many of those characteristics did Southlands possess?

All 19.

So what about the other 350+ Role-Play Enforced games out there? What about the handful of other games that call themselves RPI today but whose use of the term is disputed? Run them down the list and you'll find that they do not possess all 19.

That gives us evidence from which to derive a clear definition of the term.