[prof1515]

More or less, yes. It's a term coined to describe a particular set of features and philosophies (such as strict IC/OOC separation, etc).

That's not actually one of the features. Permanent death is not the same as no resurrection. There are actually examples of "resurrection" of a sort in one of the first RPIs. The difference is that such ressurection results in a person who is a form of "undead" of sorts rather than just continuing on with their life as before.

One of the characteristics of RPIs is that code follows world design. That's also a difference between most MUDs with non-permanent death and RPIs. The lack of permadeath tends to fall into one of two different categories. Either it's done because the world is shaped around the code and the code is non-permadeath H&S code or the world is designed around the OOC consideration of players' dislike for character loss.

I'm not familiar with the details of Dragaera so I'll have to offer a very limited response in this regard. However, I did discover in my research that while the inhabitants of Dragaera are long-lived, they are not immortal nor do they simply reincarnate to resume their lives. They do die and this process is not a repetitive gimmick for immortality. For a RPI based on this theme, the process of death would have to be coded to fit and the entire experience handled IC and probably with extensive staff intervention since it seems to involve a form of divine judgement.

It's a tough call though. I suspect many RPI players might not enjoy such a setting and thus it could be argued that this is simply one setting that wouldn't lend itself to development as a RPI.

The term does not refer to the feature set directly nor does this feature set rely entirely upon coded aspects. It refers to the game possessing the feature set and role-play philosophy. These games are inherently role-play intensive because the design and aspects were conceived exclusively with role-play in mind. The RPIs didn't set out to make games that had mass appeal; they set out to make games which appealed to an extremely small portion of the MUD community.

Part of which is also due to the reputation that the old RPIs earned in regard to their role-play stretching back to a time when role-play was more of a source for ridicule than a popular format. I can recall comments directed at Armageddon about a decade ago regarding the strict in-character role-play. The idea of requiring role-play didn't appeal to many and the idea of enforced role-play was even less well-received. I can recall comments ranging from dislike at the thought of not being able to just be oneself to the effect of "Do you sit at your computer dressed like your character?"

I'm not exactly sure why role-play caught on more and more but I suspect the draw of graphical MMOs created a drain on players and MUDs began to look beyond the H&S and PvP aspects that were and are the staple of the graphicals.

It's shorthand for people who were trying to find similar games. Considering when the term was coined there were hundreds if not thousands of MUDs and only 2 or 3 RPIs. Even now, there are 1903 games listed on TMS. When you add in games from TMC that aren't listed here, there's well over 2000 and yet there are only four open RPIs, a fifth near to opening and three or four more in development. In fact, from the thousands upon thousands of MUDs there have been since the term RPI was coined, there have only been about 30 RPI projects, less than half of which actually opened.

Only because people lack adequate English skills to realize that it's Role-Play Intensive and not intense role-play. The fault lies not with the term but with those who are erroneously confusing the two.

The thing is that pretty much every term in the MUD community has the potential for arguments or is subject to very inaccurate definition. Not every Hack-and-Slash MUD involves hacking or slashing; some are entirely magic-based without a blade in sight. To the best of my knowledge, no player has ever killed another player on a PK MUD. They may kill players' characters but shouldn't that be PCK or CK?

The term RPI was coined to differentiate a specific type of role-play game where the design and gameplay were focused around role-play rather than having the role-play slapped on an existing H&S codebase, many with RP the equivalent of what you'll find from the average WoW player. For a time, outside of MUSHes, the only place you could get strict in-character RP was the RPIs. They were truly role-play intensive at a time when role-play was more of an option than a core principle. People that played them liked that specific format and needed a way to identify this philosophy and feature set. Considering there are still over 350 open RP MUDs in existence today (and hundreds more in the TMS and TMC listings which are defunct), the unabused use of the term is still important in finding the 4 or 5 that fit the RPI format.