[nass]

As an outsider:

My exceedingly ignorant observation would be this. It does feel as if some are trying to push this "RPI" label as some sort of indicator of quality (the 'intense' bit). And something as subjective as that will always attract controversy, because, despite what anyone might believe, there is surely no "correct" answer. Each person defines quality in their own way. For some roleplayers, any game with realdeath isn't quality. For some roleplayers, any game with strong PK aspects detracts from its RP quality.

My suggestion would be this, rather than trying to define some absolute and complete set of features that MU*s must have to qualify for the supreme accolade of being "RPIs", if you want to help MUDders, consider some sort of profiling system in which site users can configure their own personal preferences to create their own custom MU* ranking list. That way, the folks who look for the features RPIs have will be able to see which MU*s satisfy their criteria.

Clear definitions are useful though, so kudos for trying. I wish there was a clear and accepted definition for "free" MU*.