[the_logos]

Similarly of course, MUD was coined for a single type of game (MUD I), but you don't see Richard Bartle whining that language evolves or that he somehow 'owns' the definition of the term (because, of course, he doesn't). The MUDs you term "RPI MUDs" have virtually nothing in common with what MUD originally meant, unless I'm missing something and the whole point of RPI MUDs is to run around collecting items and killing monsters in order to get to 102,400 points, at which point you became a wiz. And wasn't one of your RPI-definition points that the MUD have no levels? Levels were an integral part of the original definition of MUD. Are RPIs not MUDs because they've removed this core feature of what MUD originally meant? How about accounts? The original MUD didn't have accounts. It also had essentially no enforcement of RP, so one might say that enforcement of RP disqualifies one as being a MUD using the logic I've seen used here.

As long as you're going to call an RPI a 'MUD' even though it shares almost none of the core gameplay concepts from the original MUD, it's just wildly hypocritical to insist that the term RPI denotes a particular, unchangeable feature set.

--matt