[silvarilon]

... if people here, who are already so involved in MUD communities, can't decide on what RPI means, can we really expect players to think of that term when searching?

Honestly, I'd never heard the phrase RPI until arriving at this forum. I thought about it for a moment, and gussed it must mean "Role Play Intensive" or maybe "Role Play Interactions" - either way, a MUD that's centered around roleplay.

So if I could guess it from the get-go, it seems like a good term. But there was no way I could have known it referred to a specific feature set. From further posts that I later read, that became obvious. But by the time I knew that, I had a fair idea who the different posters here were, what games they run, etc. - so why would I be doing a search for "RPI"? I'd go straight to their game.

New acronyms are useful, but only if they make sense to the people using them. If we're talking code or game design, I now have another term to use when discussing feature sets (but I've also seen the phrase "ARM feature set" which seems more appropriate...) - if I'm a player, I probably already either know the game I want, or wouldn't be searching for the RPI term.

So it seems a pretty moot point, really...

Unless I'm mistaken about how common the term RPI is.
It'd be interesting to see some statistics on what is searched for by players.