[prof1515]

I tend to use the term RPO. There's nothing superior/inferior about them though. Different doesn't mean inferior but some RPI veterans like myself do object to the abuse of the term because it defeats the purpose for which it was coined, namely to identify that particular style of role-play MUD.

I'm reminded of a saying by Theodore Sturgeon in regard to science fiction. "90% of science fiction is crud but, then again, 90% of everything is crud." That includes MUDs. I'd also consider Mr. Sturgeon generous; I'd place the percentage even higher.

We're players who want a specific kind of game, one which employed specific features and emphasized strict in-character RP at a time when most games turned their noses at even semi-strict RP. We came up with a label to identify that particular kind of game and somewhere along the way when in-character RP became not only more acceptable but more emphasized in the MUD community, the term began to be co-opted by more and more games which didn't meet those characteristics.

To date there have been at least (I might be missing one or two as I'm just doing a rough count in my head) a total of 30 RPI MUDs. Of them, only 11 or so of them actually opened to players (even if only in beta). At present there are 4 such games (ie, open to players) and at least 5 more in development.

That, my friend, is exactly why some of us are so adamant about the use and misuse of the term. For the better part of the decade after it was coined, players who knew of the term also knew what to expect. Nowadays more than half the games that identify themselves with the term don't fit that description. But that's another conversation entirely. :-D