[Wade_Gustafson]

I'm not trying to get involved in most of this discussion (it's a dead horse, IMHO), but from what I remember the term RPI for "Role-Play Intensive" MUD did indeed originate at the time that these three games were generally considered to be "the" role-playing MUDs out there. That's not to say that there weren't others as dominated by RP rather than H/S, questing, etc., but these three were the key ones of the era.

Armageddon was the eldest, and Harshlands was created largely in its image with the intent to improve upon what Arm had done and continue the tradition of being a MUD focused on role-play first, everything else second. A year or two into HL, the term RPI began to be used by those of us who were involved in it at that point to refer to the standards of Arm and HL. When I left Harshlands to found Forever's End, I carried those same standards over to it. That trio of games operated for many years from there on without any other "RPI" games really coming forth (although there were a few who began development never to surface) using their other codebases (Rassilon did not want the HL code to get spread around, he gave it to me for FEM due to my long-time involvement with HL).

After Traithe was involved with HL for awhile, he had so heavily modified the code that he took it with him to create Shadows of Isildur. So much work was done on it there, that he eventually released it... We all know the rest.

I don't really follow the forums, so I can't speak about what was on TMS at the time. My site was RPIMUD.com actually, and later I registered RPIMUD.net as well. I did "define" the terms RPI/RPO as to how they would be categorized on THAT site. I can dig that up and post it if anyone actually cares.

It's long been debated by the "RPI Puritans" as I call them, as to what defines a RPI and what doesn't. Personally I don't see why it matters (again, a dead horse here). It was said above that "the term is usable by ANY MUD that the players feel is Role-Play Intensive" and with this I agree.

"RPI" is a subjective term. It always will be.

I see nothing wrong those involved with the "RPI Community" trying to set standards for the term, but its kind of like trying to categorize "a good MUD" based on what features it does or doesn't have. The RPIMUD Network (RPIMUD.com) was intended to bring together groups of people with SIMILAR gaming tastes, not SPECIFIC ones, to help form a "friendly" community and pool of resources for an already small niche.