Does anyone know why it's been down for so long?

Check out this thread

They forgot to renew the domain name, and have to wait for it to become available for purchase again. I think you can still get to it using rpimud.genesismuds.com

Thanks Auroness! Aren't you the person behind the Argila code? What happened to your project?

[prof1515]

We're still in the process of sorting out a few things including a new voting system for the site as well as other features we'll be introducing. Pressing matters is the attempt to get ourselves ready at least partially by the mandated time of our December elections for the remaining membership of the Operating Committee. These members will be elected from a pool of candidates from the affiliate games themselves.

I also must report that the domain name will be changing since GoDaddy was deceitful about the transfer and never made it available to us. Despite telling Wade that his option to renew or transfer ownership had lapsed, they told me (not realizing I know and was in contact with Wade) that I could not purchase it as the owner still retained the right to renew. In the end, it never was put on the market for purchase.

Never fear though as we have a new domain name already lined up. Expect some updates and the like soon. If we can put in half of what we've got planned, the site will be much different than before and hopefully will be even more useful to games and players alike.

Take care,

Jason

[rendekar]

I saw some new RPI muds on that list.. Prof, which is rising in popularity lately?? can you pm?

[Newworlds]

Dear players,

Not to be a downer, but I did want to set the record straight that many gamers and admins do not agree with this group of clearly one sided style of administration and coding. It is important to note that several roleplay intensive games sometimes classified as enforced roleplay somehow do not meet the criteria because of odd rules of this group (mainly their own coding style, an example might be the style of death or what types of channels or forums you have). This is very similar to having a certain pk group of games and calling them PKMUDS.org classifying themselves at the true PK MUDs but only games that have levels and PK are authorized to be in the PKMUD.org. Kind of silly since many games have pk, but do not have levels, for example.

My point is that it is offensive to claim this group as the roleplay gaming site for MUDs. It is not. It is a niche roleplay gaming site for people who like a certain style of gaming code like enforced permadeath and ultra long descriptives.

I hope the site is slightly changed or at least the administrators either follow their own rules on what constitues RPI included games or not, because from what I could tell of the old site, some of the games weren't even RP Enforced and some didn't follow the criteria defined in other threads on TMS specifically about what constitutes RPI in terms of RPIMUD games (as we all know it is an endless argument on what truly constitues roleplay intensive and we've been through that before).

Before anyone cries sour grapes or whiner pants, let me assure you that NW and other highly intensive RP games that are not in the exclusive (and very code subjective) criteria of the RPImud term, have strong player bases are successfull and have great roleplay. We do not wish to be somehow included in this group or associated with it. We just want the record to be clear that this is not a bless all thank all join all location for people with a high degree of roleplaying experience, talent, and quality.

So, not to squelch what RPIMUD is doing, I wish them success in the endeavor and to the players that enjoy the style of gaming, just be reminded that it is a group based on a certain codebase and style and not on the definition of intensive roleplay.

I likely should make a new thread about this which I might do if there is some confusion here.

Thank you.

[ShadowsDawn]

Actually New Worlds would be quite wrong about this as the new site is going up. Even with the old site, the original owner gladly accepted those game whose focus was on RP rather than kill monster, go up a level.

The new site will be making it much more clear as to the fact that it is open to all game who enforce RP on their games. There will be several categories to classify the 'type' of RP game, but the categories are merely to reflect coding philosophies rather than the quality or level of detail in the RP. Also each category will be able to elect a member to the operating committee, so things are not one sided at all.

I know some may not believe me, but all I can say is that you should wait and see.

[prof1515]

You're confusing role-playing and Role-Playing Intensive (RPI). While the site's old name was rpimud.com it welcomed any role-playing MU*. We are continuing the tradition of allowing a wider range of games than simply RPIs and are in fact even expanding the range of games to include any Role-Playing Enforced game (a similar proposal by me in 2005/2006 was opposed but not by the former administration of the site, rather by some of the affiliates and contrary to what you might think it wasn't the RPIs that opposed the expansion).

The site, while calling itself rpimud.com, never accepted only "a certain style of gaming code". I don't know if you ever visited it before but if you don't believe me, go take a look at it now.



I think you'll find numerous types of RP games on there, not just RPIs.

Again, you're confusing RP and RPI. Understandable given that the site used a very inaccurate and undefined definition of the latter term. However, the site will continue to allow more than simply RPIs and will attempt to be even far more inclusive than it was before.

That is, ultimately, your choice. However, if you change your mind, we'll still be there.

Thank you. However, there is no definition of "intensive roleplay" as that's a completely subjective assessment, dependant upon the person making the judgement. If instead you meant Role-Play Intensive you're still wrong though. The site has been and will continue to be open to a wider range of role-playing games. I hope you'll give it a look when we're back up and in order.

I also would like to extend that same invitation to any other role-play MU*s out there. Once we have the site back in working order again, fix/replace the voting/ranking system (since the old one had exploited loopholes and was massively abused by several users/games), and have a few changes to the submission process (the self-listing proved to be a problem as periodically pure H&S MUDs which didn't even "encourage" role-play much less require it would add themselves to the listings) implemented, we be able to open our doors officially to the dozens, if not hundreds, of role-play MU*s out there.

Take care,

Jason

[Ide]

I'm curious if you'll be going with a daily votes sort of thing, or a ranking/rating per member?

[ShadowsDawn]

It's not been decided fully yet. Honestly, just to get this in the open, no voting structure is fair all around since there's always a way to abuse it, which is a shame honestly. As far as I know it will likely be a open daily vote.. meaning anyone can vote for their game without registering. There are other ideas in the works for how to give more meaningful rankings as well as the clicky vote that people like

[Newworlds]

Indeed, I probably posted too soon not giving you the opportune chance to show the new website and style your team wishes to create. My comments were based exclusively on old related threads, discussions, and extensive review of the old site and forums.

Good luck with the project. I believe anything that can bring more gamers into TMUD (Text MUD) style gaming is a plus. And roleplaying is a huge step in that direction.

[Threshold]

I am interested to see what you guys create for your new site. There is a fine line between too many "mud community" sites and not enough, and I think we are still in the "not enough" area.

Regarding voting: It is my personal belief that the whole vote-driven traffic thing is a little overdone right now. We already have one solid community site that is vote based (you know, the one this post is on), and it does a pretty good job at that. There have been numerous vote-based mud community sites to crop up post-TMS, and all of them either failed completely or continue to sputter along with negligible traffic and utility. I think a burgeoning mud community site would be wise to look for a different USP (Unique Selling Point) to drive traffic.

Just to throw a few ideas out there: an RP oriented mud community site could have things like story repositories, character art hosting/viewing, and RP tools (name generators, for example). People love showing off their creative works. You could look to sites like DeviantArt or ElfWood for examples of formats that let people comment on and critique submissions .

I think if you go for voting you'll have all the painful negatives that TMS (and any vote site) deals with, but you'll never reach the critical mass needed to make it worth dealing with all that vote-based drama.