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Old 03-17-2008, 11:01 PM   #41
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Actually, bashing gophers with a baseball bat would indeed improve my typing. It would improve my hand-eye-coordination, my flexibility, my hand strength, and my endurance. All of those things would improve my typing abilities. You couldn't counter my other examples, and now you just offered up ANOTHER ONE that proves my point. Thank you!

As a concept, skill based systems are no more realistic than level based systems. It is all about the implementation.

You like skill based systems. That's great. I like them too. I don't like pure level based systems, so I am not trying to defend something that is my own preference. But I have already pointed out numerous ways in which skill based systems are "unrealistic" as well. They don't take into account cross-benefits of different activities, and they are prone to some of the most unrealistic abuses and behaviors of all (standing in a corner, using a skill over and over, or using a skill in a totally pointless way simply to improve it).

Both systems are game mechanic abstractions that a developer uses to adjudicate actions and determine a result. Neither one of them does a particularly good job of mimicking reality. Reality is far too complex. And you know what? It's ok. Realism is not and should not be the most important thing when designing game mechanics. Believability and fun are far more important and valuable goals.

If RPI folks want to make "skill based" a requirement for a game being an RPI, that's fine.

If RPI folks want to shout from the mountain top that they prefer skill based to level based, that is also fine.

If RPI folks want to declare skill based systems "better" or "more realistic", that is not fine. It is not fine when they try to pronounce their own personal preferences to be better than everyone else's. That isn't logic or reason. That is just arrogance.

Surprise, surprise! More elitism! "RPIs are better than everyone else because we lure away all your players! We're in yer playerbase, stealing yer players!" This is getting hilarious. You can't win the argument, so you fall back on more elitism. I really expected better from you, prof. True colors?

My games have attracted countless players who quit RPIs to join ours. We have even had coders (and at least one admin I recall off the top of my head) leave some of those "founding 3" RPIs to play our games. These are people who invested not just their time, but their MONEY in our games. Players move in both directions between RPIs and non RPIs. Perhaps more importantly, many players play BOTH types of games because they offer a different experience. So whatever point you are trying to make is not only elitist and desperate, but wrong.

Lets be honest here. The number of people who play and prefer RPIs is absolutely microscopic compared to the number of people who play "other MUDs" as well as the number of people who role play on "other muds." So don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

Last edited by Threshold : 03-17-2008 at 11:07 PM.
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Old 03-17-2008, 11:20 PM   #42
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

I think another big difference might be that when we get someone from RPIs (or any other game), we're just glad they found our game and enjoy it. If they move on to another game, we're just glad they spent some time having fun with us and hope that they have fun in their next game, even if that other game is my hated WoW. *mutter* Whereas the poster above seems to be viewing getting a player from another mud as some sort of graduation ceremony. "Welcome to RPIs! You'll never leave again because there's nothing better." I hate to rain all over your parade, but we share players. We even share players with MUSHes and MUXes. We even have players who came from RPIs and have had high builder, coder and admin positions in RPIs, and we also have players who have gone on to be builders on RPIs. Most players interested in RP aren't interested in whether a game is an RPI, and RPEI, and RPXSELFLKJSEF or whatever. They're interested in whether or not the RP in the world is enforced. Everything else is game mechanics, style and preference for them.

Before the implication that we must be jealous of RPIs because they're taking away all our players, I never even thought about who comes from an RPI or who doesn't come from one. Possibly it's because I hadn't bothered to keep track of who came from which mud, nor have I ever thought that "our RP is superior to other games, so once they come to Threshold they never go back". I think it'd be the height of stupidity and arrogance for me to actually believe that never occurs. I know that we share players with several of the RPIs. Sometimes they put more time into their RPI, and sometimes they put more time into us. It really depends on how things are going. There are other players that we have from RPIs that play only our game, and I'm sure that there are players from our game who now play an RPI exclusively.

For a ton of players, RP enforcement is what is the defining line for them. After that they just look for mechanics.

Ultiamtely, RPIs really consist of a handful of muds and a handful of players in the grand scheme of things. I doubt that RPIs are stealing all the players out there.

Anyway, this conversation has degenerated to the point where it's not worth continuing. At least some progress was made before it got derailed, though!

Last edited by Milawe : 03-17-2008 at 11:28 PM.
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Old 03-18-2008, 12:38 AM   #43
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

The last few posts have been pretty good, but I think it strays off topic for some reason. Mina has it right that players come and go from games all the time. NW has had numerous people join from all types of games (Permadeath, MUSH, RPE, H&S and so on) as I'm sure many have played other games coming from NW.

I know for a fact that many players of NW enjoy Threshold and Achae (which I personally enjoy too) as well as many other games on TMS and frankly I'm glad they have other outlets of enjoyment.
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Old 03-18-2008, 03:15 AM   #44
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Your other examples were lame and didn't need countering. And bashing animals with a baseball bat will not improve your skill at typing. It will improve the physical attributes that aid in typing but it will not make you a better typist. Typing will.

Which is why skill-based systems alone are not enough to call a game RPI. It's entirely possible to have a skill-based H&S (and there are examples of this). And the implementation of skill-based systems in RPIs do take into account cross-benefits, specificially through the use of crafts.

Yes, because realism isn't believable. As for fun, that's another subjective term. Fun for one player may mean killing everything in sight. That wouldn't be acceptable in a RPI, no matter how much fun it may bring that player.

And the term RPI has nothing to do with being "better". We're straying into the realm of a different discussion than what makes a RPI. This discussion got off on a tangent when the subject of the first statement you made there was contested. From there the discussion seems to have slid into yet another digression of little bearing to the purpose of the thread.

I didn't say "RPIs are better than everyone else because we lure away all your players!" so kindly refrain from fabricating and attributing ideas that I did not say. As for the subject of luring away players, there aren't many to lure away. RPIs tend to lure very few players. In fact, most MUDs fail to lure players away from other games. Players tend to stick with the games they first connect with.

Also, there is no such thing as elitism. Elitism is a perception. If you feel there's elitism going on, it's probably due to your own insecurities.

And right there the inclusion of investing "their money" suggests that they did NOT go to your game for the role-play but for the ability to use OOC factors for H&S advancement. I don't dispute players and even staff from RPIs playing other games but that's because they're seeking something other than RP be it H&S gameplay, PK MUDs, etc. And no doubt plenty of players "quit RPIs to join" your game. But I'll wager those were never players who were dedicated to RPI MUDs, rather the type that tried it out, perhaps even tried to bend/break the rules to do what they pleased and failed, and quit because RPI just wasn't what they preferred.

I don't dispute this. In fact, I'd say it's a very accurate reason why. But I have yet to see a player who began on any RPI go to a different type of game to find RP. I have seen players who first played an RPI quit to go off to play WoW and Gemstone. RPI just wasn't their cup of tea.

I have seen numerous players who did not start on RPIs leave to go back to the system they were more comfortable with. I have seen many RPI players play other games so they could do "some mindless bashing" (as one put it). But I have seen none that have started on RPIs and left them to RP elsewhere. I've known a few who've tried and they either endlessly come back to RPIs (no matter what the circumstances that caused their departure) or quit MUDding altogether. I spoke with one just the other day (and I myself essentially fall into this category). I spoke to another a couple weeks ago. Sadly, most, I don't hear from any more as they've abandoned text-based gaming altogether. And that's what concerns me as the out-flow of talent dangerously exceeds the in-flow in some RPIs, even with staff (I still have some players come to me with questions about Harshlands because, to quote one, "[they] don't have confidence in the staff to know the answers to [their] questions...." and that's scary).

I've never said anything to the contrary. RPI MUDs are not for everyone. In fact, it's been my experience that a good number of MUD players don't have the combination of creativity and maturity to successfully play any RPI, to say nothing of the grammar and vocabulary to adequately express themselves through text-based role-play.

RPIs have always had small numbers. They were and continue to be a small niche community. In 1998 there were how many MUDs? And only three RPIs. Ten years later, that number is double, but only within the last few years (since the release of the SoI RPI Engine). Several RPIs have since seen a vast increase in player numbers. Harshlands' average online numbers are up by at least 200-300% what they were when I first started playing there almost a decade ago. SoI, despite being only half as old, has a playerbase that sometimes gains more players per month than Harshlands did in its first few years combined. But a lot of this new influx of players also come carrying the baggage of code and RP policies from non-RPIs, which in itself is not unsual. However, sometimes they have trouble adapting because they've played 20 other "RPIs" where it was perfectly acceptable to do the skill spamming you refer to or to go out killing anything they find roaming the streets.

So there's no "patting [myself] on the back". If anything, I think RPIs have experienced a horrific fall-off in quality. Part of this is due to the lowering of standards by the staff of the RPIs themselves, mainly done to attract more players but also in response to the influx of players not only unfamiliar with RPIs but also resistant to conforming to the policies. In the old days, they got booted out of the game. Now, some admins are letting them stay, accepting that two or three poor players who don't know the setting, don't care about the setting, and don't care about the game's policies are better than one good one who does. It creates a sad discrepancy between the game's policies and the reality of what occurs.

Jason

Last edited by prof1515 : 03-18-2008 at 03:21 AM.
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Old 03-18-2008, 03:39 AM   #45
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Yeah, because jogging a lot won't make you a better soccer player. Cross training doesn't exist. Playing the piano won't improve my finger dexterity and make me a better typist. Whatever. Keep arguing for realism while ignoring reality.

You insist your preferences are superior to everyone else's preferences in the whole world. In your mind, what you like is inherently better and more realistic. And why is it more realistic?

Sorry to disappoint you, but RPIs do not have the "best" role play. They have one kind of role play. Your insistence that it is the "best" is precisely the elitism so many have spoken of since the beginning. Tons of people leave RPIs because they think the RP is better elsewhere. A lot of people think the kind of cutter, emo crap that takes place on a lot of RPIs is immature, boring, and repetitive.

Last edited by Valg : 03-18-2008 at 10:09 PM. Reason: Removing some content. Please address the topic, not the person.
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Old 03-18-2008, 07:48 AM   #46
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Late to the party, but:

Milieu-dependent. MUDs exist where the physical death of a character results in them being sent to an underworld, etc. A futuristic MUD might consist largely of cyberspace, where 'death' simply means being forced into an organic world for some time. These MUDs might even share the same underlying engine. In these sets of physical laws, the correct roleplay decision is that traditional permadeath models would be OOC. What you really want here is internal consistency, not realism. After all, it's not 'realistic' that you have wizards and such in Armageddon, etc. It is, however, internally consistent with the rules of the world.

A) This is irrelevant because you cannot enforce it. A dedicated player who wants two or more accounts can have two or more accounts.
B) Even when a player allows you to link their characters, isn't this an OOC mechanism? I would think that in an "intensive" role play environment, the admins would be judging the quality of a performance or applications strictly on the merit of that character. The 'special' roles seem like a mock audition for a role in, say, a local community theater, except the director decides who gets the part before seeing the tryouts, based on resumes.

Already covered in detail. You are using integers to track the abilities of a character, but parse them differently (sometimes more coarsely, sometimes not) when explaining them to the character's player. All games have these sorts of abstractions.

Finally, an actual feature. I'm not sure the absence of 'stock' emotes helps more than it harms, and 'extensive' is purely arbitrary, but you have the core of something here. It's harder to roleplay when the code doesn't put power in the hands of players.

Artificially slow combat has advantages (time for unwieldy syntax, emotes/ etc.) and disadvantages (many players feel combat is enhanced by a more realistic high-stress rapid pace). I don't see what the absence or presence of a crafting system has to do with the 'pace' of the world.

All roleplaying MUDs I'm aware of have coded echoes of the sort you're describing. Day/night descriptions are an arbitrary feature that your MUD (and mine) have, but they're no more or less important that any number of other distinctions we could draw. Does your MUD have weather-dependent descriptions? Character-height-dependent? Seasonal? Are they changed by local combat? Why is day/night the only variable that matters?

What if the purpose of your game makes combat or crafting unlikely? What if you're running a purely political MUD? Why is that not able to bill itself as "roleplay intensive". Because characters don't fight to the death or spend hours making hats?

Again, you're acting to exclude games where fighting is unlikely, or else where the results are decided by the combatants or arbitrators. There exist MUDs where each combatant describes their actions to a moderator, who decides what happens next based on creativity, the storyline, who the characters are, etc. It seems odd that such a system would be considered less roleplay-intensive than your preferred system.

Milieu-dependent. A futuristic MUD set on a space station might well have a global PA system. Divine beings could likely make their thoughts known to all mortals. Etc.
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Old 03-18-2008, 08:17 AM   #47
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

No, in the beginning people associated RPIs with quality role-play, whether accurate or not. It became an assumption that RPI somehow indicated the quality of role-play.

Last edited by Valg : 03-18-2008 at 10:00 PM. Reason: Removing the majority of the post due to personal attacks.
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Old 03-18-2008, 09:00 AM   #48
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

The game world design drives the code, not vice versa and a good number, if not all, such examples are typically code driving world design.

It can be enforced. IP comparison is one method but it's true that twinks can find ways around that. Still, it's not irrelevant any more than "enforced role-play" is. As enforced role-play is a concept which at the heart of RPIs, RPOs, and RPEs, it's hardly irrelevant. Fact is, two accounts, one or both gets deleted along with the characters and then the decision, though some are hesitant, is whether or not to ban.

Sure players can try sneaky ways to get back. I banned the same guy two or three times for multi-play, evading previous bans, and all-around general rudeness involving anti-Semitism, racism, and sexism directed at other players and staff. Wasn't too hard to figure out who he was since he had an IQ of a rabbit and was fairly easy to spot if I caught sight of his RP and character types. Didn't take much effort on my part to do some double-checking within the community and find out that sure enough the moron had mentioned to someone he was back playing. Then it was a very quick personal message (visible only to him) of "Ban extended by six more months, goodbye asswipe" and a nuke of his character and account (and a ban of the IP of his school or friend or whoever it may have belonged to). Has the potential to be disruptive though he tended not to RP so much as mob kill and as a result every time he was alone in the woods killing animals.

But this isn't a fault of the system, it's a fault of the player who seeks to find ways to cheat. You can't necessarily stop cheaters all the time but you certainly can make it a policy to prohibit cheating, eliminating any discussion on whether or not punishment is warranted.

The point is that the play can't see the specifics of their attribute and skill aptitude meaning micromanagement of it and dependence upon the numbers to make decisions in RP is rendered difficult if not impossible. That's quite different from the original H&S code where it is routine for people to use the numbers to dictate their choices.

I wouldn't put day/night descriptions on the list seeing as this was not something widespread throughout (examples of it, yes, but not widespread use until more recently) RPIs.

I believe the more appropriate distinction would be that the systems exist to compliment the world. Crafts can also be used for a wide variety of uses. In the case of the RPI Engine, the crafting system is incredible powerful and has been used quite creatively to brilliant effect. Crafts need not be for manufacture. They can be used to simulate, with results beyond that of an emote, actual processes. This can be as simple as cutting a piece of paper with scissors, creating two smaller pieces.

My own game will feature little to no fighting whatsoever but our craft list will be huge by comparison. Many of these crafts will be for simulation of actions producing changes beyond that of what an emote can do.

Policy-wise, the example you give, is a good one of role-play enforcement. However, Role-Play Intensive was used to describe more than policy alone. It was also about code design. In the example you gave, the code for this aspect of interaction is absent altogether. There is a procedure in place for role-playing the action but there is no coded system for that action beyond emotes.

The examples you give, there is limited responsive ability. One should not be able to respond back via the "global PA system" (unless it's voice activated perhaps) unless they're capable of activating the system. So if a person were to bash the PA system, they shouldn't be able to communicate. And yet, there's a global channel still in place for their use over which they could still be subjected to hearing communication. If capable of being toggled off, another player in the room could still hear it unless they too toggled it off. This is because it's independent of the setting. Now, if it were scratch-built to accomodate the kind of situations mentioned above, that would be acceptable as it's part of the setting. But otherwise, it's really nothing more than an excuse for a standard non-RPI feature, quite often nothing more than a hold-over from H&S code.

The second example is equally vexed if the ability is not limited to "divine beings" alone. Again, this is an issue with code design following world design rather than vice versa. It's little more than the excuse of "everyone's telepathic" to justify the existance of stock code global channels. World design should dictate the code, not the other way around.

Take care,

Jason
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Old 03-18-2008, 10:34 AM   #49
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Threshold, you might want to re-check the position of your foot. I think it's stuck in your mouth again.

I'm not a member of the "hardcore RPI community." I don't play any RPIs, and haven't for quite some time.
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Old 03-18-2008, 02:00 PM   #50
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Prof, I never, ever, said you deserved anything about your ankles. You have either mistaken me for someone else or grossly misinterpreted something I said. I actually expressed genuine and sincere sympathy to you over your health issue when . I even shared a personal experience where I also suffered from a chronic illness. No good deed goes unpunished apparently.

Both past and present, I fail to see how going after people's family members is at all appropriate when discussing and debating issues related to MUDs.

Moderator note: Agreed. If either of you still needs to work this out, please use PMs or email. Let's keep the topic to what is (or isn't) RPI.

Last edited by Valg : 03-18-2008 at 10:17 PM. Reason: Replying to personal attacks deleted elsewhere.
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Old 03-18-2008, 03:04 PM   #51
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Valg,

I thought your post was very well written. Much better than I could articulate. Thank you for that. Though it may have gotten lost in the posts in between. I echo just about every sentiment you state.

Jazuela,

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought you said you started playing Armeggedon a few years ago and have been playing it since? I did not know you stopped playing.
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Old 03-18-2008, 06:02 PM   #52
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Because a MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game runs in a server somewhere and multiple people connect to this game server and play the game simultaneously. Not all graphical RPG's fill this criterion.

PS. Treshold and Prof, if you could take the personal attack-parts to PM's or the flame thread for the sake of brevity, it'd be appreciated.
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Old 03-18-2008, 06:27 PM   #53
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Actually this is inaccurate. Having programmed for a Graphical RPG online there is absolute no difference between a MUD Server supporting multiple players and a MMO Server. The only difference is that some high end MMO's have multiple servers.
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Old 03-18-2008, 06:44 PM   #54
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

I started playing Armageddon in late 2002, early 2003 I believe. My account hasn't been active there since late 2005-early 2006.
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Old 03-18-2008, 10:47 PM   #55
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

I was talking about MUDs to a non-MUDder the other day and used the term PK. They asked what I meant. Suddenly, I realized, there's a term that is used to describe MUDs that seems to have little or no confusion whatsoever and yet it's totally inaccurate. Player-Killing is not an accurate description of what goes on. No player is killed. No player has ever been killed by another on a PK MUD, a H&S MUD, or any type of RP MUD. Their character may be killed, but the player isn't. If one tried to argue that it stands for Player-Character Killing, that might work except the abbreviation should therefore be PCK.

And yet this inaccurate term is accepted by the community to define a specific type of game. PK, after all, takes place on many types of MUDs, most of which aren't referred to as PK MUDs. And yet when you say PK MUD, there's a generally-accepted type that is noted. This isn't, as noted by others, the only terminology which has a name not very accurate in its description of what it applies to. How then is this different from RPI?

Is RPI completely accurate? No, it can be misinterpreted. English is a horrid language because words can have different meanings depending upon how you read them. RPI is accurate but can be interpreted in a completely different way by different individuals. Even within the RPI community we've seen that there are various views on what constitutes a core feature. That's why an examination of what the term originally referred to is critical to understanding how the term was intended. Those features shared at the term's origination provide a guideline for defining the core features that the term applied to. Subjective interpretations of RP are just that: subjective. It must be the unchanging features which were without variation that need be discerned. Only in that way can you avoid the "but we do it this way" or "why can't we do it this way?" arguments.

Take care,

Jason
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Old 03-19-2008, 03:09 AM   #56
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Hey Jazuela,

Sorry for mistaking that. Thank you for clarifying.
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Old 03-19-2008, 07:49 AM   #57
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

Unless I completely misread what DurNominator said, he's not comparing MMOs with MUDs, but rather MMOs with Computer RPGs (CRPGs).

Features found in a typical CRPG include things like character development, freedom of movement, multiple quests, combat based (at least partially) on character ability, a well-developed fictional setting, etc. However many CRPGs are exclusively single-player games, and even those with multiplayer support are usually a primarily single-player game.

I suspect that's where 'MMORPG' comes from - they're not just Multiplayer RPGs, they're Massively Multiplayer RPGs that (unlike most CRPGs) can only be played Online. As such I would consider MUDs/MMO(RPG)s a subset of CRPGs. I guess we can all click the 'Roleplaying Enforced/Mandatory' checkbox now, as pretty much every mud fulfills the criteria of a Computer Role-Playing Game.
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Old 03-19-2008, 08:40 AM   #58
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

After reading these threads for a while, I think I have a clearer way to explain why the RPI community is going to continue having a hard time claiming the title RPI as their own. Before the term RPI or "RP Intensive" was adopted by three games with a specific feel or feature set, it already meant something in the gaming community and continues to mean something to the vast majority of gamers.

RP Intense = The RP on or with this game is intense or the RP is the focus of the game.

Now a subset of the MUDing community is trying to claim it for their own saying that it not only refers to the RP on their games but also a list of specific features. They can continue to call themselves whatever they wish and continue to use the term, but they don't have a right to be upset when people use the term or initials as it is commonly defined with almost everyone else. It was a very poor choice, and if the Armageddon style games don't change the name they are going to have live with the consequences of that poor choice.

Please don't get me wrong, I don't have anything at all against these games. I've played several of them myself. For their own sake and sanity, I do hope they come up with a more unique term to categorize their games.
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Old 03-19-2008, 09:03 AM   #59
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

You might want to re-read then, because you have it backward. The term RPI became popular -as a direct result- of players using it to describe the "big three." RPI referred to the "big three" FIRST. THEN it started referring to whatever NewForumMember wanted it to mean.

I'm one of the most "vocal" people here about the term RPI, and I haven't played one since 2006. So I'm not trying to "claim it for my own" because frankly I have no stake in it one way or another. The community came up with the term. Not the RPI community exclusively. The mudding community at large. It came up with the term, described it even though they never fairly defined it, and the description stuck.

Every so often, someone pops up saying that RPIs aren't really RPIs, or that THEIR game should be an RPI even though it doesn't fit the rules, and another 5-thread, 20-page discussion comes up. It dies down after a few weeks, and we don't have to deal with it again for another 6 months or so.

In addition, so far as I can tell, none of the "Armageddon style game" admins are posting here complaining about anyone's use of the term. None of them are upset about it, or feel their rights are being infringed upon. There seems to be simply a very "textually vocal" discussion amongst players, ex-players, and non-players of RPIs regarding the use of the term.
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Old 03-19-2008, 10:23 AM   #60
shasarak
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Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud.

That may be true, but I'm not sure it matters; it doesn't change the fact that it's a dangerously imprecise term that people have decided to use to describe an extremely precise concept.

I have nothing against a MUD that has an "RPI" style; but it is emphatically wrong to suggest that all of the features that the "RPI" community espouse are necessary for "an Intense Role-Playing experience" because they quite clearly aren't.

Most of the features listed in the first post of this thread will, at best, only contribute to the RP experience in some games. There's no reason at all why an "intensive RP MUD" should (for example) have permadeath; it's just as easy to have an intensive RP experience within a game world where the logic of that world's physical laws makes permadeath impossible.

If the "RPI" community wants to play a game with all of those characteristics, then more power to them, but they need to stop using the term "RPI" to describe it.
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