Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

No it doesn't give them control over the definition. But the original usage of the acronym or term will be adhered to stringently by the people who know of it's original use. Especially in tight-knit communities that MUDs are known for. Kavir has made the point, you call a DIKU a DIKU, a ROM is a ROM, etc. The same thing applies to the RPI acronym. Just because it's not code doesn't mean the term doesn't have requirements for it's usage which is defined in a certain manner by several MUDs that know of this original usage.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Using a term with an established definition to describe something else in the same field only creates confusion.

To use your example, you won't find any doctors coining diseases with the acronym of AIDS because it causes confusion. Imagine if someone used the term to describe a genetic predisposition to catching the common cold. Would you like to be the patient that the doctor walks in and tells that they've "...got AIDS" or the person who contributes to research only discover it's for a cure for some obscure condition that just means someone gets the sniffles instead of the condition resulting from HIV? I doubt it.

Jason

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

my head just exploded trying to follow this.....

:-)

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

LOL

In other words, Threshold's argument used an example involving an acronym being used in two completely different fields. That isn't the case with the term RPI where you've got an established term being used by others to describe something else in the same field (ie, text-based gaming). It would be akin to doctors using the term AIDS to refer to a head cold.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Yet they did close to that with the 2008 "Swine Flu", by calling it H1N1, which describes several variants of the Influenza A virus. Some have had to take to calling it H1N1/09 to differentiate it.

You may all resume your former argument...

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Don't even bother using facts or logic with talking to Prof. He still thinks the people who coin a term have some kind of magical and absolute control over how that term evolves or gets used in the future.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Once again you're arguing against the person rather than the facts. Just because most people think a spider is an insect doesn't make it an insect. Hence even if many people think RPI means anything they want it to mean doesn't mean they're correct either.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Oh I know. Let's just use logic and facts to state that any acronym is up for grabs. I'm going to start using PK as Player Knights. It will be used on my mud to describe players that are currently playing the highly ranked and rare knight class.

Forget about the years of usage as Player Kill. That's hogwash. I can use it anyway I want regardless of the established usage of the acronym for decades.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

If Delerak gets to use PK to mean Player Knights, then I feel we need to include Paradiddle Knuckling, which is a drummer technique for my game's bard class. My game is definitely not PK - killing players is strictly against the rules. We do have CvC, which is Character vs. Character, and I feel that the people who -insist- that PK means player killer should be instructed that PK doesn't mean player killer at all since (hopefully) no players are being killed. I feel you should all immediately change it to CvC, and allow PK to mean paradiddle knuckling and player knights.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Honestly, if you want to define PK as Paradiddle Knuckling on your MUD, have at it. And if someone wants to define PK as Player Knights, they should go for it as well.

That's the whole point. They are free to use those terms however they want. I invite you, Delerak, or anyone else to use those acronyms however you want. If the general populace finds it absurd, you'll only embarrass yourself.

I guess we should thank you and Delerak for providing another example of why people are completely free to call their game an RPI if they think Role Playing Intensive suits their game. Thanks!

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

The question isn't whether people are free to use the term however they want, as clearly they are. Nobody here is in a position to prohibit the use of the term RPI by anyone however they wish to use it.

The question is should MUDs that are not RPIs by the current definition exercise this freedom to broaden the use of the term. Whether you agree with prof and his list of 19 features or not, the term RPI has come to have a specific meaning much narrower than the words role-play intensive might otherwise suggest.

I don't run an RPI and have never actually played one, but if I see a game advertised as an RPI I can form a picture of what features and what style of game it might be. The term is useful precisely because it has a specific meaning.

What exactly is to be gained by encouraging a broader use of the term? Who exactly does it help? Certainly not the players of RPIs who are going to have difficulty finding new games to try because of all the MUDs now calling themselves RPIs. Certainly not the MUDs that are going to get new players looking for an RPI logging in and complaining that the MUD doesn't have the features of an RPI.

By trying to broaden the definition of the term RPI and insist that those MUDs now calling themselves RPIs adopt some new acronym I think you're attempting to solve a problem that simply doesn't exist.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

The only part of the question I am involved in is whether or not the person who coins a term controls how it is used once it has been released in the wild. And my point was they do not.

As for the rest of the debate, I find it utterly pointless.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

While their examples were meant as sarcastic, they do illustrate the absurdity of the "opposition" to the term. People are free to call their game RPI, Role-Playing Intensive or Role-Play Intensive if they so choose. However, they're also using the term incorrectly and demonstrating either ignorance or deliberate deceit in doing so. As Threshold said, they're just embarassing themselves. Thus they have no room for complaint when they're corrected or ridiculed because the fault lies with them. The same goes for any other term that is used correctly. But it doesn't change the definition of the term RPI or any other term. It just makes those that use it incorrectly look ignorant or deceitful.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Something needs to be said here and it is a strong reason I find it pointless to continue this discussion.

I reviewed these more than 400 posts between the two threads related to RPI and I've found one thing in common. While several Admin/Owners of RPE and other styles of Muds have commented why RPI is a global term for all games, not a single Admin or Owner of any open game called an RPI by the RPMUD group has made a single comment about this discussion. I found this astonishing. Please correct me if I missed something and am wrong about this.

Is there a reason to continue this discussion without a singular voice from someone in authority (meaning an owner of one of the original games) making some comment on their own position? Is it possible that they don't even care for the term or would be entirely happy with a better, more definable term.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I was an admin on Shadows of Isildur from January 2004 until January 2005 when I resigned and began work on TSOY and have since turned down staff offers on four other RPI projects. However, very few of the other RPI admins frequent these forums, or at least very few if any of them post here much if they do. Some of them have weighed in on discussions in the past elsewhere however....

From Haiwolfe, former head administrator of Shadows of Isildur:
From Traithe, former coder on Harshlands and founder of Shadows of Isildur:
From Frisia, former administrator on Shadows of Isildur:
These quotes are taken from .

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I will also point out that Delerak's RPI may very well have opened, at least for beta testing, before he decided to shut down the project.

The 19 characteristics were the result of a round table of several RPI admins and players (from Harshlands, Shadows of Isildur and Armageddon) who basically sat down, figuritively in an AIM chat room, and examined the original RPIs of which there was consensus as to the application of that term. These three (Armageddon, Harshlands and Forever's End) were examined for the characteristics that they shared in common that were not typical of the average stock MUD. The result was the list of 18 characteristics (a 19th was pointed out a few months later in another discussion) consisting of both code and policy philosophy including the "four most important" listed by Traithe in the above discussion from 2005. This list was then compared to other MUDs past and present. The result was a list of slightly under two dozen (at that time) which met the same conditions. A comparison today reveals a total of 32 in the last fifteen years.

Finally, I'll also point out that the RPMUD Network has three terms for role-play enforced games, along the lines of what Haiwolfe suggested while taking into account Traithe's observation of either being or not being RPI. There is RPI (Role-Play Intensive) for those games meeting the original application of the term, there is RPE (Role-Play Enforced) for games which possess a policy of required/enforced role-play, and there is RPO (Role-Play Oriented) for those games which not only feature a policy of required/enforced role-play but also additional features not conforming to the more specific term of RPI but clearly being different than the standard RPE.

Now, that's a lot of information. Where, I ask, is any evidence for the history or value of the term RPI having any justifiable use besides that which has been so thoroughly outlined above?

Jason

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

You're right. They don't really care what all of us think to be honest. Nor would I if I was still running my own RPI mud. Because in the end, players who play at RPI muds will simply walk away from any mud that is claiming RPI and yet has something like the character generation of Threshold's MUD. It's simply obvious that when you login to Threshold it is not an RPI at all. Which is fine, because Threshold never claimed it was.

If you visit the forums of any RPI mud they have very tight-knit communities that border on fanaticism for that one game. That unfortunately is something that breeds an almost outsider-like quality to each RPI mud, hence they do not visit forums such as these, they stick to their own forums and could care less what mud sites think of them.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I get same responses from the same people. Nothing has changed. The people you quote are no longer owning or running the games I speak about above.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I answered your question. Most of the RPI community stays away from TMS. For some, it's because they're just not into forums, others simply don't have time and for yet others they remember that in the past they've been attacked here as "elitist" and other nonsense.

What difference does it make anyway if a game is open or not? You've heard from various admins from the RPI community. I own and run a RPI in development. Why does my view suddenly become more important when we open? The only difference between being in development and being open is that you allow players onto your grid.

As a result, your request seems rather pointless.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I have posted a poll on a site that I run just for RPI admins. There are 47 members, including admins, owners, imms, veteran players, and ex-staff members. I asked why they don't come here to answer your questions. I pointed out the link. Of the 47 members, 13 of them responded. Of those 13 responses, 12 responders chose "Who is Newworlds and why should I care about his opinion?" One responder chose "I don't participate in TMS forums."

So there you have it.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Nice poll Jazuela. Completely sided and unsubstatiated. It does nothing to continue this thread. I still see no reason to continue this thread without someone of authority speaking on behalf of the so-called "RPI's".

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

You probably won't get that. They just don't care enough about the entire mud community to come here and post. It would take somebody close to them bringing to their attention this thread and the question. Their interests lie in their RPI muds, not TMS and the petty squabbles between New Worlds and the RPI players/admins who do choose to come here and argue for the RPI acronym.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I agree and the reason it is hard to continue the thread with any reasonable discussion that hasn't already been presented.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

That's ridiculous. Everything we've said is reasonable. The term came into being from the RPI's. Just because the original admins or the current admins of those RPI's don't come here and join our "crusade" against New Worlds doesn't mean we're wrong. It also doesn't mean you're wrong, but I think you are.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, does it? These tags exist to help lazy players find games faster! (I include myself in that lazy player category.) In general, it's the "RP" in the whole thing that matters. For a few gamers who like to pen themselves into a little box, they will say things like "I will NEVER play an RPI!!" (See that? I bolded it and itlicized it.) or "I will ONLY play an RPI!!!!" MOST gamers, though, simply want to find a fun game that has the few basic things they enjoy. Some gamers say "I enjoy crafting". Very few gamers will say, "I want a crafting system with at least 200 ingredients and 2,000 recipes and 150 pieces of gear for crafters to sell, wear, and dance around in." (By the way, my new game does have that if anyone is looking for something that specific.)

For most people who are involved in RP-whatever, what they want is some form of RP with some game mechanics thrown in. For several, the presence of perma-death or lack thereof may make or break the game for them. For some others, open PK or the lack of an open PK system matters. Ultimately, a player is going to play the game they want to play regardless of what tag is on there.

It seems kind of silly to me for people to get all peeved when someone posts wanting an RPI or advertising one when it doesn't EXACTLY fit with some nebulous definition just as it's silly for others to rage that they are definitely an RPI regardless of whether of that nebulous definition. If most RPI players don't care or even want to participate with the mud community, it doesn't really matter what RPI comes to mean outside of it, does it? And if those players don't care anyway, what's the point of using the RPI moniker? :) It seems better just to list the traits that your mud has or read what a player is looking for regardless of whether or not the three dreaded letters of R, P, and I are used.

Every game is ultimately an RP-something: RP enforced, RP Intense, RP-banned-if-you-do-it, RP-only-if-you're-a-dork. All you old timers know very well that there's a new acronym popping up in the gaming world that doesn't make any sense or fit at all. (MMORPG anyone? MMOFPS?? MMOPPOTAMUS!) Ultimately, we have way too many people on Threshold that move in and out of all of these types of games to really care what exactly we are and what exactly else they play. I'm just glad to have them when we do and glad to have anyone else who wants to visit from whatever RP-thing they're from.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

You misread my post. I said, "...that hasn't already been presented."

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

The poll may not be scientific but I believe you'll find the general opinion across the RPI community to be the same.

How do you define "authority"? Being an admin on an open RPI? Why does it have to be open? Why do they have to be an admin? Besides, what difference will it make if someone else comes in and speaks and says the same thing that's already been said? The facts don't change just because they're coming from someone else.

Chances are I've spent more time researching RPIs over the last five years alone (to say nothing of the years before that) than most of the MU* community combined. I'm played every RPI that's opened, been administrator on one, turned down requests to join the staff of a couple others and started my own. I've also played nearly a thousand MU*s since being intruduced to them in 1997, several hundred of them for at least 25 hours and a couple dozen for hundreds of hours. These spanned the spectrum of types including RPIs, RPOs, RPEs, H&S, PvP, PK, MUDs, MUSHes, or what-have-you. I've played graphical RPGs as well. Can you claim the same? If not, what makes you think you can identify "someone of authority"?

You are right about one thing. There's little reason to continue this thread. The "discussion" has been decidedly one-sided with a plethora of information and evidence presented to demonstrate why RPI is and has been a specific term for specific type of role-playing game. There's been no evidence presented to support any other definition or use except for arguments which fail to provide any logical or practical reason why the term should be used in any other manner.

I'm about to go watch some football. Figuritively speaking, this game's pretty much over and it's been a blow-out. Now, if my alma mater wins, I'll be celebrating a second victory of the day.

Later,

Jason

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

God Wars certainly doesn't associate itself with roleplay. Plenty of MUDs don't. That's why people get their panties in a bunch. Why does it irk me? Because when I go to a mud advertising itself as an RPI I expect to find the RPI traits that I found at the 3-4 other RPI's I played at. If I don't find that, I'm agitated at the MUD for wasting my time. It's almost a pathetic attempt to steal away RPI players, when in fact all you'll do is shy them away as soon as they see the mud isn't what they thought it was. You're just getting your mud a bad reputation with the RPI mud players is all.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Well, it seems like then that would just be bad for my mud if I were to use the RPI moniker. (Which I don't, thank goodness!) Thus, it would be my problem and my bad name, wouldn't you say? I go on tons of games that have features I don't like or get bored of quickly that aren't advertised or listed. And then I find a lot of games that have features that don't make the list. Very few games are EXACTLY what they say they are, and honestly, if I didn't have a clue what RPI meant, which lots of people clearly don't considered the number of times this topic has come up and people (mostly players) still keep using it however they want, except that it means Roleplay-SOMETHING, does it really matter? Seriously, I'm not going to hold it against Armageddon that it's label as an RPI if I actually liked the game. Same as I'm not going to hold it against New Worlds if they decided to call themselves a non-graphical MMORPG if I end up liking the game.

I think it's a little laughable to claim that people want to "steal away" RPI players. You can't steal anyone away unless they like the game they're playing. Anyway, I'm guessing you don't find this whole topic as funny as I do. :)

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

If they can find it. But as you pointed out earlier, it's the tags that help the players find the game/s they want to play. That's why listing sites such as TMS have options that mud owners can select, so that players don't have to manually search through every listed mud.

Regardless of peoples personal views on the term "RPI", I would hope that most mud owners recognise that diluting the meaning of established terms reduces the value of search engines and increases the difficulty of finding games with specific criteria, which in turn is detrimental to both players and mud owners. You might call players lazy for relying on search options, but the fact is that while players aren't going to play a game they hate, few of them are willing to try all 1849 of the muds listed on TMS until they find the one that's right.

Not really. Many games don't care about RP at all - it's simply irrelevant to the game.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Yep, and I still stand by the opinion that MOST people looking for RP are only looking for the first two letters and really don't mind what comes next. That's why you run into so many people who have absolutely no clue what an RPI is, how some people think it should be used, and why this topic keeps coming up. If people KNEW what it was, it wouldn't be "misused" so often, and we wouldn't be discussing it. As it is, it's usually a random person posting that they want an RPI mud and then 3-5 people telling them how they're so silly for thinking that what they want is an RPI because of X, Y, and Z.

Quite right, which is why I don't use the term RPI for any of my games, nor am I interested in using it. RPI is not one of the "categories" with which you can actually label your mud for any ranking or sorting purposes on TMS, so I don't really see how you are going to "search" for it anyway. You can search for roleplay mandatory or roleplay encouraged or accepted. (Maybe you can search for roleplay banned. I don't think I've seen that listing, though.) There's no roleplay intensive listing. Why? Because there's only a FEW people who really care beyond whether or not roleplay exists on a mud. Some people don't want it at all. Some people must have it. Everything else is just a feature set.

That would fall under RP-completely irrelevant to the game, or as I posted above, "RP-banned-if-you-do-it, RP-only-if-you're-a-dork". My point being that the RP part of it is pretty much the only important part of the entire moniker, not that all games or muds are centered around RP. :P

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

It would be nice to discuss this issue with the owner of the team, not a cheerleader. (I'm speaking metaphorically, I'm not calling you a cheerleader directly).

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Then I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. Particularly when "what comes next" includes things like:



In the paragraph you quoted I was speaking about mud terms in general - I said "established terms" (i.e., not just RPI) and "search engines" (plural). Different search engines do provide different options (such as MudBytes pay-for-perks), while some (such as TMC) allow you to search through the mud descriptions as well.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Nobody is claiming ownership. That's absurd. We're just claiming that the acronym came from a certain place to describe a certain type of MUD with a certain amount of features. It's quite simple really.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

So in God Wars, people don't play a role?

You enter your RL age, bench press, etc. and then perform mundane everyday tasks?

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

We chat about it - sure. You don't play a role, you play yourself. The code and system used is there to add variety to the world which is completely designed towards pkilling, not roleplaying.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Seriously...

Can't this just be dropped? Neither side is going to change the other side's mind. Deal with it!

I will admit, I side with Prof and Delerak on the issue of what RPI 'stands for'. However, that is not because I am a huge fan of that style of game. In fact, I've played them and given them a chance only to find that I heavily dislike them. As an avid roleplayer, I love the concept of what was attempted, but the current codebases out there to support it all see lacking and quite frankly hacked together. As such I will generally avoid an RPI. Perhaps a modern version of an RPI codebase could fix some of the issues I have with the current versions out there.

Now despite that, I really think RPI term should be left to mean those '19 things'. One reason is that most thing the Intensive part is speaking of the quality of RP in the games. I can hoenstly say that s not the case.. Intensive for them means that it take quite a bit of effort just to do any tiny little thing. The games really are pretty much simulations. I've not seen any other MUD hit the sheer level of complexity that RPIs have... aside from the healing system in IRE games.

It does need to be acknowledged that words and terms *do* change over time. It's happened in many religious circles, where a word used to mean one thing but it became a buzz word and everyone started using it, until now the original group to whom the word applied pretty much is told they know nothing and that they are utterly wrong. Granted some of the old-timers get very irate over the use of it by the new kids. However, quite a few, on both sides, are quite willing to acknowledge that what they do is not the same thing, but both are valid in their own right.

That is exactly what has happened here. Noone is going to agree on what the term should mean. People have a different interpretation of just what RPI means. SOme say it refers to the level of work it takes to play the game. others say it refers to the quality or just how heated the RP can be. Both are valid interpretations of it. Who cares which is 'more right'? The only thing you can do is decide for yourself what it means and look at it fromt hat. Yes it means you have to filter through a few other things that claim to be RPI but don't fit your interpretation, but there's so few MUDs really that you can handle it.. you are grown up afterall (I hope). The other side to that coin is you need to stop getting mad when someone says they don't agree with your interpretation... esp the game owners. If you list yourself as RPI, but a site that lists muds has a different interpretation of the term, don't go nutso over the fact that you can't be listed as RPI. Just abide by the definitions that site uses.

Now all that said... everyone please just shut up about this mess. It's been going on for freaking ever and it gets nowhere. The same things are said over and over.. by BOTH sides.. and hen devolves into name calling and flame baiting. Just get over yourselves.


PSA.. Yes I am one of the committee members of RPMUD (formerly RPImud.net). Stop calling us all Prof's minions and puppets. I most certainly am not his meat puppet. I've agreed with him in some cases, and I've disagreed in others. Seriously though, this argument needs to die and be buried forever. You've all just been making an ass of yourselves by arguing round and round and going nowhere. No one is going to win the argument.

I'm off my soapbox now.

Kerrida

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

It seems pretty simple to me, as a player who has played a ton of different games, owned/staffed for a few successful (and unsuccessful) MUDs from different genres - and generally doesn't care much for game vs game politics.

RPI was a term that was definitely related to Harshlands, ARM and various others from that genre. If you want to tag your MUD as an RPI if it doesn't have permadeath or a core focus on really specific roleplaying (anal retentive roleplaying to some more H+S geared players, I'm sure) ... okay. Go for it. But, you're misleading most people who know what the term RPI has generally been defined as (even if it is unspecific) and confusing newbies who won't understand the difference between a New Worlds and a Shadows of Isildur.

I think of RPI as a code-engine, mostly, with a few games that have created similar styles/systems on their own engines. If I were to try an RPI that wasn't permadeath and had OOC channels (or OOC chatter on regular says/tells), I would be disappointed.

The easiest thing would be to give up the fight and coin your own phrase; I just don't see why there needs to be a fight over the right to use RPI if you exist out of what has been the standard definition. Obviously you have the right, but would it not be better to find a more transparent phrase that would be less likely to confuse expectations for new players?

The RPI Community will never give up the term, willingly, and you cannot really argue that it was not created for that specific genre. Why fight over the word 'Intensive'?

I suggest this website.



That is all.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Exactly. Get a new phrase that is more reflective of the games that want to use RPI as has been suggested numerous times. Problem solved.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

The issue I have with what you are suggesting is that there are definitely more people who recognize RPI as a specific genre than there are people who would rather use the term to describe a game that does not fit into that genre. In fact, the codebase that new RPIs use is literally called the RPI Engine. What I was suggesting, and not in a combative manner, was that fighting against the definition that an entire genre of games has used since its inception to describe their genre is wasteful; it would be far more friendly to the community and to potential players on games that exist outside of this genre (RPI) to not appropriate a confusing term when it is easier (and more specific) to use or create their own term.

I don't have anything against non-RPIs, but it is fruitless to tell an entire community of games and players that they need to re-name their engine and genre. It's just not going to happen.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Just to be clear, I don't think that most of us are fighting against RPI being used by RPI advocates as they see fit. (At least I'm not. I'm pretty sure I used the term correctly and participated in the discussion to actually give it a more specific definition a couple of years ago.) There's simply a good bit of people who simply don't know what it means or what it stands for, and harshing on those people doesn't do anyone a bit of good.

By now, though, I'm sure all the regular participants of TMS do know what it is. :)

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

In the light of fairness and keeping a thread from being derailed, I bring the following post from Jazuela over to this thread. The proper thread for spotlighting the inconsistancies in the RPI group. For some background, this comes from the thread where a player is trying to find a new MUD to play. He tries out Armeggedon but can't figure out some of the commands (not suprisingly):
Excuse me? Armeggedon has OOC right in the game? Some green haired man is talking in ooc right in a tavern in front of the whole intensive roleplay. I boggle at this. Someone explain to me how this keeps the sanctity of roleplay in tact.

Next we have an example of how SOI handles OOC:
An ooc gnome shows up to help people in Game? No offense Jazuela, but I seem to remember you ripping on RPE games that had ooc "channels". Okay, sorry, but it is much better to have a tunable ooc channel where you never come out of ic no matter what than an ooc gnome popping into the game and completely destroying the environment.

Just another example of why RPI is a term that defined as a single category of games. Unless, RPI denotes any game where you can break into ooc anytime you want, which would mean that all RPI's are not RPE's because we do not allow such breaking of character in the game environment.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I think that you misunderstood what Jazuela was suggesting on the other thread.

Both ARM and SOI have an "ooc" command that may be used by newbs if they are overwhelmingly lost, need help and there is no administration to immediately provide them with answers online. However, both games strictly prohibit the use of that command for any other reason but the need for emergency help.

As far as the "gnomes" thing goes ... I'm not so sure where that idea came from, but it actually isn't true. :p There is a "Guest Lounge" on SOI that players can log into as a randomized avatar. It is seperate from the rest of the game world, and there, they can ask other players in the Guest Lounge questions, or freely petition for administrative aid.

There are no global OOC chat channels. Hopefully that clears up how ARM and SOI help players via OOC communication client-side.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

I'm not sure you are right there. From the example, the new player and the old player both use the command and it surely wasn't an emergency and it sounded like this is utilized frequently and with ease. In fact, we have noticed players (who come from those games) on NWA trying to utilize that type of command and even asking if there are "OOC says" in our game. So naturally I am confused as to this type of usage.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

It's likely that those players you're referring to are not RPI players but rather players who have played games incorrectly calling themselves RPI (they might have tried out the RPIs as well but their impression of what is acceptable would appear to be derived from non-RPI MUDs). That's one of the problems with the abuse of the term: players who don't understand or adhere to the policies of RPI MUDs coming in with misconceptions based on the policies of non-RPI games which incorrectly describe themselves as RPI.

Arm, SoI, Harshlands and the other RPIs have strict policies against abuse of OOC. The ooc command is there only for those rare occassions when something needs to be communicated which is of an ooc nature. Players who overuse it have and will be punished (I recall having to tell a newbie once or twice not to overuse the command back when I admin'd on SoI).

Here's SoI's help file on the command:

Note that for a time the OOC Lounge was even closed due to players violating the IC/OOC barrier. This is not allowed in RPIs and I can recall banning a player or two for doing so back in 2004.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

From Arm's help file.


I rarely see people use it in taverns. Only if something like a bug occurs. In private places like apartments and clan compounds it is more prevalent.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

Expanding on Prof's post. I've seen players get both ooc and their wish (petition) commands revoked if they abuse it.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

We put an "owhisper" command in a couple years back, for when such things are needed.
There are times when these is no other way to relay information, or ask questions, in a game. Such commands allow players to remain in character.

Of course, we are more of a "role-play expected" (not to be confused with a "role-play encouraged") game.

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

As a total outsider, I am quite impressed by the Armageddon log. It's a nice piece of roleplay.
However, one small detail in it disturbs me so much that it actually in a way destroys the experience:

It's a minor detail, but it's really irritating, especially as it gets repeated.
If everything else has been coded so nicely to fit the roleplaying mode, why on earth hasn't this been fixed long ago?

That said, allow me as a total outsider to also say that I am getting extremely tired of these endless threads about what honestly seems to be a non-issue.
You guys should get a room. :)

Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay
 

It is fixed. The person chose not to use it, because he didn't care about how he'd see it. There's me, and all its fineries: !me, #me, %me, ^me, etc. etc. to place the enactor in various parts of the sentence. So if you did

say (^me voice hoarse) How about the other way around, sharp-ear?
it'd come out

Your voice hoarse, you ask, in allundean...

and the elf would see:

His voice hoarse, the human asks, in allundean:

From what I've heard, most people don't bother with the first-person viewing and don't really mind about the grammatical faux pas it creates. The only person who sees it "wrong" is the person typing it, and they know what they're trying to say. Considering that most muds don't even have any emoting system at all, and rely only on socials, it's a pretty big jump from mediocrity.