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.