The RPIMUD Network

Founded in 2005, the RPIMUD Network was established to serve as a common portal to Role-Play Intensive MUDs, as well as to bring together the role-playing community in one place where we can pool our talents, skills, and resources. The RPIMUD Network provides free listings in our database for textual role-playing games. Some of our features include the ability for your staff and players to vote for your game in an effort to bring it to the top of our ranking list, review any of our affiliates, access general forums related to RPIMUDs and MUDding in general as well as those related to each game in our database. We also offer free web design for our affiliate RPIMUDs. We are continually working to increase the usefulness of the site and introduce new features, such as our soon to be released RPIMUD Trivia system where you can test your knowledge of RPIMUDs and even add your own RPIMUD-related trivia questions.

What Seperates an RPIMUD from a Regular MUD?

RPIMUDs center themselves around suspension of disbelief and playing out specific character roles as if the role were real and you were your character. In general, the objective of the game is not to complete computer-generated quests or tally the most kills in order to gain levels and equipment, but to collaborate with fellow players to create complex and multi-layered storylines in a cohesive gaming environment. RPIMUDs are very different from other MUDs because of the emphasis on character interaction over hack-and-slash gaming.

The majority of RPIMUDs have no character levels and are classless, focusing instead on skills and crafts that players may pursue during the lifetime of their characters. RPIMUDs tend to focus more on role-playing interaction between characters, as well as against the game world or environment, often going as far as to request their players to engage in role-play with inanimate creatures and objects. Such dedication to role-playing, in addition to creating a vivid experience for other players, is often rewarded by staff members who invisibly monitor the game. The best role-players often find themselves able to aquire new skills and roles for their current, and subsequent characters, and are often key figures in the ongoing storylines. Out-of-character communications are often restricted in RPIMUDs, if present at all. If you want to communicate with other characters you have to go find that character and talk to them as your character would talk to theirs. OOC banter is typically not a part of an RPIMUD.

RPIMUDs could be considered giant plays where the setting or world is the theater, and the players are the actors as well as the viewers. RPIMUDs are a newer branch of MUDs in general, but have still been around for a long period of time with many finding their roots in the late 80s and early 90s. Several codebases are used for the creation of RPIMUDs, however a new enthusiasm in this form of niche game began in 2004 with the public release of the Shadows of Isildur RPIMUD Game Engine programmed by C. W. McHenry. This popular codebase is based on Diku Gamma 0.0 and was greatly modified by Charles Rand, aka Rassilon, during the 1990s, for the Harshlands MUD. Many modern RPIMUDs can trace their roots to this famous lineage, and to Armageddon, which was truly groundbreaking in the early 90's and served as the inspiration for Harshlands founder Devon Sharkey.

Joining the RPIMUD Network

The RPIMUD Network offers free membership to all, and free game listings for RPIMUD developers. Joining the Network as a member allows you to access many of our features, takes only a few minutes, and requires only that you have a valid e-mail address so that we may send you a secure password that you will need to activate your RPIMUD Network member account.

As a developer of a RPIMUD you may add your game to our affiliates list by going to the voting system and clicking the Submit Your RPIMUD link. Your game will then be added to our database and ranking system, but you will need to supply artwork for your MUD Icon, or we will create one for you. Please be advised, however, that your game will be visited by Network staff and our members, who will report any abuse of our automated submission process if your game is found to fall short of the common expectations of a RPIMUD. In the event of such an occurance, the violating game will be removed from the list without notice.

Banner Advertising on the RPIMUD Network

The RPIMUD Network has a different approach to banner advertising that most other sites. The banner space is equally available to all of our affiliate RPIMUDs at no cost, with each game's banner viewed in constant rotation during a visit to the page. Banners are not weighted, and are not linked to the game being advertised. If you are an affiliate interested in adding your game's banner to the rotation just e-mail wade@rpimud.net and be sure to attach your banner. Banners can be static or animated .gif files. Static banners will be shown for approximately 30 seconds per rotation. Animated .gif banners will run their full duration provided that the animation is constant and not designed to outweigh other banners. We reserve the right to modify the timing of animated .gif banners as needed, and to refuse to display any banner with inappropriate content. At this time we do not accept Flash banners.

Linking to the RPIMUD Network

If you would like to help promote the RPIMUD Network by adding us as a text link or graphical link/banner on your website, please do. We will also be supplying several styles of vote graphics for use on your offsite forums and websites. For now, one is available, but more will be available here soon. The following artwork is available for your use: