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Many people who play Viagra (pay-to-play/perks) MUDs do so in order to have the opportunity to advance OUTSIDE of the game requirements, no matter how impotent they may be as a player. This is where such MUDs generate a good portion of their money, and why I call them Viagra MUDs. They generate their revenue off the poor slobs who want to compensate for whatever abilities and qualities they lack through the application of their currency. To flex their egos, overcome their insecurities, make themselves feel like they're something they're not.
Thus, I agree with Matt that a pay-to-play RPI would not be a very commercially-successful option.
Why? Because in an RPI environment, it's strict in-character role-play. If it isn't achieved through the game itself, and through acceptable and reasonable actions in-character, it's not something you can just plunk down cash for and receive. Commercially, unless you're simply paying to play and get animations any time you want, you're paying for something which free-to-play RPIs offer anyway. The only thing you'd really be paying for is the availability of staff. However, even there you can't manage sufficient staff to handle everyone WHENEVER they want. The only guaranteed way to do this would be to have such a high ratio of staff to players that you can ensure that if every player were online, they're be staff for every one of them. Maintaining such a high number of staff would be costly, and the cost of playing would have to reflect that. At some point, the cost becomes counter-productive to attracting players and your numbers would be lower, which would lead to less interaction. So, unless players were paying to constantly interact with a staff member, they'd find less opportunity for RP with others.
That doesn't mean it's impossible. It would most certainly be a very cool thing, if done properly. But if you're paying to play in an RPI world, the expectations of quality would have to be pretty high, since you're not paying for any perks aside from quality. Even then, most RPIs, like most MUDs in general, haven't got a perfectly-designed (some of them aren't even well-designed) world, and most players don't have the skills or knowledge to interact completely in it anyway (unless it were contemporary modern). After all, if I'm paying to play in an RPI medieval (to choose an example) environment, I'd expect anyone else I'm interacting with not to say "OK", much less "dude".
So what does one do when a player uses such inappropriate, in-character behavior? Do you ban them from a game they paid to play? If not, you risk losing other paying players. Either way, you're losing revenue, which sets into motion that spiral affect I described above.
In the end, there's probably a half-dozen admins out there with the ability to take on such a project, and a couple dozen players with the ability to play in such a world. Hardly the pool for a successful commercial venture.
It'd still be an awesome idea, but I agree with Matt that it wouldn't be a good choice for a commercially-successful one.
Take care,
Jason
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