Wrong. Every player who is capable of killing the 'unique' monster will have these special items. What is making everybody sick is the fact that these items are 'special' because the people who are able to get them are for the most part jerks or idiots who have *time* as their commodity. There is nothing to be proud about having *time* to waste sitting on your ass in the middle of a playfield or at the end of a dungeon. This is NOT heroic.Increasing spawing rate (or decreasing respawning timers time), would mean that unique items would be common items. Every players have all those "Unique" items. No... let's keep them unique.
Nobody mentions the fantastic fight they had with Nugget or the Ancient Gargantula for which they were rewarded a very special item. They mention how *lucky* they were to be there when he 'popped' so they could get the item. They mention how boring it was to sit for hours and hours. They mention the arguing over who 'gets' to kill the poor thing. This is plain crap, doodoo, feces.
Take the things out of the game if your special rewards are given for how long you can keep your client logged into the servers while you watch a baseball game and glance over at the game every few minutes to see if your target has 'popped'.
If the defeating of the enemy is special enough to merit a special reward, then I don't care if every damn player in the game has the special item. They earned it. The problem lies in the lvl150's killing a special monster 'for' a lvl50 character who was supposed to _earn_ it. This character should _not_ receive the special item. IT WAS NOT EARNED.
Anytime I read something like the original quote above, I cannot help (rightly or wrongly) but think that the player has either:
a.) managed to camp for countless hours to get his 'reward' and now is afraid his 'item' will be less 'special' if (God forbid) somebody else has it.
-or-
b.) is a member of some guild that has members stationed in a circle around the spawn point and is unwilling to let loose of their private little money pit.
Anarchy Online can do without the existence of the behavior in b.) and I could care less if every player who fits into category a.) leaves the game. We'll be better off without them.
Then there's the off-chance that this is the kind of player who simply wants some things to be 'special' simply because they are rare. These were the 'rare collectors' of UO. They valued a 'marble table' simply because everybody else didn't have one. I can appreciate this to a degree. They provided their share of grief in that game as well but didn't affect the balance of power. (How powerful can a table be?)
If one is so dead set on having rare or unique rewards for patience, then ask for items that are special in rewarding your patience. I offer examples:
1. Unique items that show up 1 in 10000 as mission rewards. Same effect as camping that damn unique for 19 hours. At least the playfield is leveled for every single player. The casual player will eventually get the mission in a statistically even number of tries as the NPC camper in the Uber Guild. I'm serious about this.
2. Have treasure chests randomly spawn at one of 10,000 or so locations scattered around Rubi-Ka. Put something unique in them. Let the player who is willing to search the world for hours on end be rewarded with something for his diligence and patience. I'm serious about this as well.
If you want to reward patience then do it with game mechanisms such as suggestions 1. or 2. These provide even playfields for ALL players to get special items. They _cannot_ be monopolized by a-hole guilds and should not affect character balance.
What must not be done is to artificially increase the value of the rewards for slaughtering an NPC by inflating its spawn rate. This pushes the chances for obtaining such an item far into the jerkish or socially inept player's arena. It encourages poor sportsmanship and reduces the fun for those players who don't wish to engage in such stupidity.
If something such as the 'Shades of Lucubration' affect character power then there MUST be an avenue to their procurement that is equally open to every single player who could benefit from their use. To have that avenue closed off by inconsiderate players or bad game mechanics is a sin. If the monster who drops them will likely kill me 100 times over the course of a week before I conquer him and receive my reward then so be it. I earned them. 'IKillzU' who sat on his ass for 20 hours watching the Sci-Fi channel drinking Jolt cola and then logged in his lvl150 character to kill the monster DID NOT EARN THEM. There is no respect to be given to this player or his gear .... only pity.
Re: Regarding spawn rate.
