Spawning Rares: How to make them rare

I know what some of you are thinking: "Blaise, you don't give a crap about rares. Why are you talking about this?"
To nip that in the bud right away, let me just say, I do care about this shard and the quality therein. If you want to debate quality, I suggest you read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and get back to me.
On to the topic at hand:

Why would something be called 'rare' if you can pinpoint where to find it, and how often? That to me sounds like a garden or a farm, as it were. Once 'someone' gets a lock on those details, it is basically theirs to handle and as such, the items are not rare at all. They are in fact, just loot.

I understand there are rares like the server birth rares, event drop rares, and exploit/bug obtained rares (see also: green spellbooks). I am not concerned with server births, event drop or bug rares in this particular discussion.
I am making this thread to discuss HOW spawning rares are obtained and how we can make obtaining them fun and exciting for all players to have an opportunity to come upon them in the field, rarely.
As it stands, and as I understand it, the spawning rares have general and/or specific locations combined with actual timers (daily/weekly/monthly). The shard is young and from what I've heard, these locations and times are already on lock and being farmed by players.

Therefore, these are not rare anymore. They are decorative items being farmed by those 'in the know' and effectively removed from the game by way of automation, or damn near close to it.

What I propose is that spawning rares actually spawn in random locations. Town containers, dungeon containers, on the ground, on the open sea, wherever you can go with a player, should have the potential for a rare to be there at any given time. For example, stacks of crates, barrels or other containers in dungeons. Wouldn't it be fun if you were out LPing (boring) and happened to come upon a tall candle in a crate? What if you were a newbie hunting brigands and a nifty trinket were spawned in their camp/container?

These are the kinds of things that would make rare-hunting fun and keep the items actually rare. If I know for %100 certain that a new broken chair will be found every month, it's kind of boring. If I think there might be a month or two where no-one finds it, that is exciting. Not only that, it makes me inclined to think I would be spending quite a bit of time out in the field actually checking containers as I crawl a dungeon.
What's that? You see the obvious implication here that random rare spawn locations would encourage more people to get into the field and actually crawl a dungeon or move about the shard in a manner other than 'recall to x location with scavenger already set for all rares'! Of course you do!

That is entirely what I mean. Can we figure out a way to encourage more mobile activity, in place of the current standard of recall macro rare-hunting?
As an aside, I think it would be great to see more incentive to NOT Recall-mine with your miner. I'm not sure on ideas for that yet, but I'll make a thread when I've got one or more.

For now, please share your thoughts on the currently boring and no-work rare gathering we currently have and share concerns or further ideas for how to make rare hunting actually fun.

Hail UOR!

I support this whole-heartedly!

I think this is a great idea, I love the idea of exploring the wilderness and finding awesome items, although I'd assume that making it completely random would most likely be a huge effort on the staff.

I support the changing of locations.

Its a bit silly when one person sells 100 of the same thing.

I actually have always said that spawning rares in different locations would be more fair to everyone who has played this game. I agree that the same people get them over and over and it should be changed.

No, I wasn't thinking "Blaise, you don't give a crap about rares. Why are you talking about this?" I was thinking "Blaise, you don't know wtf you're talking about."

These items are called "rares' because they are not common.

This is one of those areas where people spend a lot of time figuring out the mechanics, so they are unlikely to simply give away this hard won information. Sure, it might take 60 seconds to recall in and grab something, but it may have taken weeks or months to develop a system to make this work.

I doubt you know many of the spawn locations, much less the timers, so please tell me how you find your lack of knowledge boring.

Yeah, you know what else encourages people to go in the field? PLAYING THE GAME. But seriously, many things do spawn randomly or semi randomly already, for example furs or boss monsters. If you want to communise the pool of "rare" items, why not just have crap randomly show up in your pack when you log in?

Blaise, once again you are trying to rework an entire time-tested system just because it doesn't suit your style of play.

Hmm, I'm not really sure how I feel about "rares" spawning all over the world. As it stands these items can be obtained because players devote most of, if not all of, their time playing the game seeking out these precious pixels. It takes months of work to get timers and spawning locations for these things. Sometimes you'll get lucky and run up on a spawning point for these items... but most of the time the player(s) who collect these items will eventually reach a point where they have their fill.

I want to believe that the reason these items continue to increase in count is because the player(s) collecting them are disciplined enough to take the time and devote it to such a trade (rare hunting). Once someone spends hours and hours figuring out the timers for these items and decides to sell them... who's to say it's "unfair" for the player who decides to just farm gold with a tamer, bard, warrior.

My point is those players killing mobs for gold get more gold than the rare collector ever will. I can make 2 mil in a few days on my tamer... I can buy any spawning rare i want with a fraction of that. And can continue to do so as long as I know someone is scooping them up. I have been noticing that a lot of the spawning locations I have are just usually empty now, when i check for the rares. However I always just shrug and think "well someone is more devoted to this than myself".

If we are going to change anything about how rares are randomly found from just doing stuff outside the world, I think we should add some type of currency system that sort of worked like the Christmas holiday coins. And you can perhaps find a "rare coin" in containers or even on mobs when they die. You can then save these coins and turn them in to receive a "random" spawning rare. Anything from a slab of bacon to a Skull candle etc...

Yes, totally agree. I've seen firsthand what Blaise is talking about - the same person hitting the same spawn spot over and over and over and over every single day, hoarding all of certain rares to themselves. I played around on test center to find rare spawn locations but on the live server I discovered that I could never get any of them. Those who know how the timers work win every time, and I will never be able to compete since I never have 48 hours straight where I don't have anything to do except watch a strong box or enough stimulants to keep me awake that long anyway. I mean, congrats to them that they found out where ingot stacks spawn; I'm not hating. Maybe the situation is even fair, even though it strikes me as a little ridiculous that one person has 50+ ingot stacks that they neither display nor sell and are still grabbing more. But it would definitely create a better experience for a greater number of players if the spawn spots and timers were randomized occassionally.

I've never found rares by doing this. I treat them Like IDOCS. You see where one is. Check it every couple of hours. I've nailed a few rares that way. Even with four or five other people looking for the same items. I have no clue when stuff spawns personally "there's no exact timer" . When i was rare hunting i'd just check every few hours and sometimes i'd get lucky.

Best thing to do when rare hunting is to never expect to get anything, be happy if you do. That's my mentality.

I never saw anyone camping a rare spawn spot yet, didn't mean that. I've only seen people hop in, check, and hop out again. That said though, I've never yet actually been present when a rare spawned either and I have camped them, sometimes for six hours or more. Maybe there is no set respawn timer and maybe the players who get them are all just lucky people who happen to pop in at the right time. If that's true then everyone has a fair enough shot at grabbing one from an NPC lockbox, but what about the rares that don't spawn in boxes? Fat chance of anyone new ever figuring out where those spawn because they're just not there for 23 1/2 hours a day. Doesn't give you much to work with.

They are incredibly common, to the person who has automated the process of aquisition.

A system that has been refined over the course of 15 years to the point where once you dial it in, you're working it like Ron Popeil Rotisserrie (ie: Set it and forget it)

I know the water bucket spawns in the sewers. Knowing that it will spawn again, in the same place, is boring to me. Thinking that anyone could stumble upon a water bucket, in various locations, is interesting, compelling and enjoyable. I and others might care to look around for things, if that were the case.

I understand your inability to have a conversation without attempting to insult or degrade the conversation into petty trash talk. However, I would like to discuss options for putting variety into an archaic and easily abused system of rare spawning. Should I just link you to the various dozens of threads regarding people who lock down rare spawns and timers on other shards over the course of history? The point is that once you get the data (locations/times) there is no more game to it. Merely picking up the items on schedule. Furs are completely random and boss monsters drop a rare item 1:100+ times? That sounds pretty much nothing like timed rare-spawners that you can programmatically collect.
I'm not trying to 'communise' anything, I'm just trying to add some flavor to a basic and easily exploited/abused system. I have little interest in camping rare spawns on timers but I and (as can be seen) several others have some interest in the potential to find rares in.....rare locations? Hence making finding them a rare occurance, not a timed endeavor like farming a field that you harvest every year.

No, I am not trying to rework an entire time-tested system. The system is dated, known down to a minute and abused, not only here now, but on every shard with the identical mechanic. I understand that you are likely the person with the most locations and associated timers known on this shard. Hence your response in favor of doing the same old thing, the same old way, for eternity. To be fair, I don't really want to take your game from you, if that's what you call it. I'm merely starting a converstation about potential improvements to a system that is known to be effectively locked up by one or only a few people on any given shard. Perfection, balance, all these things lead to it. Not 'this has always worked so let's not talk about it'.

How about leaving the system mostly as is, but putting some of the items on a random location/timecycle? Meet half way and put some VARIETY into rare hunting and make it an actual playable mechanic that promotes activity and hunting, not just collecting. You aren't hunting anything anymore, you are effectively logging in to find things in your pack. Unless there is some risk, danger or work involved in getting these things after you lockdown the location/time that I'm unaware of, there is room for improvement.

The power of diplomacy can go far. If you want to get into rare hunting and are new.... make friends with people who have already been doing it. Offer something in trade for the spawning location, IE: a rare spawning location you have. If you know of none, you can always just offer your help on checking the locations for them. Have a system where two people split the items that spawn. Alternate looting a single spawner for your efforts as a team.

Best quote for UOR I've found.
"If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse."

That quote sounds a lot like the best advice I ever got when I started working in sales. It easily applies to a lot more than UOR. That said, tracking down rare spawn collectors, kissing their butts, and hoping that they're inclined to cut you in on a location so you can 'check it for them *wink wink*'... sounds like a long shot to me, but I've never tried it so who knows? If rares spawns stay static as they are now, I guess I'll try it.

Yea the hardest part of anything that can make you ez money for no effort as in someone "cutting you in" is just earning someones trust and friendship. On another server I played on I literally scouted for idocs and helped with timers atleast a month or two before I was ever invited to one. I was investing my time and EARNING my place among the group. But those types of friendships are strong in any MMO. What's more rare than any pixel is having long term trusting friendships. Once trust out weighs greed you'll be golden.

Blaise, the reason I come down so hard on you is that you obviously know so little about this system, yet you are eager to toss it out and replace it with some carebear system that pumps out crap to everyone. It's obvious you have no clue wtf you're talking about when you say shit like "The system is dated, known down to a minute and abused, not only here now, but on every shard with the identical mechanic."

If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't say this.

If it's just "Set it and forget it" as you say, then why haven't you done this yourself? Why do you insist on revamping a time-tested system just because it doesn't match up to your style of play? But, congrats on half way figuring out a single, low-level rare.

Once again you prove your ignorance. Why put this out publicly? If you had the slightest clue, you'd trade that info with someone for another rare. Then, perhaps, if you had more than a single low-level rare, you'd find the system more " interesting, compelling and enjoyable." Good luck with that now.

More proof of ignorance. If you had the slightest clue how things worked, you wouldn't say this either. In your vast rare hunting experience you must have come across this camping activity, please post some screen shots of people successfully camping rare spawns.

Sure thing, when you get half a clue what you're talking about, then we'll talk.

I'm fairly certain that players on other shards, that I won't go into specifics about, have actually brought up valid concerns about rare collecting being on par with AFK resource gathering. Yes, I have little first hand experience collecting these wonderful pixel gems. As do other people who, as previously mentioned, don't care to play some game of 'who knows what' to get in on the action. In time, it will all be mapped out and the timers will be known. That's fine, if you find that interesting.

The amount of items won't matter in the long term, so what's the big problem letting these things spawn at random in random locations? I'm not eager to toss anything out, but I am ALWAYS inclined to discuss possibilities for improvement of a current system.

You do jump really fast to call out lack of knowledge as though I don't have the ability to research things, or even more importanly discuss these things with the many people I've played with over these last couple of years. Yes, the system is dated, as is every system in this game. The ability to programatically collect rare items is about as carebear as you can get, if you want to call names. Having to poke around and seek out these things in the vast expanses of Britannia and the Lost Lands, that perhaps people don't bother to go to now, is quite far removed from carebear. There was no mention of a 'carebear system that pumps out crap to everyone'. I suggested various rares of the same order that you are timing the spawn of in an exact location......be spawned at random, in a random and completely undisclosed location. Do explain how your current method is less like an item pump, than the items NOT being in the same place EVERY time.

I don't 'set it and forget it' for the same reason I don't do macro mining or macro reagent buying. I think it's lame and not UO at all to me. It's an iPod game where I click in every day to check on my resource pool to allocate for other things without actually DOING anything but clicking 'go'. Something about the whole thing reminds me of Wall-E. I found the water bucket and was completely disinterested knowing that the same thing would happen like groundhog's day, at some point in the future.

I see the point you and Sneaky are making about it being a work unto itself. I'm not suggesting tons of rares spawning in the crates of NPC storerooms across the shard every day, but a random item in a random location just to keep the surprise out there and get people out of doors and at the keys poking around in the game.

I guess what I'm trying to say is there is no surprise in rare spawns and it only gets worse over time. Something completely random would be fun, not just another cog in the machine.

Amen, Blaise.

110% behind blaise's idea; location/timer should vary significantly.. no point it spawning the same place every X days. Have them spawn at random places in dungeons/wild/containers.

I find it interesting that those in the know are not eager to discuss said locations without "earning" their trust. I am behind Blaise on this subject. It would be nice to hit the jackpot while adventuring be it in a dungeon crate or that monster you are expecting a magic weapon and gold. Those arguing against this are set in a system of exclusion that as a player who came new to this server really had no help and saw nothing but those arguing against Blaise recalling out before I could even strike up a conversation. Way to enhance the friendship/game-play. If you want to bring up "Why not IRC me?" I would ask you why not play the game and talk to newer folks? Its such an exclusionary society in this server I almost don't want to play it anymore. I do because I like the staff, but maybe a system that allows new players to grant some kind of reward points to those that actually want to help in game.