You are absolutely correct that rare isn’t always fun, this is an excellent topic. I don’t have a foolproof definition yet for when rare is fun and when it isn’t, but here are some examples.

Finding a Krol Blade was fun. Nobody went out to farm for a Krol, but finding one could make you happy for a while. Pristine Hide of the Beast was along the same lines, except for the fact that those UBRS groups always quarreled over who would get it if it dropped.
Finding Bindings of the Windseeker on Garr on the other hand and waiting forever for the other shoe – err binding – to drop was not.

In general it seems to me that as soon as you begin to farm for something it stops being fun. Finding an Essence of Water was not very fun because it simply wasn’t that big of a deal but it was rare enough to make you grind for it when you needed it.

The whole thing is a lot easier to define during the leveling process. Nobody (well, almost nobody) goes out to grind for something specific while leveling. That means that having a rare monster with a cool item drop appear from time to time can be enjoyable. If you meet it you feel good and get a little help with your leveling gear, if you don’t it doesn’t matter.

Once you hit the level cap things suddenly reverse. Assuming that the rare item is good enough, people will simply camp the spawning point of the monster 24/7, be terribly bored, and will complain about the game that forces them to do this camping to be competitive.

Thinking of a more common example… Randomly meeting the time-lost proto-drake while questing in Icecrown would be fun. Flying in circles for hours and days to find it… not so much.

A very interesting topic I’ll surely think more about. Any insights will be very welcome
.-= scrusi´s last blog ..Enough With the Items Already – Part 1 =-.