While I may not be entirely serious, I just want to get the ball rolling on rares. We have an "active" P-base of around 20 people at peak times, or so I see. I find it nearly impossible for 20 people to have almost every rare that's around. First, not all those 20 people are high enough to get them. Second, only a handful are around 40-50. Yes, I know people have different play times, so it may be 30 people, but still. I have been noticing way too many rares missing ALL the time. It's not really fair to people who can't play as often. Maybe the time for playing to keep rares needs to get boosted so rare-purges happen more often, and the supply would sort of catch up with the demand. I really think it's rediculous at how many rares just aren't in EVER. The fullplate, oh please, I haven't seen that in MONTHS. I'm lucky if I can find a girdle on a player. I am losing interest in the game because a small group of people is hoarding all the rares. It's impossible to kill people decked out in Gear crap while you're in a set of mithril because all the rares aren't in, and in turn, it just isn't fun to play if you can't ever win.
Rares
You touched on what's up.
If you remember, Behrens tied the rare count to the amount of players. As I understood it, more players, more available rares.
He [behrens] can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. The rest of you can suck the dust your shinies have become. 
Kill the dudes who took it. Then you got rares.
And I think they should be rare to diserve the name.
Besides...who needs shinies when you can have Ofcol gear...woohoo for BRASS!!
YEAH! BRASS! (I'm actually a big fan of the holy avenger)
I find Diana's set to be pretty good for a goodie non-melee type. I prefer it over Mithril.
People decked in gear can be killed, FL has this little backwoods cabal named Syndicate, and not only do they kill people for you, they now will gather equipment for you!
GEAR doesn't save a man from assassination.
People are too used to being easily able to deck themselves out. I recall back in late 1.0/early 2.0 where seeing someone have a fullplate was more than enough reason to go kill'm.
Remember, FL is primarily a PVP game, not PVE. Equip off PK's.
Actually, the thing I remember about 1.0 was how easy it was to get equipped. Thats why I moved here from AR, because on AR, people were willing to pay half a million gold for an emerald sword.
Note, late 1.0/early 2.0. Early 2.0, rares were incredibly hard to find.
Maybe for like two weeks, but I dun remember it...anyway, I'm too tired to bicker about it!
seriously rares are not that hard to come by... I just lost a full set due to crumbling.. and damn its nearly waht I would consider a 'perfect' set for my character (despite, ofcourse the UBER items, we cant all have nimbus's and masks of discord 
) and ive nearly recovered most of it, just a few pieces left to get.. patience and vigilance are the key to staying decked.
They are hard to come by when they're custom rares.
grumbles about not wanting to log back in when he can
Dey
what the hell is a custom rare?
a RARE ITEM THAT HAS BEEN CUSTOMIZED IN SOME WAY.
dEY
... ah, yeah.. Like adding spurrs to your boots of protection? for ease of riding at speed?
Items that have been restrung, par example.
Dey
oh, you must be a healer or something, only they get ridiculous things like that 
I might not be able to PK, but that doesn't automatically mean I play those sickening Healers, you know.
If the rares are botched up a bit, I can see things being a little trickier for melee types. If it's people just venting their anger because they've lost their shinies or similar, then tough.
Dey