Sarim said:I don't like the idea of items or mobs that only exist once (or in the case of mobs, cease to exist once killed). Kind of wasted dev time IMO.
However, I could imagine a mechanic that would allow such items to exist. For example, the uber ring of invisibility: Your group/raid kills the evil overlord, and the ring drops...lucky day for the winner. But, such items have a tendency to get lost, and so this item will just disappear from your inventory after a given amount of time, and reappear as loot item on another mob (can be a boss mob or any mob, really). So anyone could have a lucky chance to get the item. This would also solve the problem of the player stopping to play, and the item being lost.
Probably more LOTTERY than ARTIFACT, but still, might be a twist to the original idea :)
Artifact items as described being a waste of dev time is not so much an opinion as it is a fact. Consider the time and effort of all devs involved in coming up with the concept of what the artifact would be, what it would look like, and how to balance, and then further to actually render it in game and code it in the game. All of that to go so one player can randomly find or get awarded an item. Not to mention, can you imagine the amount of butthurt when the item drops, is flagged as an artifact, and then gets awarded to a player? That is a loot council I don't want to preside over, and if not loot council but DKP, can you imagine the amount of DKP required to spend to win the lot?
Conversely, I do like the ring idea, IF the item is something that is useful but not game breaking. Your example is pretty obviously based off of the ring of power, so pretty well understood by most here for how that makes sense. If they can implement something that has a system for changing hands and also lore that makes sense for why it would, that is a great concept to do an artifact like system. An artifact however should never be a game breaking weapon, shield, or armor, or over powered clicky even, that allows the owner to go out and solo group content, or allow a group to suddenly down content that they were previously unable to. Additionally, there could be one off artifact level rarity items that are consumed upon one use. A guild teleport stone that crumbles after one use, or maybe has a chance of crumbling after each use. Once it crumbles the magic returns to the aether and allows other guilds a chance to loot it. A fun item that saves players some time, but not game breaking and not unfairly locked down by one group.
Long story short, I hate the artifact concept in general, but the ideas you have put forth really make it into something that could add a lot of easter eggish type fun to the mmo genre, I'll allow it!
The central question is what should the game reward? The whole game depends on that, the whole mentality and thus the community depends on that.
A rare item may reward randomly but will eventually always reward time, effort and dedication.
This is because if you keep at it long enough, you will get it sooner or later.
A once-only item rewards only on a purely random basis.
It does not make people invest time, skill or dedication, it does not develop qualities I want to see either in myself or in others.
I'm not playing a MMO for the lottery. Yes, any given mob kill will give somewhat random rewards (from a fixed list, hopefully) but the success over time and effort is guaranteed, it's not lottery over long run.