History Main / CommonPlaceRare

* In ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', it's stated that hot chocolate is considered an exotic beverage, and Luke buys packets whenever he can.

** Pumpkins can be this on the XBox360 version of the game, since it's a finite space rather than the PC's nigh-unlimited world. If a cluster of pumpkins--usually around four or five at best--spawns, you will have to search far and wide to locate them. They end up being more rare than diamond ore. And even in the PC game, wild pumpkins can sometimes be hard to come by.

* In ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'', most of the vigors seem to be mass-produced as alternate power sources or have other industrial applications, so they shouldn't exactly be rare. However, a whole long level is dedicated to retrieving a single bottle of the Shock Jockey vigor to fix one of the game's Main/BrokenBridge's. Made even more egregious by seeing an overturned cargo container full of said vigor bottles in the next level.

* In ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'', most of the vigors seem to be mass-produced as alternate power sources or have other industrial applications, so they shouldn't exactly be rare. However, a whole long level is dedicated to retrieving a single bottle of the Shock Jockey vigor to fix one of the game's ''Main/BrokenBridge''s. Made even more egregious by seeing an overturned cargo container full of said vigor bottles in the next level.

* Though not rare per se, it takes a lot more effort to find a human bone in the catacombs in ''PlanescapeTorment'' than it really should.

* In the online game ''{{Franchise/Neopets}}'', the rarest items initially were... food. The only place food was generated was at the food stores every five minutes. Unfortunately, they ran out in 15 seconds or so. You could feed your pets at the soup kitchen if you were poor enough, which led to lots of people in PerpetualPoverty just so they wouldn't have to spend all their money on an apple. And some of the rarest and most coveted items on the entire site are merely paintbrushes. Luckily, you can still get free food from the Giant Omelette, Giant Jelly, and once a month from a [[http://www.neopets.com/freebies hidden link]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', there is only one muffin on the entire island of Vvardenfell. And it already belongs to someone, so the only way to obtain it is to steal the delicious baked good. And if you eat said muffin, it gives you the exact same stamina regeneration as a normal, common piece of bread.

** In Sun & Moon yhe currency for Hyper Training (which powers up Pokemon's base stats to max) is bottle caps. Subsequently, they are very rare items that you can only find through sending your Pokemon on cave expeditions for treasure or trading shards (previously established to be parts of the items that power up [[OlympusMons Arceus]]) for them or, very rarely, by fishing them up. No, you can't get them by simply buying drinks, that would make too much sense.

->"This is a place where having the ability to bake cakes is a mark of ''considerable status''!"

* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', the Declasse Asea should in theory be a common sight on the streets of Los Santos being based on the Chevrolet Aveo sedan. But in the original version of the game it only ever appears twice, once as an impossible to keep rental car, and again found parked at the end of a side-mission. If you do not take it after the latter, it's LostForever. Eventually it was made purchasable in ''Online'', and can be found on the streets in the Enhanced version of the game.

** Clay was also rather rare in the earlier days of the game, only available on coastal areas. Make a boat and get to searchin'.

** The Tiny Plastic Sword is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's used to make quality drinks with relatively little investment. They are sold at the mall for 75,000,000 meat, largely for the same reasons used wrapping paper is expensive.
** Present bows aren't quite as a several example as used wrapping paper since they cost 3 million meat, but they're still fairly rare since they can only be obtained from small Crimbo pressies from Crimbo 2004 or from winning some of the Penguin Mafia raffles held during early 2008.

* In ''VideoGame/DayZ'', backpacks are considered extremely valuable because they allow you to carry much more equipment with you. While this is certainly a realistic benefit of a backpack in a survival scavenging scenario, the rarity of backpacks (especially in the original mod version) is pretty inexplicable. While backpacks are certainly handy to have, the odds that department stores would be stripped clean of backpacks following a societal collapse are very low, as people that are evacuating don't tend to ransack stores for backpacks. This is resolved somewhat in the Standalone version of the game where backpacks are more common (and can be crafted from basic materials), but you're still likely to be targeted and killed by other players just so they can upgrade their carrying capacity.

-->-- [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] on ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' (as imps bow down to worship his [[AuthorAvatar avatar's]] superior cake-baking abilities.)

* VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight has several "weak" weapons such as the basic laser ("Very weak laser"), dual lasers ("Basic weak dual lasers. Often used by transport ships that can't afford better"), and mini beam ("Extremely cheap and weak beam weapon"). Despite their uninspiring descriptions, none of these weapons can ever be purchased or found - they're only available as starting equipment on certain ships. On top of that, the supposedly "weak" dual lasers and mini beam are actually two of the most efficient weapons in the game.

* ''PuzzlePirates'':

** An even worse example involving dyes is ''GuildWars'', where dye of ALL colors are only obtainable as entirely random world drops. There's a "dye merchant" but he only carries what other players have sold to him and his prices depend on supply and demand. Naturally, this means more popular dyes are much more expensive, and of course the most expensive here is also black. The best part is that dye doesn't actually '''do''' anything other than change the color of '''one''' of your pieces of armor. This is in no way surprising however, as top-quality gear is very easy to obtain, and the only things of any particular value for experienced players is gear that looks particularly nice.
** Ancient proto-MMO ''TheRealm'' had similar dye issues for some of its early versions.

* In ''TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', there's a quest where the heroes must venture into dangerous woods, making their way past monsters and solving puzzles... to find a sprig of Rosemary.

* A similar thing happens in ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', even the most trivial items (snacks, slot machines, etc.) cost almost $100. Although just liked stated above, if you were to move the decimal 2 places the prices would make more sense.

* ''VideoGame/LandsOfLore 2'': The silverleaf is supposed to grow in the Dracoid Cemetery. Except that it doesn't. Instead, you have to find glass orbs, charge them at three different machines (One of which is located in a completely different and '''HUGE''' level, the Dracoid Ruins) to open the various crypts. (The orbs can be charged with white, blue or yellow sparks to open crypts with corresponding doors. If you you don't have the right kind of orbs, you may have to go all the way back to the right machine.) In one of those crypts you will find the ghost of a dracoid priest who wants you to cremate his body for him and bring him the ashes. And where might his body be? In the farthest corner of the Ruins. So after this incredible endeavor, he opens the door into the dracoid king's crypt for you. (This is back at the Cemetery, mind you.) What does ''his'' ghost want? To destroy what's left of the Ruins of course! So he gives you his bones in an urn that you have to take to a statue somewhere in the ruins, which will come to life and fight an ice worm, causing the ruins to flood. So you have to get the hell out of there, end up back in the jungle, head back toward the Cemetery... and ''then'' the king will make the silverleaves grow. '''AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!''' And to top it off, whole piles of silverleaves turn up later at the Ruloi Citadel.

* In ''VideoGame/StarOcean 2'', you have to go into a dangerous cave filled with monsters as a test of strength - the proof of your journey being to bring back a rare and undiscovered herb. It turns out to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_sclarea clary sage]], a fairly common, hardy and widely-distributed medicinal plant. Still, everyone reacts as if it was incredibly rare. On the other hand, you're explicitly not on Earth in this scene--you're on the planet Expel, where Clary Sage very well might be a rarity. If you want to go the extra mile, however, you can go further into the cave and find the Dill Whip. This [[CosmeticAward doesn't bring you any reward whatsoever]], but at least you get told that your characters have found a legitimately undiscovered plant.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' has jerky, which appears twice in the game. The first time it is used is as a minor plot advancement point. The second time it is part of a ChainOfDeals for getting some optional equipment in one of the zany [[SideQuest sidequests]]. About 2 minutes into the game you can find the shopkeeper selling it, for 9900 gold. A trifling price when you will need it (much later in the game), but at the beginning it seems insanely overpriced. Bizarrely, you can also resell the Jerky for 10,000 gold to the person you're supposed to give it to. However, to advance the plot, you have to give them the Jerky for free.

* ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'''s ChainOfDeals is this as well, as the item you're ultimately after is ''soap''. [[ShaggyDogStory Which Sarah finds on her own while you're looking for it]]. [[spoiler:At least she appreciates the effort and joins your party.]]

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[[folder: Turn Based Strategy]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', like in the ''Adventurers!'' example above, apples used to be incredibly rare. Rarer than diamonds. So are leather saddles (which you can't craft from leather found commonplace).
** Apples were so rare that, without hacking or using mods to get apples, the only legit way to get an Apple was to kill Notch if playing with him on a server. It wasn't until the Beta 1.8 patch that added strongholds with chests that have a chance of carrying an Apple or more. Since the full game was released, apples fall out of trees when you cut them down or destroy the leaves, but they only have a 1/125 chance of falling from any given leaf block.

** Name Tags, the only legit way to give any mob a unique name outside of creative mode, can only be found inside chests located within a dungeon.

* In the [[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]] games, microchips are everywhere -- weapons, ships, components of all kinds. And yet, good luck finding some in the universe -- there's so much demand, and the production process involves such a convoluted chain of supply, that most chip factories are permanently empty -- the few chips they produce are instantly snatched up by NPC traders. And if you do manage to be faster than the traders, expect to pay ludicrous prices for them. And [[spoiler:you need to gather 75,000 of them for the last stage of the Hub plot. Good thing you can build your own Chip Plants, or else this plot would be next to impossible.]]

[[folder: Non Video Game Examples]]

'''Landry:''' [[BlatantLies It's a rare delicacy among our people.]]

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' has a CommonplaceRare ''ship''. You need a ship, so you need to find an ancient abandoned ship in the desert, then go through a monster-filled castle to find the library, then get a once in a lifetime wish and give someone a priceless ancient artifact owned by a king who owes you a favor, to put the ancient ship in the water. Why you can't just ask the king for a ship remains unexplained.

* In ''FarCry 2'', one mission requires you to go to a diamond mine to steal some dynamite, which you're told you'll need to destroy a water pump. The only practical way of getting the dynamite is killing all of the mercenaries guarding the mine, and there are at least a ''dozen'' of them, meaning that this little fetch task inevitably turns into a full blown firefight. This all seems very pointless, since you have [=RPGs=], hand grenades, improvised explosive devices and M79 grenade launchers available at this point, and any one of those should have had no trouble with the fragile-looking pump.
** It's even worse when it comes to ammo upgrades. When you can only carry 90 total assault rifle bullets, a 67% increase to 150 sounds pretty good. In real life, you could achieve this exact thing with a double-mag pouch, which you can find at a tactical store or online for about $15. In game, you must pay 15 golf ball-sized DIAMONDS. Damn, how much for just a fanny pack?
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'':
** The (in)famous hats, which are the most demanded and valuable items in the whole game despite not having practical use besides [[NiceHat looking cool]]. How rare are they? With the current item-drop system, there's a minuscule chance (1 in 128, possibly even lower) that you might get one after 15 mins. to 2 hrs of play, but most of time you'll get a random weapon. '''However''', there's a weekly cap for dropped items, (roughly 7 - 12 per week) after which you'll not get new items until next week. You can also use the crafting system in order to get one, but it takes from 54 (to craft a random one) to 75 weapons (to get a class-specific one) in order to do so, which translates into several months worth of game-play.

** Pickling supplies (dill, brine, vinegar, and [[spoiler:ghost]] cucumbers) are quite rare, as the area where they drop only appears for a single day at a time, completely randomly. The factory has only appeared 6 times since June of 2004. Holiday monsters also create some common-rares; Thanksgiving foods (tofurkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce) can only be acquired once every 3 months, and each player only gets to collect a few of them.
** The Tiny Plastic Sword is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's used to make top quality drinks with relatively little investment. They are sold at the mall for 47,000,000 meat.
** For reference on what these prices are to people who don't know the relative value of money in Kingdom of Loathing, the Mr. Accessory item ([[BribingYourWayToVictory Which players recieve for each $10 they donate]]), sells for ~11,000,000 as of this edit (The price fluctuates depending on what goodies you can exchange them for). That's right, tiny plastic swords are worth a little bit more than $40, and beets are worth over $120.

** Used wrapping paper (which can be crafted into equally-rare weaponry or used to make gifts with nothing in them) costs 175 million meat--that is, over $140 of real-life money, or many months of meat farming. It was only available from gifts in a Crimbo giveaway back in 2003 (more common gifts from later on don't produce the paper item when opened), only a few were generated because there weren't many players at the time, and most of them have been lost over the years due to account deletion.

* ''LandsOfLore 2'': The silverleaf is supposed to grow in the Dracoid Cemetery. Except that it doesn't. Instead, you have to find glass orbs, charge them at three different machines (One of which is located in a completely different and '''HUGE''' level, the Dracoid Ruins) to open the various crypts. (The orbs can be charged with white, blue or yellow sparks to open crypts with corresponding doors. If you you don't have the right kind of orbs, you may have to go all the way back to the right machine.) In one of those crypts you will find the ghost of a dracoid priest who wants you to cremate his body for him and bring him the ashes. And where might his body be? In the farthest corner of the Ruins. So after this incredible endeavor, he opens the door into the dracoid king's crypt for you. (This is back at the Cemetery, mind you.) What does ''his'' ghost want? To destroy what's left of the Ruins of course! So he gives you his bones in an urn that you have to take to a statue somewhere in the ruins, which will come to life and fight an ice worm, causing the ruins to flood. So you have to get the hell out of there, end up back in the jungle, head back toward the Cemetery... and ''then'' the king will make the silverleaves grow. '''AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!''' And to top it off, whole piles of silverleaves turn up later at the Ruloi Citadel.

* In ''StarOcean 2'', you have to go into a dangerous cave filled with monsters as a test of strength - the proof of your journey being to bring back a rare and undiscovered herb. It turns out to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_sclarea clary sage]], a fairly common, hardy and widely-distributed medicinal plant. Still, everyone reacts as if it was incredibly rare. On the other hand, you're explicitly not on Earth in this scene--you're on the planet Expel, where Clary Sage very well might be a rarity. If you want to go the extra mile, however, you can go further into the cave and find the Dill Whip. This [[CosmeticAward doesn't bring you any reward whatsoever]], but at least you get told that your characters have found a legitimately undiscovered plant.

* Most of the permanent stat boosting items across the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series have flowery names such as "Goddess Icon" and "Seraph Robe", but few can match the power and staggering rarity of the "Boots", which increase movement speed by two in a series where the average unit has about six. Most games have ''one'' set of them hidden somewhere, and that's it. For comparison, in the first game, this makes a set of Boots as rare as a staff that can bring someone who is DeaderThanDead back to life.

* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', fishing rods are ''extremely'' rare, but are nigh-useless as weapons. Another equally rare item is the bait: if you're lucky enough to run across an albino rhoa, there's a small chance it'll drop an albino rhoa feather. Guess what you can do once you have those two items. [[spoiler:[[JokeItem Nothing.]] There's no fishing in Path of Exile.]]

* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', fishing rods are ''extremely'' rare, but are nigh-useless as weapons. Another equally rare item is the bait: if you're lucky enough to run across an albino rhoa, there's a small chance it'll drop an albino rhoa feather. Guess what you can do once you have those two items. [[spoiler:[[JokeItem Nothing.]] There's no fishing in Path of Exile. ]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', ''wheat'' is 50 Septims per pound. Units of wheat are 0.1 of a pound and the base value is 5 gold. Yet bread is 1 septim for a pound loaf.
* On the subject of Elder Scrolls, in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', there is only one muffin on the entire island of Vvardenfell. And it already belongs to someone, so the only way to obtain it is to steal the delicious baked good. And if you eat said muffin, it gives you the exact same stamina regeneration as a normal, common piece of bread.