History Main / LootDrama

** Adding to the drama was the problem with looting monsters. More commonly seen on Porings in the starting fields for new players, but every once in a while an odd creature would have this ability as well. As the denomination implies, hey can loot from the ground quicker than players can see them dropping, especially if they're non-aggressive. The problem? Once they've done that, the claim that the player had on it is automatically gone, and ''any other player'' that kill it right after will have claim over the stolen loot. For that reason there are players dedicated to sweep entire maps after these monsters, for the sole reason to get rare drops that the thieving monster swept from other players.

* ''GaiaOnline'' has the Angelic Halo. It was one of the first Monthly Collectables released and it's virtually impossibly to get one. The admins and artists know this and love to screw with the users about it. Several cheap alternatives have been released because of the item's rarity.

* ''TheBigBangTheory'' provides two examples:
** The "Sword of Azeroth" rare drop in their WorldOfWarcraft game, which one of the players [[NinjaLooting steals only so he can sell on eBay.]] Which is immediately bought by another member of the group.

* ''MapleStory'': Unless you're buying it off of other users [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts (for millions and millions of Mesos)]], chances are you'll be spending a good deal of time hunting monsters so you can FINALLY equip something over level 35.

* Averted in GuildWars2, since all loot tables are personal. NinjaLooting is absolutely impossible : if you don't get the stuff you want, the only one to blame is the RNG.
* VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} and VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}} do not have separate drops for its online mode. When Legendaries drop, especially very rare and powerful Legendaries, expect fireworks among a group. For example the Infinity Pistol is a reasonably good pistol statistically; decent damage with a fast fire rate but it also NEVER NEEDS AMMO. It has an estimated 0.07% drop rate from its boss although the boss can be called at any time. This boss is also ThatOneBoss to boot without the right gear.

* Unusual in that this isn't an online game, certain {{Pokemon}} may sometimes be this rare due to the difficulty in getting them. Especially Pokémon that are given out at Nintendo events. This goes doubly for Pokémon that are only available through these events like Mew and Celebi. This also applies to Pokémon that have special moves they wouldn't normally learn (such as Ralts with Wish) or shiny Pokémon (which are only encountered once in a blue moon.)

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has all gear based loot regulated to treasure chests in dungeons. Rather than having the first person to open the chest getting the loot, everyone in the party has to roll a dice based on whether they "need" it or want it for "greed" (usually to sell it on the market). Usually, players that roll on need get higher priority over players who rolled for greed. The drama over who gets what loot still applies, considering that most loot are random and most of said loot can't be given away to other players.

* ''RagnarokOnline''. Almost every monster/boss/etc. in the game has a chance to drop a card, which can be compounded into compatible equipment types to give special benefits to their users. Some cards are vital in the creation of some classes, while others can be flat-out gamebreaking. The bottom line, however, is that the base drop rate for most cards is 1/10000. Ten-flipping-thousand. But hey, at least combat is quicker in RO than other [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPGs]], right? Right?

* The Hockey Stick of Furious Angry Rage in ''KingdomOfLoathing'' could probably have been considered to cause LootDrama at one time, though other additions (mainly other, similarly powerful, more accessible sources of extra monster level) have since made the hockey stick's benefit more marginal. When equipped, the hockey stick would cause any monster the player was fighting to become stronger by 30 levels (which effectively means + 30 to the monster's attack and defense), with the benefit of + 6 XP per battle. The + 30 did not add to the monster's HP (though that was [[{{Nerf}} fixed]] later), and its other stats are nearly moot if you can KO it in one hit. Also, up to 3 hockey sticks could be equipped to take up all 3 accessory slots, and their effects would stack to a whopping + 18 XP per battle. (The toughest monsters in the game back then had a base XP value of 36.) In short, they were [[GameBreaker extremely useful]], and nothing else in the game at the time came close in effectiveness. Meanwhile, hockey sticks are also an Ultra-Rare. The Ultra-Rare mechanic itself is unknown, but it is suspected that only a certain number of Ultra-Rares (around 2-4) can drop across the entire game per day. Add that to the fact that the hockey stick only drops in a zone that players usually have no reason to bother visiting and can only be visited by ascended players who are a Mysticality sign in their current ascension, and the end result was pretty predictable. (Thankfully, it's easily traded, which lead to some clans having them on a timeshare system.)
** This was also slightly lessened due to the fact that KingdomOfLoathing is kind of a special case due to its interface - if you were to get one, nobody else would see that fact unless you wanted them to. Far more like drama-causing loot now are the boss drops from [[BonusDungeon Hobopolis]], which have fairly good chances of dropping, but which only one single player per clan gets a chance of snagging per run. Most notably is Hodgman's Imaginary Hamster, which drops 100% of the time from the BonusBoss and doesn't automatically go to the player who killed him... if you beat the Dungeon in [[RunningGag 1100]] turns or less, a feat requiring literally almost perfect turn management and a character specifically designed to take down a NighInvulnerable BonusBoss in a single hit. And did we mention that each "raid" of Hobopolis has a [[GlobalCurrency meat cost]] of ''[[MoneySink one million]]'' [[MoneySink meat]]?

** ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo II]]'' in general is notorious for this. The expansion added runes and runewords; runes are special socketable items with a range of abilities, depending on the rune. Rune drops aren't determined by [[LuckStat magic find]] so the probability of finding any (much less the one you want) is very low. Runewords are specific combinations of runes in a specific item which when created, imbue the item with increased stats, ranging from useful to [[GameBreaker GameBreaking]]. Runes have supplanted the ''Stone of Jordan'' as the ingame with its own exchange and pricing system to boot. Rampant [[GoodBadBugs duping]] of runes has actually caused ''inflation''.

* [[CosmeticAward The Isolator Badge]] in ''CityOfHeroes''. To obtain this badge, you had to defeat 100 Contaminated Thugs that were only found in the tutorial zone. If you bypassed the tutorial, or you got bored fighting that type of thug (and it is really boring), this badge was LostForever. The developers eventually responded to complaints by adding... the Infected Thug enemies, who act and look exactly the same as Contaminated but don't count towards the badge.

* Parodied in ''SluggyFreelance'' when a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' style [[MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame MMORPG]] has a special ability-boosting hat that a raid's boss [[RareRandomDrop only drops once every ten raids]]. When [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=080915 Torg gets the hat]] his first time playing the raid, other players who have done it 50 times without getting the hat are ''pissed''.

** Diablo III has a different system: loot drops are exclusive to each player, and you literally cannot even ''see'' what other players get unless they pick it up and then drop it again, which makes it visible to everyone. This doesn't ''completely'' eliminate Loot Drama, but it does mean that if you do get some coveted item the rest of the party won't know about it unless you rub it in their faces.

** The last Legendary item released before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was Thoridal, the Stars' Fury, a Legendary bow. There's only one class that deals damage primarily through ranged weapons: The Hunter. However, the bow curiously lacked a class limitation to them. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before one was looted to a Rogue - who'd use it as little more than a minor stat boost - over two Hunters that could have used it. The fallout from the drama that caused broke out of even the server it happened on, with the entire ''WorldOfWarcraft'' community now knowing of it. ''That'' is the power of Loot Drama.

** Limited edition rare ships include unique faction ships such as the Raven State Issue, or Tempest Tribal Issue, which were handed out as rewards for player tournaments. They are now nearly priceless, as some have been destroyed, and the owners rarely entertain buy offers. Due to their value, these ships are never actually undocked or used, being owned by collectors of unique items, despite the Megathron Federate Issue and Raven State Issue being the most powerful battleships in the game. And in the realm of indescribably valuable is the Apocalypse Imperial Issue. There used to be two. Now there is one. In the entire universe. No more will be made. It's been fought over, killed for, and stolen many times. And the current owner refuses to even host showings of it. Frigate class examples include the Gold Magnate (exactly one was given out as an event prize. It has since been destroyed in [=PvP=] combat and is now LostForever) and the Silver Magnate (given out at the same time as the Gold. Although originally more numerous, many have also been destroyed, so there are only 3 or 4 estimated to still exist.)

* ''NerfNow'' parodies this trope (along with RandomlyDrops) in a strip imagining ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' to be an MMORPG: the rest of the team have to hold back a visibly angry Heavy Weapons Gal when the server randomly allocates an item benefitial to her class to the Sniper instead.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'': Ridill, the former trope namer, is a sword usable by six jobs that has a frequently occurring chance of additional attacks in a given attack round. It is dropped by Fafnir, a "notorious monster" on a 21-to-24-hour spawn timer (except every 4-10 days, when something else spawns in his place). The drop rate on Ridill is hard to quantify with a percentage, but exceptionally low; The "average" estimate is about 5%. And it is the source of a vast majority of the drama in the game. There are also several other items that actually have lower proliferation rates, but due to their specialized and not-so-glorious benefits, don't really cause as much drama.

* While not nearly as rare as some of the other items on this page, the [[http://camelot.allakhazam.com/item.html?citem=13278 Cloudsong]] from ''Dark Age of Camelot'' caused a player to have an [[ClusterFBomb absolute meltdown]] when another player picked it up. That meltdown, featured on [[http://wowseriousbusiness.ytmnd.com/ this YTMND]], became a popular [[MemeticMutation internet fad]] for quite some time.

*** Ironically, no player particularly cares for the Andvaranauts. Except for the odd person who might find their strange stat bonus to be useful.

** Let's take this moment to put some rough numbers to the trope. According to SquareEnix, as of 2009 the game hosted over 2 million characters in 20 [[ClassAndLevelSystem jobs]], of which 6 can use Ridill. According to [[http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Jobs/Job_Distribution_Statistics the game's wiki]] ([[TheWikiRule of course it has one]]), as of 2008 those six jobs were played by 30% of characters, resulting in 600,000 characters trying to get one. Meanwhile, Fafnir has been fightable since April 2003. Even if it drops once a month and that all 16 current servers were available from launch, there would only be thousands of Ridills available to the ''hundred thousands'' of characters that want one.
*** Ironically enough, changes to FFXI have made Ridill much more marginalized in its usefulness than times past. Before Warriors needed it to go from fairly good to amazingly powerful. Gameplay changes now just make acquiring a Ridill a different kind of powerful, and even then there are debates as to which way is better.

*** [[MemeticMutation Hunter Weapon!]]

** Raid-focused guilds often have a strange [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of the trope: the proliferation of "Dragon Kill Point" or DKP systems have caused grief over people ''not'' wanting items. DKP are an unofficial sub-economy whose simplest forms consist of "Participate in raids, earn DKP, trade in DKP for the 'right' to roll on specific bits of gear." The grief comes from particularly stringent guilds who use convoluted methods of calculating DKP that often means "You're one of these three pre-approved builds or you'll never be good enough to get anything", make no allowances for any reason, and then insist that ''all'' rolls require DKP spending, even if it's a case of "Nobody wants/everyone already has that piece of crap, just greed roll or give to the Enchanter to disenchant and be done with it." This leads to major quarrels about "wasted loot" or an excessive amount of time spent determining simple drops. Such systems rarely last long, thankfully, except for guilds whose entire mindset is [[SelfImposedChallenge proving how hardcore a player they are]].

* GaiaOnline has the Angelic Halo. It was one of the first Monthly Collectables released and it's virtually impossibly to get one. The admins and artists know this and love to screw with the users about it. Several cheap alternatives have been released because of the item's rarity.

* OlderThanTelevision: [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings The War of the Ring]].
* Before that, [[Literature/TheHobbit Bilbo]] was allowed to choose his own share (not to exceed 1/13th) of the hoard of Smaug the dragon after his defeat. Thorin was ''not'' happy when Bilbo [[ExactWords chose the Arkenstone]], likely the most valuable single item to be had and a major dwarven heirloom.
* In TheGuild, a web series about people who play an MMORPG together, the group finds a rare item. Both Tink and Clara want it, and are engaged in bartering for it, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom when Clara's children unplug her modem]], allowing Tink to win the item(Vork's thinking is that Clara obviously didn't want it, or she would have said so). Clara gets upset, and sets up a secondary account to PK the guild leader's character over and over out of revenge in secret. When it's eventually revealed that she was the one who kept killing him, it caused a temporary rift among the guildmembers.
* In Anime/DotHackSign, the minor character A-20 is trying to get an item known as "The Golden Grunty". Her character is very low level, and completely incapable of obtaining it on her own; she manages to rope [[{{Tsundere}} Mimiru]] into going with her, in spite of the fact that there are very serious and real things going on. Mimiru eventually gets fed up dealing with A-20 and leaves her in the dungeon alone, but goes back at the end and finally helps her reach the dungeon's treasure room. They acquire the Golden Grunty, and Mimiru is excited, because it will raise a character's stats by a huge amount. In an inversion, though, both A-20 and Mimiru insist the other to take it. Eventually, Mimiru convinces A-20 to keep it, and try the game for a little longer.

* TheBigBangTheory provides two examples:

* NerfNow parodies this trope (along with RandomlyDrops) in a strip imagining VideoGame/TeamFortress2 to be an MMORPG: the rest of the team have to hold back a visibly angry Heavy Weapons Gal when the server randomly allocates an item benefitial to her class to the Sniper instead.
* One of the possible Haunts in ''BetrayalAtHouseOnTheHill'' is "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Treasure Hunt]]". Rather than having a Traitor face off against the other players, everyone fights each other inside a now booby-trapped mansion to be the first to claim said treasure.
* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', monster carves and gatherable items are localized; each player gets the full limit of items per gathering site or monster. This does lead to the occasional odd sight of, for example, a fellow player whacking their pickaxe at thin air because you already mined from that particular rock, but it's a small oversight compared to players fighting over who gets what.

** [[RareRandomDrop Chance Item]] prizes, usually the 'cute animal mascot' types, fall into this more often than not; the most notorious of them are Lucky the Cat and Jet the Kitten Star, both of which fall somewhere in the neighborhood of ''40 million gold'' due to their rarity and have sparked many an angry rant.

* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', monster carves and gatherable items are localized; each player gets the full limit of items per gathering site or monster. This does lead to the occasional odd sight of, for example, seeing a fellow player whacking their pickaxe at thin air because you already mined from that particular rock, but it's a small oversight compared to players fighting over who gets what.

* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', monster carves and gatherable items are localized; each player gets the full limit of items per gathering site or monster. This does lead to the occasional odd sight of, for example, seeing a fellow player stick their carving knife into a small monster whose body isn't there anymore.

But sometimes, an item is ''so'' rare, ''so'' irreplaceable, and ''so'' iconic that it causes otherwise rational people to do horrible things. Indeed, with the uncertainty of getting it and the high competition both within and without a guild, many people resort to downright Machiavellian tactics. People will backstab, undermine, and do nasty things to try to secure it for themselves. People will abuse game mechanics, leading to excessive use of cheat programs. People will try to PlayerKill those that pose a threat to them getting it. Indeed, very few guilds can have this item in their treasure pool without all hell breaking loose. Expect NinjaLooting, lot sniping, and a ''ton'' of arguments about who deserved it.

* Before that, [[Literature/TheHobbit Bilbo]] was allowed to choose his own share (not to exceed 1/13th) of the hoard of Smaug the dragon after his defeat. Thorin was ''not'' happy when Bilbo chose the Arkenstone, likely the most valuable single item to be had and a major dwarven heirloom.