Eh I agree somewhat. The thing is, Tiberies is new so I don't know if he is allowed to drop everything he would want (Maybe some kind of probation?). Now as for item drops, lets compare shards: For Season 10 of Events the following shards have these total amount of drops, GL: 4 + (Gloves for their "Royal Spy" program, 10 different names, each with different handout rates) Chessy: 11 Baja: 10 Napa: 10 Origin: 6 Sonoma: 6 Legends: 5 Catskills: 2 Drachenfels: 2 LA: 2 LS: 1 Europa: 1. Now Atlantic has had 2 drops (both from Bennu). They were actually very nice drops too. We are pretty much in line with some other shards...but the thing is this we are on the biggest shard on UO. Also the drop counts is for each different item...some of which dropped at the same event. For proper item drop per event ratio, someone would need to do some more research. Atlantic drops, while nice, WERE a bit limited. For example, Bear event - Final boss broke, didnt hand out items, an hour later Mesanna came and fixed it. Very nice of her, and while i was there and got my drop, there were ALOT of people who didnt. People who spent time doing both parts of the event, got invested, killed the last boss and logged. An hour later it was a mix of original crowd + alot of new crowd. The second drop, was from an event where you needed 100+ stealing to get the item. Again, I had a thief and got mine myself, but for many others, no luck. Add in the fact alot of thieves got multiples of the item (Hey, they were just faster than everyone else). But as you can see, the items given out , sadly while very nice, were VERY limited in who they went to, especially compared to the people who always go to every event.
Is Atlantic still in line to get a third EM? With such a large playerbase on this shard, it WAS planned (But certain events made the new EM get fired within a day) but I think its clear Atlantic NEEDS a third EM. Its no fault of Tiberies or Bennu, but Atlantic has tons of people.
50% of people want an item to sell , the other 50% want it to keep. People like mementos, the EMs do amazing events and alot of people want something to remember it by, or something they can put in their house and say, "Yea I was there, I helped defeat that thing! or I helped save the world, here I have the monsters tooth to prove it". People like trophies, its why WOW has achievements, its why Steam has them, its why Xbox and PS3 have systems in place to award achievements/trophies. UO's main system for that, is Event Rares. Not only that, it also helps the economy. Yes, some cases are the rich getting richer, but ALOT of time (ESPECIALLY with the new drop system) it is redistributing wealth. A poorer person gets a drop, the rich person wants it, gold goes from the rich to the poor. Its the same thing as someone going to kill a Medusa for a chance at a Slither. They go for a chance to make gold. The rich buy the Slither, the poor make the money. Or on the other hand, someone goes to RP killing the vile Medusa, and the slither drops as their trophy to vanquishing the evil creature.
/endrant