Artifacts

Revision as of 14:07, 1 June 2013 by ArrothThaiel (Talk | contribs) (Standard artifacts)

Artifacts are special items with unique names that can be obtained by using the Stealing skill to pilfer them from various environments, through specific monster drop systems, from drops during events associated with game-wide fiction, or by crafting them using rare ingredients.

The original Artifacts were introduced in the Age of Shadows expansion in the dungeon Doom. Named items obtained from the Seer Quests were not considered artifacts, largely because the term had not yet been invented. The term and concept have not popularly been "retro-fitted" to apply to them. Various items spawned throughout the dungeon that could only be picked up by using the Stealing skill on them. This was a move by the development team to vindicate the concept of collecting Rares, and as a throwback to the way that Rares had originally been created - as items, unobtainable to players, that had been used to decorate the environment, but had been accidentally left unlocked and could be picked up and wandered off with. These stealable items were spawned with a new item property called Artifact Rarity, which denoted the frequency with which they spawned.

Along with these stealable Artifacts there was introduced a set of items that could be obtained in the Gauntlet as rare drops that went straight to a character's backpack. These, too, possessed the Artifact Rarity property, but in this context this did not always directly correlate to their spawn frequency.

When the Paragon system was introduced in 2004, people began calling the named items that dropped as "Minor Artifacts" due to the system's similarity to the Gauntlet and the unique names that the items possessed, even though the items themselves did not possess the Artifact Rarity property. This custom was repeated for the Treasures of Tokuno events and later for the artifact drop system and named, craftable items introduced in Mondain's Legacy.

More Artifacts were eventually introduced through various in-game events, such as Halloween 2006 and the Ophidian Invasion, via various quests, such as the Truth and Redemption quest which had The Redeemer as a reward, and later through a drop system in the Anti-Virtue Dungeons similar to that of the various Paragon systems. These items all possess the Artifact Rarity property.

More recent artifacts, like the Stygian Abyss and the High Seas artifacts, no longer have the Artifact Rarity property. The same goes for the dungeon artifacts like Covetous and Despise artifacts.


Standard artifacts

Artifacts that adhere to the policy of possessing the Rarity item property can be classified into several categories.

Other artifacts

It is also common parlance to call several other types of items Artifacts, even though they do not possess the Artifact Rarity property.


See also