I got a "discovery" the other day in EQII, for the Dancing Fire Opal Band (Bruekelyn, Unrest!). This is kind of cool, as it means I am the first person on the server to find this item. The game designers make it a noted event, so you and all your guildmates are like "Hey wow, that's cool," because of course something that the game devs think is important enough to note must be important--and gamers do tend to culturally value being the first to do something in a game, before anyone else has accomplished it.
But like all good stories, there are some caveats! First, I didn't really discover it. My guildmate, Brenvia, actually "found" it, but his characters are so geared up with equipment from the newest expansion that he didn't need this now-outdated but once super cool piece of equipment. So, he let me loot it, and I got the ding. I was lying dead on the ground at the time for a variety of reasons that take a while to explain if you don't know how MMOs work (basically, he had his six--yes six--characters, and added me, and in EQII groups are max six, so I was essentially on my own and was the only character in group 2 of what was now a raid--with no healer, I died). You don't know that a piece of loot hasn't been found before you actually loot it, otherwise I would have told him to take it since he deserved it (see I am buying in to the whole "first" thing there).
Secondly, you'll note that the discovery for Unrest is about a year after all the other servers. Why, I am not sure. I know Unrest had another server merged into it a while ago, perhaps the discovery data was erased or reset at that point. (The item is off a named I had never noticed before, since it looks like the other critters of its type--a flying little fireball--but it flies around and I don't look up much.) So, perhaps many other people had looted this item, but none since the server merge. Probably it is one of the rarer items that the named drops (rare as in unfrequent).
