>If Ishuli forgets, I'll nag him.
>
>That said, I used a few extra tools and checked on a number of
>these items. There's a *lot* of these that I'd be
>uncomfortable or unable to change due to one (or more) of the
>following reasons.
>
>1) Progs or quests involving the items which for whatever
>reason might require duplicate items.

I figured some of these might be true. Say, ballista bolts from Hamsah use VNUM for the progs for each gate. That seems like particularly bad un-lazy coding... Does it matter if one pulls a bolt from one gate and fires it from another? I can't imagine it does, but without looking at the prog, I wouldn't know.

>2) Some of these are duplicate items, but within different
> though often nearby) areas. There's not really a safe way to
>do this without just duplicating the item within the new area,
>otherwise it risks the game crashing if you're not careful.
>Think...random Udgaardian patrolman who happens to be visiting
>Seantryn Modan or something, vs. being on the trails.

That's understandable, but also fixable. Just add a word to the description. For instance, for dark elf long sword... Why not have the Teth Azeleth be a "high quality" dark elf long sword?

>3) Many of these are *truly* different items, just writer A
>and writer B both decided they wanted a pair of blue leggings
>in their area, or a steel sword, for example. Particularly
>with simple gear, it's not surprising that four different
>areas have "a steel sword" in them.

I think this is fixable as well. Generic blue leggings, Light blue leggings, Dark blue leggings, Torn blue leggings, etc.

>4) The classic example of the pitch-black ring. These are
>three different items of different mobs, and it's sorta the
>treasure hunt/prize that the tougher mob has an upgraded
>version of the item. Any area written today probably wouldn't
>let this fly, but I'm loathe to suddenly change decades-old
>areas and muck around in someone else's creative works.

A low quality pitch black ring, A generic pitch black ring, A well made pitch black ring. I don't think that puzzle is giving anyone any enjoyment... just frustration. If CF owns the material, then current CF staff can make changes.

>Finally, there *are* the cases where it does appear that the
>writer used copy/paste to create individual vnum gear for each
>NPC, and those I wouldn't mind clearing up. I'll check back
>when I have a little more time myself, and/or check in with
>Ishuli, but sofar there's been maybe...two that appear to
>truly be duplicated gear.

I don't have all of the information you do, but as a co-worker likes to say, "If there isn't enough difference to make a difference, then there isn't a difference."