Allow me to state a few facts that should be obvious.

1) Not all randoms were created equal. What I mean is that I'm sure that
some spawns are pure random between several items on an encounter table.
(eg. newbie areas, a spawn has an equal shot of getting a bug, a bat, a
snake, etc.) However, for the named spawns, I'm equally sure that the named
has a lower chance of spawning than the place holder. They have to do it
that way to limit the entry of items into the game. The way the game
probably works is that it grabs a random number from the generator and then
performs additional calculations before arriving at the final number which
it uses to check to see what is spawned. This makes it much harder to
determine the true randomness of the generator. The only instance I can find
where there would be no additional processing would be with the /random
command. And my experience has shown it to be fairly random. If you were
truly curious, I would advise that you take a large sample set of data with
the /random command and analyze that data. But trying to extrapolate
randomness from spawn tables and loot drops is somewhat pointless. There are
other steps we are unaware of that will not be taken into account.

2) Often times, statistics are skewed by observations. For example, missed
notes. I happen so see single instances of missed notes from time to time.
However, I'm less likely to remember them, because they are not nearly as
frustrating as seeing TWO missed notes in a row. Evidence that you are
probably not remembering them is that you often see just 1 proc. If the
random generator were truly broken as you say, you'd always see doubles of
missed notes AND procs, but not one or the other.

3) Lastly, take into acount that this should be a pure random. Therefore,
events that have already occured have no bearing on events that are about to
take place. If I'm in the lord room, and he hasn't spawned in 6 hours, that
does not make him any more likely to spawn the next time. The chance to
spawn is always the same.

Well, I'm no statisitcal genius. I leave that to John Kim.

Draelon

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Sniderman [mailto:fuzzbone@...]
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 2:02 PM
To: eqbards@egroups.com
Subject: RE: [eqbards] Random Number Generators

I agree with your comments on Random Number Generators - however -
criticizing my comments - I wonder how long you've played Everquest <g>...
Their RNG is CLEARLY flawed. In particular - I use SSOY in the Lord Room as
an Example. I know MANY people who have LITERALLY camped it for two weeks
in a row maybe a total of let's say 50 hours. They report going days and
days of never seeing one - and then getting five in one session. I've heard
of this happening on several occasions.

Another example is Proc's and Failed Notes. I almost never see just one or
three in a row. I'd say that about 85 percent of the time - I get two procs
or two failed notes in a row. I don't know if I've EVER seen three procs in
a row. I RARELY have seen three missed notes in a row (discounting when low
instrument skills is a factor).

To "Perhaps a Princess" this is not Random according to the "Experts" in the
articles I've read. The issue of extrapolating on a small sample aside
(which again I grant is true in my test on Kaesora but not my example of
procs/missed notes) A RNG should produce a truly random sample. For a
Binary test. Consistently getting 45-50 0's followed by 2 1's 85 percent of
the time is bad code.

On the other hand - perhaps this is all a part of "The Vision" and they
specifically coded the RNG to work that way.

I don't know a lot about a Statistics - but I've been in the IT industry for
16 years and read lots of articles about Random Number Generators for
computing systems. There are tests that can be done on the algorithm as to
how Pseudo-Random they are (obviously - by definition - an algorithm can't
be truly random) I'd be curious if Verant has done this analysis.

This is evidence of poorly coded random number generator. The Prosecutions
rests.

Slyde

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Sue [mailto:jsue@...]
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 12:49 PM
To: eqbards@egroups.com
Subject: RE: [eqbards] My day in Kaesora was Re: MM Drum misadventure
and Nostrolo Tamborine

umm, do you know what ''random'' means? and have you taken any statistics
courses?
do you honestly think that a sample size of 7 is statistically significant
for a typical
random number generator?

here's an example. a pair of dice has 36 possible combinations. roll the
dice 7 times.
even assuming you don't duplicate any of those combinations during those 7
rolls, that
means you haven't rolled 29 of those combinations. by the stats you've
accumulated
they have a 0% chance of occurring. obviously false. and that's only 36
combinations.

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