Born Lucky

[Dragonlordjl]

As some science guy once said, "God doesn't play dice." That being said, even dice aren't "random" as much as they are "unpredictable". If you had an infinite understanding of physics, you could predict how the dice will lie as you threw them. However, since we don't have the ability to calculate a throw of a dice so to such accuracy, it seems random. If something is so incomprehensably complex, it may seem random, but really isn't.

 

In computer programming, the programmers can make incredibly complex sequences to determine an outcome to the point it's so unpredictable, it seems random. Some older games have very explotiable random number generators, while others (such as Runescape) do not. One such game, Nethack, actually has an RNG seed generated based on a clock, and for a while, I had no idea how it worked. I noticed if I opened two instances of the game within one second of one another, the first level of the dungeon would be identical. However, beyond that, I have no idea how the RNG works in that game.

 

I believe, with super computer accuracy and a perfect understanding of the coding, Runescape's random number generator should be exploitable, to some degree. Theoretically speaking, this should be the case with any "game", computer based or otherwise.

FF12 was another game with an exploitable RNG. The most powerful weapon in the game had two methods of obtaining it-- one which you get 100% of the time if you did not open a few specific chests, and the other as literally a 1/1000 chance drop from a specific chest. Well, someone figured out how to manipulate the RNG using the amount of times enemies hit you and the amount of times you zone in/out of an area to guarantee the drop. It was very tricky to do because there were a lot of enemies between the closest save point and the chest, but it was definitely doable and could be repeated with other chests that have a low drop rate (and boy were there plenty of them in that game).

 

/offtopic

[Pinata]

Reminds me of the idea that when you shuffle Ipod music it tends to play songs that have a bunch of play counts, leaving you to enjoy your ipod a lot more.

 

Perhaps Jagex has some intense system that measure how often you play per month, and how you tend to renew membership.

 

Example

 

So say I'm going on 3 days of mem left, and I'm not using a continuing payment source.

My time/day has been decreasing over the past month.

 

I happen to get a hard clue scroll, perhaps the

 

probability of me not renewing membership increases the chance of a rare 3rd age piece = me getting excited enough to greatly increase my chance of renewing my membership = 6 irl $ for jagex.

[Mr_Muto]

Expect the unexpected.

[opeious]

I was rather thinking that they seeded their random numbers output with the ID number like you said, which has been altered by another changing seed like (system time + sever time)....

[Alphanos]

Speaking as a comp sci major, for Jagex to implement the use of an independent RNG seed for each player would be a lot of trouble for no benefit. Various approaches might possibly be taken to deal with the massively-multithreaded environment, but persistent player-specific seeds stored in their databases along with other player-specific data seems like a poor option. More likely possibilities for how they handle things are a single RNG, or a pool of RNGs that threads can pull from to prevent locking delays, or perhaps a background thread that spits out tons of random numbers in a long list that get accessed sequentially by game threads. If in fact there were threads for each player which handled things like monster deaths and item drops for that player (unlikely) then their individual RNG would be seeded by a master or pool of masters upon login. There would be no benefit to persisting their RNG seed across play sessions.

 

However, let's suppose for the sake of argument that your theory is correct and each player has a persistent RNG seed initialized at the time of character creation. It wouldn't matter. Due to the nature of any halfway-competent RNG, the distribution of numbers will be equal over any non-trivial run-time, regardless of the original seed. If your theory was the correct explanation for why we perceive drop differences, you would also find that those who are "born unlucky" would consistently hit lower, as well as consistently take less damage themselves in combat. This would surely be easily noticed in PvP, let alone the detailed statistical calculations that people like Grimy Bunyip and others perform. More seriously, an RNG which behaved so poorly upon specific initial seeds would never be approved for use in any Java library; the ramifications could easily cause real-world deaths if such a thing were widespread. It's always possible that Jagex wrote their own RNG for no apparent reason, and wrote it poorly due to lacking the necessary math background, but this would be another case of a lot of trouble for no real benefit (besides the obvious tells mentioned above).

 

This is an interesting topic, and certainly more worthwhile than the typical "I have bad luck" topics ;) . So I don't mean to rain on your parade, but there's really no possibility of this being the reason for perceived drop differences.

[pulli23]

Speaking as a comp sci major, for Jagex to implement the use of an independent RNG seed for each player would be a lot of trouble for no benefit. Various approaches might possibly be taken to deal with the massively-multithreaded environment, but persistent player-specific seeds stored in their databases along with other player-specific data seems like a poor option. More likely possibilities for how they handle things are a single RNG, or a pool of RNGs that threads can pull from to prevent locking delays, or perhaps a background thread that spits out tons of random numbers in a long list that get accessed sequentially by game threads. If in fact there were threads for each player which handled things like monster deaths and item drops for that player (unlikely) then their individual RNG would be seeded by a master or pool of masters upon login. There would be no benefit to persisting their RNG seed across play sessions.

 

However, let's suppose for the sake of argument that your theory is correct and each player has a persistent RNG seed initialized at the time of character creation. It wouldn't matter. Due to the nature of any halfway-competent RNG, the distribution of numbers will be equal over any non-trivial run-time, regardless of the original seed. If your theory was the correct explanation for why we perceive drop differences, you would also find that those who are "born unlucky" would consistently hit lower, as well as consistently take less damage themselves in combat. This would surely be easily noticed in PvP, let alone the detailed statistical calculations that people like Grimy Bunyip and others perform. More seriously, an RNG which behaved so poorly upon specific initial seeds would never be approved for use in any Java library; the ramifications could easily cause real-world deaths if such a thing were widespread. It's always possible that Jagex wrote their own RNG for no apparent reason, and wrote it poorly due to lacking the necessary math background, but this would be another case of a lot of trouble for no real benefit (besides the obvious tells mentioned above).

 

This is an interesting topic, and certainly more worthwhile than the typical "I have bad luck" topics ;) . So I don't mean to rain on your parade, but there's really no possibility of this being the reason for perceived drop differences.

That's what I was trying to say the whole time already.. But as I already showed, the human mind itself always gives a "rating" to the luck one acchieved: people can't seperate emotions from facts.

[Autist]

That is a nice post, and you have a way to explain your points. Good job. However, I think you might be mistaken.

 

Being an avid online poker player for years, I have a pretty good understanding how RNG's work. I doubt that Jagex has it's game provided with some cheap-ass RNG which took 15 minutes to write.

 

If Runescape has a similar RNG as poker software has, then I believe your points are not valid, unfortunately.

 

From pokerstars dot com.

 

Shuffle Highlights:

 

* A deck of 52 cards can be shuffled in 52! ways. 52! is about 2^225 (to be precise, 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,404,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000 ways). We use 249 random bits from both entropy sources (user input and quantum randomness) to achieve an even and unpredictable statistical distribution.

* Furthermore, we apply conservative rules to enforce the required degree of randomness; for instance, if user input does not generate required amount of entropy, we do not start the next hand until we obtain the required amount of entropy from the Quantis RNG.

* We use the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm to mix the entropy gathered from both sources to provide an extra level of security

* We also maintain a SHA-1-based pseudo-random generator to provide even more security and protection from user data attacks

* To convert random bit stream to random numbers within a required range without bias, we use a simple and reliable algorithm. For example, if we need a random number in the range 0-25:

o we take 5 random bits and convert them to a random number 0-31

o if this number is greater than 25 we just discard all 5 bits and repeat the process

* This method is not affected by biases related to modulus operation for generation of random numbers that are not 2n, n = 1,2,..

* To perform an actual shuffle, we use another simple and reliable algorithm:

o first we draw a random card from the original deck (1 of 52) and place it in a new deck - now original deck contains 51 cards and the new deck contains 1 card

o then we draw another random card from the original deck (1 of 51) and place it on top of the new deck - now original deck contains 50 cards and the new deck contains 2 cards

o we repeat the process until all cards have moved from the original deck to the new deck

* This algorithm does not suffer from "Bad Distribution Of Shuffles" described in [2].

 

PokerStars shuffle verified by Cigital

 

PokerStars submitted extensive information about the PokerStars random number generator (RNG) to Cigital. We asked this trusted resource to perform an in-depth analysis of the randomness of the output of the RNG, and its implementation in the shuffling of the cards on PokerStars.

 

They were given full access to the source code and confirmed the randomness and security of our shuffle. Visit the Online Poker Random Number Generator for more details.

[stonewall337]

Speaking as a comp sci major, for Jagex to implement the use of an independent RNG seed for each player would be a lot of trouble for no benefit. Various approaches might possibly be taken to deal with the massively-multithreaded environment, but persistent player-specific seeds stored in their databases along with other player-specific data seems like a poor option. More likely possibilities for how they handle things are a single RNG, or a pool of RNGs that threads can pull from to prevent locking delays, or perhaps a background thread that spits out tons of random numbers in a long list that get accessed sequentially by game threads. If in fact there were threads for each player which handled things like monster deaths and item drops for that player (unlikely) then their individual RNG would be seeded by a master or pool of masters upon login. There would be no benefit to persisting their RNG seed across play sessions.

 

However, let's suppose for the sake of argument that your theory is correct and each player has a persistent RNG seed initialized at the time of character creation. It wouldn't matter. Due to the nature of any halfway-competent RNG, the distribution of numbers will be equal over any non-trivial run-time, regardless of the original seed. If your theory was the correct explanation for why we perceive drop differences, you would also find that those who are "born unlucky" would consistently hit lower, as well as consistently take less damage themselves in combat. This would surely be easily noticed in PvP, let alone the detailed statistical calculations that people like Grimy Bunyip and others perform. More seriously, an RNG which behaved so poorly upon specific initial seeds would never be approved for use in any Java library; the ramifications could easily cause real-world deaths if such a thing were widespread. It's always possible that Jagex wrote their own RNG for no apparent reason, and wrote it poorly due to lacking the necessary math background, but this would be another case of a lot of trouble for no real benefit (besides the obvious tells mentioned above).

 

This is an interesting topic, and certainly more worthwhile than the typical "I have bad luck" topics ;) . So I don't mean to rain on your parade, but there's really no possibility of this being the reason for perceived drop differences.

 

 

I agree, it only seems like some are more lucky, and they may just be lucky. But you can't PROVE it. That is my point.

[nubbycubby]

No. All things are random. No value of predetermined luck is given, or could be given, to any player; in my opinion.

 

posts like this make me :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:

 

as for the OP: this is really something I've thought about ever since I learned about PRNGs. Jagex's RNG seed could really be based on a lot of things - number of players in a certain world, monster IDs, coordinates, G/E prices, or maybe the traditional method of just advancing the seed by a certain number every millisecond/other input - so they have no reason to base seeds on a specific account. Also, they can easily change the algorithm if a player ever "solves" it, so there really is no point in trying to spade and abuse such a formula. honestly, I really don't think there is even much discussion possible on this subject; you're only going to get responses like mine / mindless speculation / "lol lrn2luck" trolls (though seeing how this thread has hit three [EDIT: four] pages already, I could be wrong)

[Youmu]

You may be onto a good point with luck here. Some things probably ARE predetermined, which explains why I have such bad luck with certain monster drops.

 

This can probably be extrapolated to dging as well. I tend to get monoliths WAAAAY more than mercenaries or ramokees, and dragons always seem to appear in large dungeons I go into. I also have horrid luck with dg journals, so many Icy Bones kills and I still haven't gotten the Troll notes :wall:

[Viv]

You may be onto a good point with luck here. Some things probably ARE predetermined, which explains why I have such bad luck with certain monster drops.

 

This can probably be extrapolated to dging as well. I tend to get monoliths WAAAAY more than mercenaries or ramokees, and dragons always seem to appear in large dungeons I go into. I also have horrid luck with dg journals, so many Icy Bones kills and I still haven't gotten the Troll notes :wall:

lol i have always thought about this relating to dg...

 

 

my friend keys 3 25 min dgs then when its my turn every room is gd + some ramokees and monos

 

they then say "this never happens when i key......"

 

li think some people just get really good dgs and others always get wtc dgs

[tuggernongy]

No way of knowing your luck beforehand = things may as well be random for all intents and purposes anyway, regardless of how pseudo-random and not truly random things are.

[SwreeTak]

A very interesting theory. It is indeed simple, but still so complex. And it might just be true that everything is actually predetermined. Random number are never random number when they're generated by a computer. I think my friend Nac Fan belongs to one of those 2,5%, he always get awesome drops :P

[Xanotex]

Read the whole text and I like the idea, however I doubt their graphic calculations would be so easy that they can be done that fast.. It's a good concept, but I'm afraid we'll never know how it all really works.

[Roz]

In all honesty I'm sure Jagex's algorithms are a little more advanced than my TI graphing calculator when it comes to a random number generator. Also there is no possible way of determining Jagex's system of placing monster drops. For all we know invisible mods could be sitting beside each boss monster and when they see a person they like they make that monster drop its rare drop. Also it would be much easier for Jagex to program the random number generator with the boss monster instead of the player seeing as there is only one boss monster and there are millions of players.

 

 

Yeah, I remember talking to 'Mr. Dragon' for a visage.

 

Good times. :thumbsup:

 

What about if the input was actually the fraction of a game tick? This wouldn't give anyone an advantage, but would be able to explain random drops.