Wow. I can't believe anyone could write, let alone publish, such a meaningless pile of fluff journalism.
A random number generator generates random numbers. It's like rolling a die. End of story. Stop trying to personify it. Instead of complaining about the random number generator that is just doing it's job, maybe you should look at the algorithms built on top of it that weight the decisions, or even the possible decisions themselves.
Luck is the excitement of bad math.
Ever play poker? How much fun would it be if you played with an unshuffled deck?
Go play Aion then come back and tell me RNG is good in games.
Lets take a small look at abuse of RNG to frusterate your player base. Gahering...RNG chance to fail. Crafting RNG chance to fail, on top of RNG chance to proc a better weapon on top of needing that proc to craft another better weapon taht can proc a better weapon that can be used to ultimately craft a better weapon that can proc the best you can get weapon...RNG. Same with cooking and any other craft. (forgot to mention that crafts that do not proc anything but succeed in creating a "white" item arent worth what it cost to make it in materials you have to buy from anNPC.) Hot Heart of Magic...ill let the people that attempted this 26 times and spent billions of Kinah and hundreds of ours gathering and never got what they needed while some tried it once and got what they needed tell you about this gem of RNG. Expert crafting quests..RNG because you need a proc to get what you need to complete the quest. Oh almost forgot RNG chance for bosses to drop anything in a dungeon most of the time you get nothing sometimes you get a green, not very often you get a blue and on the rare occation for you or everyday for some you get yellow (these are good, think WoW purples) RNG.
I can see some use of RNG in games to make some unknows or chance for something to happen thats fine dice rolls have a place in RPG's. Where you use those dice rolls is what metters the most.
Ever play poker? How much fun would it be if you played with an unshuffled deck?
I believe it's called chess.
Have you actually played either?
He is right. When the game has primitive uninspired mechanics the enjoyment must come from something else - the human interaction or the random factor or the stakes.
Chess does not need anything beyond core rules. Today MMOs sadly do, a lot.
Btw in large parts of EvE randomness is absent, is unimportant or is used just to seed machine generated content; although the game also has the epix lottery if you wish to partake.
Instead of complaining about the random number generator that is just doing it's job, maybe you should look at the algorithms built on top of it that weight the decisions, or even the possible decisions themselves.
Reread the last 2 paragraphs. All the OP did was discuss the weight and decisions of poor and good RNG. Should insta-death decisions be part of RNG? Should RNG test a raid's ability to adjust?
One of the mild issues with "RNG" is that it is infact extremely difficult for computers to do. Actually it's impossible for a computer to generate a true random number (without external input). Essentially every computer generated number is just a select from a very large pre made pattern, and it causes all kinds of bizarre effects (subsets, bound groups etc.).
Gambling machines are rigourously checked for their randomness generation, and the hardware to provide said randomness is both rather expensive, and closely monitored. There are even companies that make plenty a decent buck selling hardware for "true" randomisation.
Number of MMO companies using high end expensive randomisation hardware = 0.
Number of MMO companies using standard library implementations (horrifically flawed) = A good 90%.
So when RNG screws you over... not only is your luck bad, the company involved have almost certainly screwed up generating said number.
Complaining about the "randomness" of the operating system's random number generator would be a valid argument if we were discussing the merits of public key cryptography... but we're not. In the context of an MMO it's just a red herring.
Are there theoretical vulnerabilities in the PRNG implementation of major operating systems? Yes, and I can point to a crypto study from earlier this year that comes to exactly that conclusion and even described a methodology for exploiting the flaws.
Do the limitations of the standard PRNG implementations have any bearing on the "randomness" that players experience in an MMO? No. It would be impossible for an single player or even a substantial group of players (such as a guild) to have enough exclusive access to the PRNG to develop a profile of it's period or potential patterns in order to predict outcomes with any significant advantage in probability.
In short, the standard PRNG implementations are more than random enough for the games in which they are used. If anyone can prove otherwise, that would be worth a PhD.
A limited Solution would be to add an algorithm which does the following:
Kill an enemy, every player who hit the enemy has a RNG to them. Each player can loot the corpse on their end to generate different drops related to their Primary Character Class (not Secondary Class). However, the drawback is that if the monster wont drop any class-based loot, it means that boss becomes useless to that player.
Comments
Go play Aion then come back and tell me RNG is good in games.
Lets take a small look at abuse of RNG to frusterate your player base. Gahering...RNG chance to fail. Crafting RNG chance to fail, on top of RNG chance to proc a better weapon on top of needing that proc to craft another better weapon taht can proc a better weapon that can be used to ultimately craft a better weapon that can proc the best you can get weapon...RNG. Same with cooking and any other craft. (forgot to mention that crafts that do not proc anything but succeed in creating a "white" item arent worth what it cost to make it in materials you have to buy from anNPC.) Hot Heart of Magic...ill let the people that attempted this 26 times and spent billions of Kinah and hundreds of ours gathering and never got what they needed while some tried it once and got what they needed tell you about this gem of RNG. Expert crafting quests..RNG because you need a proc to get what you need to complete the quest. Oh almost forgot RNG chance for bosses to drop anything in a dungeon most of the time you get nothing sometimes you get a green, not very often you get a blue and on the rare occation for you or everyday for some you get yellow (these are good, think WoW purples) RNG.
I can see some use of RNG in games to make some unknows or chance for something to happen thats fine dice rolls have a place in RPG's. Where you use those dice rolls is what metters the most.
Have you actually played either?
He is right. When the game has primitive uninspired mechanics the enjoyment must come from something else - the human interaction or the random factor or the stakes.
Chess does not need anything beyond core rules. Today MMOs sadly do, a lot.
Btw in large parts of EvE randomness is absent, is unimportant or is used just to seed machine generated content; although the game also has the epix lottery if you wish to partake.
Reread the last 2 paragraphs. All the OP did was discuss the weight and decisions of poor and good RNG. Should insta-death decisions be part of RNG? Should RNG test a raid's ability to adjust?
One of the mild issues with "RNG" is that it is infact extremely difficult for computers to do. Actually it's impossible for a computer to generate a true random number (without external input). Essentially every computer generated number is just a select from a very large pre made pattern, and it causes all kinds of bizarre effects (subsets, bound groups etc.).
Gambling machines are rigourously checked for their randomness generation, and the hardware to provide said randomness is both rather expensive, and closely monitored. There are even companies that make plenty a decent buck selling hardware for "true" randomisation.
Number of MMO companies using high end expensive randomisation hardware = 0.
Number of MMO companies using standard library implementations (horrifically flawed) = A good 90%.
So when RNG screws you over... not only is your luck bad, the company involved have almost certainly screwed up generating said number.
Complaining about the "randomness" of the operating system's random number generator would be a valid argument if we were discussing the merits of public key cryptography... but we're not. In the context of an MMO it's just a red herring.
Are there theoretical vulnerabilities in the PRNG implementation of major operating systems? Yes, and I can point to a crypto study from earlier this year that comes to exactly that conclusion and even described a methodology for exploiting the flaws.
Do the limitations of the standard PRNG implementations have any bearing on the "randomness" that players experience in an MMO? No. It would be impossible for an single player or even a substantial group of players (such as a guild) to have enough exclusive access to the PRNG to develop a profile of it's period or potential patterns in order to predict outcomes with any significant advantage in probability.
In short, the standard PRNG implementations are more than random enough for the games in which they are used. If anyone can prove otherwise, that would be worth a PhD.
A limited Solution would be to add an algorithm which does the following:
Kill an enemy, every player who hit the enemy has a RNG to them. Each player can loot the corpse on their end to generate different drops related to their Primary Character Class (not Secondary Class). However, the drawback is that if the monster wont drop any class-based loot, it means that boss becomes useless to that player.