Suggestion:20080721 Random Number Generator

	Spam!
	This suggestion was voted as spam and closed for voting, with 2 keep, 8 kill, and 9 spam votes.

20080721 Random Number Generator

Techercizer ^(Food) _(TSoE) 20:03, 21 July 2008 (BST)

Suggestion type
Core game change

Suggestion scope
All players

Suggestion description
Everyone knows that Urban dead uses a PRND (Pseudo Random Number Generator), which derives results from computer generated algorithms and formulas, to calculate odds of success and failure for everything from searches to attacking to everything else. Many people express grief at the seemingly unfair hands they have been dealt by this method, and while runs of bad luck are to be expected, many people blame the Pseudo-Randomness of these successes for their failures. Whether or not these claims have any merit, a TRNG (True Random Number Generator), which produces truly random results from natural phenomena, would at best fix glaring search glitches, and at least (and most likely), allay the suspicions of those under bad luck. My suggestion proposes that if it isn't too difficult, for Kevin to switch Urban Dead to a TRNG instead of a PRNG. Coding shouldn't be a big issue as there must be hundreds of TRNGs with public code available.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Author Keep-Fix the game or fix the fears, one way or another people can stop hating the (P)RNG.-- Techercizer ^(Food) _(TSoE) 20:06, 21 July 2008 (BST)
2. Keep While I agree that there is far too much whining, missing 20 times in a row at 50% probability is a little ridiculous. I don't know enough about programming to determine which method is better for UD but I support something closer to true randomness. --Jon Pyre 06:46, 22 July 2008 (BST)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - wouldn't stop people whinging. The vast majority of people have no grasp of the laws of probability. --Sir Bob Fortune ^RR 20:15, 21 July 2008 (BST)
2. Kill - Am I the only one here who wants to remove the majority of percentages from the game? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:30, 21 July 2008 (BST)
3. Kill - What Sir Bob Fortune is true. Its quite possible that the system we have now is, for individual users, indestinguishible from random. Nobody does the kind of analysis needed to tell, and anecdotal evidence is notoriously poor when it comes to determining such thing. PNRG's are very hard to tell from random unless you have large and consistent samples, easy to set up to produce decent results, and have much, much less server overhead than TRNG's, which makes them seem ideal to me for UD.  Swiers 22:43, 21 July 2008 (BST)
4. Kill - As the Talented Mr. Fortune and Mr. Swiers.  Billy Club Thorton  T!  RR  22:51, 21 July 2008 (BST)
5. Kill - Everyone knows that Urban dead uses a PRND... uh, how about no? And even those who know, would know that this isn't a really big issue as you make it out to be. --Aeon17x 23:51, 21 July 2008 (BST)
6. Kill - Does it matter whether the system uses a "PRND" or a "TRND"? (And no, not everyone knows what Kevan uses in the programming of UD) A random number is a random number, and what I found to be ironic here is that anyone would distinguish "Truly Random" from "Pseudo Random". Random is just... random. If there was a way to tell what numbers would appear from randomness, then wouldn't that mean that those numbers were never really random to begin with?Look, my point is, it doesn't matter whether Kevan uses a PRND or a TRND. Random is random, and people will complain and bitch about getting bad rolls program or no program. --Private Mark 01:00, 22 July 2008 (BST)
7. Kill - Look. the search rates are fine. Just ask 'Kevin'. DanceDanceRevolution 07:12, 22 July 2008 (BST)
8. Kill - Can you actually cite an example of one of these "glaring" issues? The game works fine as it is. - Jack ^{S13 T! PC} 16:44, 22 July 2008 (BST)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Spam - This is utterly ridiculous. What you are essentially proposing is that Kevan just says that the game uses true randomness. That's the only thing that would change. People don't want randomness, they want the exact opposite. They want predictability. They want to hit exactly half the time when their hit-percentage is 50%. Anything else will make them complain that it's unfair. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 20:45, 21 July 2008 (BST)
2. Spam - According to swiers, long term studies have shown the current PRNG functions with the same distribution as this would. Also, even the people who make True Random # Generators say most people don't need them. This was all covered in the Talk page... --WanYao 21:16, 21 July 2008 (BST)

   I make no such claim. I just haven't seen evidence to the contrary. And yes, I know this is a non-author reply; it seems fair I should get to reply when I'm referenced as making a factual claim.  Swiers 22:48, 21 July 2008 (BST)

   My apologies. Such a claim was made, but it was not made by you. I have copied the entire discussion from Development and put it on the Talk page. There is relevant information there. --WanYao 23:18, 21 July 2008 (BST)

   You did however say this: "Commonly available PRNG's (IE, those built into almost every programming language) are good enough that cryptographic analysis is needed to tell them apart for random noise, and inflict minimal server overhaed"... and some other stuff... :) --WanYao 23:19, 21 July 2008 (BST)

3. Spam - What they said. --Ocular ^Druuuuu 06:08, 22 July 2008 (BST)
4. Spam - it just is.--Jamie Cantwel3 ^TalkAll glory to the Hypnotoad! 06:47, 22 July 2008 (BST)
5. Spam - Just thought I'ld let Jon know, doing that is a 1 in 1,048,576 chance, in other words it should be expected that once in every 36 days one unlucky person is going to miss 20 times (actually, more likely then that because I assume that you only have 20 shots). Obviously it was your unlucky day. Also I've heard hardware to get true RNG happening is expensive, although I haven't researched it. - Jedaz - 06:53/22/07/2008
6. Spam - Because I don't consider this subject to user suggestion without actual back and forth with Kevan himself. Oh, and I should point out to Jedaz that Jon's comment is referring to what is a very common happening for zombie players and I've had weeks where I couldn't get 1:20.--Karek^maps?! 10:29, 22 July 2008 (BST)
7. Spam - Who´s Kevin? --the wallaby^♥ 12:04, 22 July 2008 (BST)
8. Spamm - Overpowered. Will crash server. ~Ariedartin • Talk • A KS J abt all 16:57, 22 July 2008 (BST)
9. Spam - As the above --The Grimch ^{U! E!} 17:28, 22 July 2008 (BST)

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