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View Full Version : Breakfast Topic: It's gotta happen sometime


TalonBot
03-20-2009, 05:32 AM
Filed under: Items (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/items/), Analysis / Opinion (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/analysis-opinion/), Fan stuff (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/fan-stuff/), Odds and ends (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/odds-and-ends/), Blizzard (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/blizzard/), Breakfast topics (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/breakfast-topics/)

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2009/03/taskmasteraxeloot.jpgWhitney over on WoW Ladies LJ has a story that's so improbable it must be true (http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/9223573.html). Not only did her guild pick up an epic on command in Naxxramas, and not only did they pick up two of the exact same epic item (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39470) in a row, but they actually got three of the exact same item in the same room. As you regular readers know, I'm horrible at math, so I'm not sure how unlikely that is (you'd probably have to figure how much trash you actually kill every Naxx run and combine how likely it is for each of them to drop the item), but I'm guessing very. Still, given that every drop is randomly generated when a mob spawns (in other words, when you walk into an instance), it's still possible. Even a flipped coin can come up heads (http://propterhoc.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/flipping-our-coin/) 100 times in a row.

So yes, even though we don't think about it much, it's totally possible to get Mr. Pinchy (http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/04/13/phat-loot-phriday-mr-pinchy/) on the first try (http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/838368), or pick up three epics in three pulls. Ever just been really, really lucky? I've had the opposite happen, too -- I go for an hour without seeing a drop, check all of the databases to make sure I'm in the right place, and then just before I quit, sure enough, whatever I was looking for drops.

Got any stories of the random number generator (RNG) being really random?http://www.wowinsider.com/media/feedlogo.gif (http://www.wowinsider.com)Breakfast Topic: It's gotta happen sometime (http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/20/breakfast-topic-its-gotta-happen-sometime/) originally appeared on WoW Insider (http://www.wowinsider.com) on Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds (http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).




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