I don’t discount the possibility of a hack, but it is far more likely that someone is griping about someone else’s lucky streak.

That being said, random numbers generated by a computer are not truely random, but rather ‘pseudo-random.’ A computer will take a list of numbers and use some sort of algorithm combining those and some large variable, such as the number of seconds since midnight, and then spit out a result.

chance of rolling a 100: 1 in 100 (duh)
chance of rolling 2 100s in a row: 1 in 10,000
chance of rolling 3 100s a row: 1 in 1,000,000
chance of rolling 2 100s in 10 rolls (not necessarily consecutive): 1 in 1,000

Now, given that there are hundreds of thousands of players playing WoW every day, and that a good percent of them are rolling at some point in that day each of these has a high probability of happening at least once a day, if not multiple times (especially the last one).

The probability of rolling a 24, 46, 49, 12 in a row is 1 in 100,000,000 but you dont’ hear anyone writing about it because they didn’t lose a chance to get their ‘uber rod of dung-spewing (+3 to fairy damage)’. It’s a fact of human nature that you’ll usually hear the complaints first and loudest.

Now consider this: WoW is one of the most complicated pieces of software around. The detractors can complain all they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a highly complicated system: the system maintains the state of a persistent online world with thousands of people running around, buying, kill, farming, auctioning in real-time all the while maintaining world integrity by fending off would be hackers (Blizzard has learned plenty about this from previous games). Throw in a rich 3D user interface and a good dose of chaotic human behavior and it’s a wonder the system works. My reason for explaining this? If Blizzard can create said system don’t you think they can create a random number generator? Don’t you think they tested that piece? Don’t you think they’d safeguard it from hackers since it’s so important (not to mention obvious to would be hackers)?

So lets do some more probabilities:

Chance Blizzard messed up rand(): highly unlikely
Chance some hackor, hacked it: very highly unlikely
Chance we’re all just reading complaints from a handful of gamers who happened to be see a couple hundred rolls: 1 out of 1

From what I read, it shows where you previously have gathered items (or if you installed someone else’s gather stats, where they previously gathered). As opposed to showing you what has spawned currently?

In the situation I witnessed, the Loly type bypassed closer possible spawn points for the chests and went directly (and correctly) to the actual spawn.

I’m going to try that mod either way, but if it tracks the current spawns, rather than just possible spawn points, that would be the bomb.

I imagine that Loly was using this mod or something similar. Use of a legit mod like this doesn’t mean Loly’s not a gold farmer, however.

Unless someone can show me screenshots of someone cheating the grouploot dice roll, I’ll have to consider this no big deal. Group with people you trust, or ungroup people who won’t play nice. Social solutions to social problems.

If you’re playing on Lothar, watch out for Anesthesia. He’s not just whiny, he’s also really bad at disguising his use of hacks.

And shame on you, Blizzard, for trusting anything the comes from the client.