^Still doesn't acount for the fact that I've NEVER seen a Gnome that didn't have poison or burrow, a spark that didn't have ablaze, deja vu, or steal, etc.
First of all, what you're really saying is you don't remember (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Selective_memory) seeing those. Second,
you not seeing them doesn't mean no-one is seeing them. Third, anecdote is not evidence.
And keep in mind that's a wiki. Anyone can edit it. They could have pulled that stuff from their ***.
There's also a log of edits, and the only editor of that article is chriskang, who has RE (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering)'d large parts of the game.
And based on those numbers, there is a .00169...% chance to get a specific mutant. To get two of the same mutant, that chance is A LOT smaller. I doubt ANYBODY has mutated enough creatures to get two of the same thing at those odds, let alone multiple of the same creature. I highly doubt it is coincidence; there must be an explanation.
To get two of the same mutant, the chance is exactly the same as getting one specific mutant if you have one previous mutant, twice that if you have two, and so on.
The chance of having at least one duplicate in five mutations is about 0.01%. For ten mutations, which doesn't seem unreasonable for a single game, it's twice that.
For comparison, the chance of winning a shard of a god is less than 0.5% per win, and similar for getting three cards in one win. Those happen often enough, no?
As for that last sentence, I'm starting to feel a bit like a broken record here but have another look at that wikipedia article on confirmation bias (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).
On the random() issue, I doubt the choice of seed is an issue. Much more likely would be how (or when, rather) seeding is done, or how the random numbers are used (
ie the random events might not be independent).
I'm sure chris can sort that out though.
