Turbine Games Q&A/Character/Q-39

Original Link (now dead) - http://www.turbinegames.com/qa/view_questions.html?id=241

Monsters really love me. Is it my short name?

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Asked:	2000.10.31
Name:	Qazim
Question Title:	Monsters really love me. Is it my short name?
Category:	Character
Question:	I have noticed that my name frequently comes to the top of the list in the "hmm, who should I kill today" algorithm in the monster AI. The only time this doesn't seem to be the case is with people with shorter names than mine. Is my perception correct? Should I re-roll as Mu'allimar ibn al-Qalaka'yyaz to prevent being the whipping boy? I think I understand why this is called the "Wi" flag now.

Answered:	2000.11.01
Name:	amr
Answer:	Heh. Over the years I've heard plenty of accounts from players talking about how monsters always favor them as a target over other possibilities. In fact, there are folks at Turbine who claim that this phenomenon has happened to their characters! I've looked over the code again and again, but I don't see any reason that creatures should consistently favor one character over another. However, I keep hearing so many accounts that I still think I might be missing something subtle. I think I can safely say, though, that the length of your name has nothing to do with it. Most likely it would be based on the unique id assigned to your character. But, again, I don't see the bug. Say an AI spawns in and sees five players. It should just randomly pick one (with a few tweaks based on distance). I've analyzed our random number generator a couple times and it seems to work fine without any noticeable biases. So, for now, I chalk this up as an unsolved mystery. :)