Datamining War

[Sennex 1,903]

http://www.geek.com/games/bungie-is-at-war-with-a-datamining-gamer-that-can-predict-the-future-of-destiny-1618212/

 

Bungie is at war with a data mining gamer that can predict the future of Destiny

 

Destiny players celebrate Christmas once a week. Every Friday morning, a special weekend vendor arrives at a random location in the game’s main social hub, the Tower, and sells what is purported to be a randomized selection of the best and rarest (exotic tier) loot in the game. The vendor’s name is Xûr, and if not for his paltry asking price-per-piece, many players wouldn’t have gotten their favorite guns yet — even now, half a year after the game released. Every week, the anticipation of Xûr’s stock creates high hopes, and — due simply to the limited shelf space available — dashes them to the ground. For the past month, one intrepid player has been data mining Destiny to reveal Xûr’s stock before it goes on sale. Bungie has been doing what it can to prevent this player’s predictions, and it has created an escalating war between both factions.

 

The player, the Japanese-speaking Redditor Megamanexe4, has not revealed his specific system for data mining Destiny, but his results have been dead-on since he began revealing them around one month ago. Every week, he has been able to exactly predict not only what Xûr would sell, but the modifiers on the weekly events, as well as uncovered loads of info about the upcoming expansion House of Wolves. Aside from satiating the players’ curiosity, revealing Xûr’s stock has had huge implications on Bungie’s relationship with their game’s community.

 

By nature, a randomized list would mean Xûr’s stock often wouldn’t meet your desires, but the patterns the vendor has exhibited since release have frequently looked more like trolling than a random selection. He sold the worst exotic weapon in the game on Christmas, he has sold the exact same stock (three armor pieces, one weapon, and other assorted goodies) a handful of weeks apart, has sold a stock solely composed of items from the first DLC expansion more than once, and has had streaks of selling the same exact piece of gear over and over for weeks on end. These data points could all be coincidences, but that’s the point on which Destiny’s community sticks; Bungie has explicitly and repeatedly claimed that Xûr’s stock is both random and out of their control. Megamanexe4 seems to have proven otherwise.

 

No Backup Plans

Bungie had at least one.

 

The Redditor has not only predicted Xûr’s exact stock, the weekly event modifiers, and gear and maps from the upcoming expansion, but has also documented when Xûr’s stock has been manually changed, which again, is something Bungie vehemently claimed they could not do. Last week, Destiny received a tiny patch that installed tools to help Bungie better inspect and manage databases. Astute — or paranoid — members of the community immediately assumed it was to prevent gamers from being able to suss out upcoming content. Earlier today, Megamanexe4 posted an explainer on Reddit that seems to confirm those guesses of the astute and fears of the paranoid.

 

Since that tiny patch, the Redditor explains that there are now two versions of Xûr — an original copy that is still predictable, and a new, unpredictable copy that Bungie manually controls. If Megamanexe4’s observations are to be taken as true, then Bungie managed to fix their Xûr leak — though the weekly event and upcoming DLC data still seems to be running from a faucet. If Bungie does continually use what Megamenexe4 describes as a manually operated Xûr, then the developer figured out a way to beat dataminers. If Megamanexe4 is right and Bungie has been able to alter Xûr’s stock all along, then they’ve either been lying to Destiny’s community or at least intentionally misleading them.

 

What’s worse is that Bungie could’ve used Xûr to alleviate one of the game’s most prevalent bugs that was not only highly obnoxious, but put players at a disadvantage. The bug caused players to lose heavy ammo — ammo for the game’s hardest-hitting tier of weapons, and thus a valuable commodity to have for the game’s most difficult content — on death, after a cutscene, and when you leave a map. The on-death bug was finally patched after months of it wreaking tedious havoc on the gameplay (though it still persists when a cutscene loads or you leave the map). Xûr sporadically stocks a one-shot pack that, when used, replenishes your heavy ammo. Had Bungie just manually added the pack to Xûr’s stock every week, that would’ve quelled most of the community’s outcries. Instead, the developer chose to let the players suffer — at least, that’s how the community sees it.

 

The battle changed from protecting the developer’s private data to maintaining the community’s positive perception of the company. In the end, if plugging the Xûr leaks have come at the cost of the community feeling that Bungie lies to them or allows them to suffer from developer-created bugs, who really lost the war?

[Sennex 1,903]

Megaman's post on reddit, explaining all this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2zco77/misc_about_xurspoilers/

 

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I made a thread a few days ago but there were some parts that got lost in translation so I'm reposting with help from /u/seyon35 [1] .

 

Q: Were Xur's goods changed on 3/15?

A. Yes.

Q. Was Xur's list changed?

A. This was a different Xur from the "normal" Xur, so I cannot confirm any changes at this point.

 

Q. What do you mean "different Xur?"

A. There are 2 types of Xur. One has a standard list of goods for sale that can only be changed by patches. The other is controlled by Bungie, who can upload his data directly to the game without patches. The Xur that appeared on 3/15 was the latter type, directly controlled by Bungie.

Q. Can you get the list of the Xur that is controlled by Bungie (the latter type of Xur as described above)?

A. No. This Xur has his data directly uploaded on the day of his appearance. It is impossible to obtain data about this Xur on any other day.

 

Q. How did you figure this out?

A. Because a very similar thing has happened before. On January 30, the "original" Xur was scheduled to sell No Land Beyond. However on that day the Xur ended up selling Dragon's Breath.

Goods orginally scheduled to be sold: http://i.imgur.com/W5yTcTY.jpg[2]

Goods actually sold : http://i.imgur.com/JEl1wQH.jpg[3]

 

I tried accessing Xur's list that day, but all I could find was the goods actually sold on that day

I then tried accessing the list using a different method, but my access was denied and I was unable to see anything. The following week I was successfully able to access the original list.

Also, the actual appearance of Xur is always directly controlled by Bungie.

From these facts I deduced that the Xur on January 30th was different from the original Xur, in other words a Xur whose goods are directly controlled by Bungie.

The Xur who brought Red Death on 3/15 responded the same way as the Xur on 1/30 when I tried to access his data. In other words, this Xur was directly controlled by Bungie.

 

Q. Will you be able to get the data for future Xur's?

A. Yes, as long as it's the original Xur. But not if it's the Xur that Bungie controls directly. As long as the original Xur does not appear, all leakers (myself included) will not be able to see his data in advance. Obviously, in that case all data that I leaked about Xur would basically become garbage.

Q. Can you make any predictions about future Xur's based on the data you've already gotten?

A. Yes. As of the release of 1.1.1.0 I have gotten all of the original Xur's data thru May 15. None of that data changed with 1.1.1.1, so I can predict only the original Xur's goods, thru May 15.

 

Q. Can you get data other than Xur?

A. Yes. There were no signs of any changes to the data with the releases of 1.1.1.1. All Nightfall data remains accesible.

Conclusion:

I don't know why Bungie chose this timing to manually control Xur. Was it to squash me, maimonguy, and other leakers? Was it a one-time-only thing? Was there some other reason? All I can say is that only Bungie knows the true plan for Xur.

If they only use the manually controlled Xur from now on, then there is the possibility that Thunderlord, Hard Light, MIDA Multi-Tool, Obsidian Mind, and other items will not get sold. On the other hand, that also would mean there is a chance he will sell Gjallarhorn, Mask of the Third Man, Red Death, and other items not in the Original Xur's list.

It's worth mentioning that I don't know if the manually controlled Xur's goods are RNG or not. There's also the chance that the list or even the entire Xur system could change with 1.1.2.

I don't know how he accessed the data, but everything /u/maimonguy [4] leaked about Xur is correct as far as I can tell.

If this week's Xur (3/20) is the Original Xur, then we can assume that everything I've leaked in the past is true. If you go through my past posts, you can see the Original Xur's schedule for 3/20 and 3/27. Hint: you will probably be more excited about what he has to sell on 3/27 than 3/20.

That's all I am able to say for now. I'll let you know anything new as I discover it.

 

PS:When will I be able to see that updated information?

Don't be silly! Bungie!!

http://i.imgur.com/WSEIWeO.jpg[5]

(Japanese site has not been updated weekly news.)

[JsinOwl 644]

Wow, while there is obviously many unknown facts, this seems to be a large serving of weaksauce on Bungie's part. On multiple levels, I feel like Bungie disrespected me and what makes it most maddening, is that it all seems so unnecessary.

 

 

//By the way, your sig, too awesome.

[Sennex 1,903]

The odd part here is that datamining has happened in every MMO ever released. Most companies embrace it and use it as a way to get their customers to be excited for future events.

 

IDK what Bungie is thinking here, don't fight it, embrace it, use it as another way to disseminate information