Quote:I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about... ... (there's no knowledge of which items have sets/uniques here)
I'm talking about a failure in the random number generator. There need not be any knowledge of which items have sets/uniques. It would be a result of a co-variance between successive random numbers that causes certain combinations of numbers to be more likely than others as time goes on. If the tables were arranged in a way so these "more likely" numbers resulted in high-durability magic items, it could explain what people see. It's not really what I think is happening, so it's probably not worth going into in depth. What it means is that counting high-durability magic items as uniques will not properly test all possibilities.
Pardon the trip into excessive nerdiness here, but there is a simple test for one-degree of co-variance that might be fun to run on the Blizzard RNG. [Peers through his thick glasses at the monitor.] Start with a 600 by 600 pixel bitmap with all pixels colored red. Go into a loop where you pick a random X (1-600) and random Y (1-600.) Examine that pixel and turn it black if it is red. If it is not red, make it slightly whiter. Let it run.
What you should see is a red graph with points rapidly turning black. As time goes on, the red points should disappear, and the screen should gradually turn white as the points are hit again and again. Let it run "a long time."
Eventually all the red points should disappear. Examine the graph to see if there are suspicious darker areas or lighter areas. If there are, make note of where they are. Run the program again and see if they are still there in the same place. If so, the RNG fails because it has one-degree of co-variance. It also fails if some points stay red forever. Blizzard's RNG should easily pass this test, though. If not, I am very disappointed in Blizzard. Good RNGs will pass that test easily.