Seriously, VW loot system..come on.

[Arcon]

It's a server load saving measure, I'd imagine. Instead of asking the server to generate tons of random numbers (since people /random and lot all the time), your client just sends a ping to the server and the server sends a number back based on when that ping is received. That time is just a measure of the Vanadiel Minute. Each VD Minute can be split 1000 ways. If the server receives your ping at the very start of a new VD minute, you'll roll a 999. If the server receives your ping at the end of a VD minute, you roll a 0. Everything in between is returned linearly.

I'm guessing they changed that then. I'm still having a hard time believing it ever worked like this. I just did a test run and it received /random lots pretty evenly distributed from 0 to 999. Even if that's all due to connection lag (which should be minmal with a fast and responsive wired broadband connection like mine), it still means there's no way to influence it manually.

I think it's fairly ingenious from an efficiency standpoint.

Not sure if I'd call it ingenious. If they indeed implemented a linearly cycling system like that it should simply be based on milliseconds with a predetermined (random) permutation, the connection lag would still make it impossible to time it properly and it would be, for all intents and purposes, random. To be ingenious it should be something that people couldn't influence manually. And I don't think lotting occurs often enough for it to be an issue anyway.