Arelith

Recently did a trade using Stater, a somewhat old form of currency and noticed both a lack of documentation and transparency on the mechanics behind it.
Not only is there no formal place to look at info on Stater and it's mechanics on the wiki, but it also seems to have been changed compared to the old discussion on the forums and discord.
Stated in the discord and forums the conversion rate is about 10% where 110 gold gives one Stater worth 100 gold, however when I used it for trade earlier today it seems to be more expensive than previously discussed.


75k in gold turned into Stater left the converter with 674 stater and 186 gold left on the gemscale, of course, this translated to 67,586 Gold to the trader who converts it back.
This is a gold cost of 111 for the converter
Converting it with a basic calculator to divide 75k with 110 you'd get about 681.81(Repeating) Stater meaning there's about a 6 stater difference between the two, including the odd amount of gold left on the scale.
Can we get some sort of way to bring open the curtain and figure out what exactly is going on with stater, figure out why it's converting as it does?

Staters have always been operating at a loss of 11%, but since almost no one uses the mechanic its entirely possible the person writing the wiki article just didn't know and assumed it was 10% since thats the number that often flies around in rumor.

75k in gold turned into Stater left the converter with 674 stater and 186 gold left on the gemscale, of course, this translated to 67,586 Gold to the trader who converts it back.

Okay so here's how it actually works.

1. Multiply gold value by 0.9.
75,000 * 0.9 = 67,500.

2. While this value is >100, add 1 stater per 100 gold. (note that it's > not >=)
(67500 - 100) / 100 = 674 staters

3. Take the original gold value minus the staters * 111.
75,000 - (674 * 111) = 75,000 - 74,814 = 186 gold

A quick sidebar here, as someone who didn't even know what staters are despite having played here a number of years, what is the practical application for such a system?

It was inherited from the Fixed Level server, where it served the purpose of being a way to carry gold from place to place without actually... carrying gold and risking you losing it when you die, with the caveat you lose 10% of its value when you transfer it back to gold. This was especially important as GP functioned as XP there, sort of.

It could theoretically now serve the same purpose but given that pickpockets take right from your bank account using credit card skimmers, that doesn't work either.

mostly it exists to fuel cryptocurrency jokes in 2022 arelith

Now my memory of those halcyon days is pretty spotty, but I'm pretty sure that staters were around long before FL ever was. I distinctly remember discussion about them on the old forums, where they were put forward as an alternative to those who didn't want to lose all their gold upon death, but also wanted to RP characters who didn't trust the bank.

Kuma wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:50 am

mostly it exists to fuel cryptocurrency jokes in 2022 arelith

Technically, this IS a way of getting around the max gp bank account cap without starting "shell company" -factions, as every gem pouch can hold a little under one million gold coins in staters.

I don't know if it's something everyone did or just a few people I was roleplaying with at the time, but we used to pretend different areas had different currencies.. like, Udos/Pit Town then later Andunor's coins some people called 'Spiders' and in Cordor the coins were 'Crowns' or something. Memory fading. Some characters used staters as a in-between just for fun/roleplay. I remember them being pretty popular on Sencliff for a while too.

Totally forgot they exist.

I think it was also introduced as a way to play characters that did not want to use banks for whatever rp reasons.