Math is hard, help with a comma or three

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Jhinx, Jun 29, 2021.

  1. Jhinx Whimsical Chinchilla

    On Fironia Vie, where a krono sells for 4,000,000plat (ish), it become rather difficult to see whether that array of zeros is 300k or 3 million. Had a friend go to buy a 200k item and ended up accidentally spending 2 million ; she normally would use a piece of paper to try to eliminate one 0 at a time, but it failed this time.

    Especially for those with poor vision it would be so much easier to see the prices as 200,000pp or 2,000,000pp to differentiate.

    Minor/quick fix that would benefit many.
  2. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Well, your request is reasonable, but depends on them actually doing it.

    A work-around in the meantime: Don't have that much plat on you. Most deals happen in PoK and Bazaar, with plenty of bankers handy to grab more if you need it. Or, just pop your Vet clockwork banker, offload plat, make the deal, then grab your plat back.

    Not optimal, but it's something you can do now to prevent it from happening again.
  3. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    Using the comma to divide numbers is a very good idea.

    However, if we look at it as an international game, it is important to know that in many non-English speaking countries they use a comma as the "decimal separator", while most English speaking countries, like the USA, use the comma as the "thousands separator" or ""digit group separator"..

    Therefore, the accepted standard is to use spaces as the digit group separator, for example, 4 000 000 would be four million and 200 000 would be two hundred thousand.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator explains this.
    Jacofretless, Maedhros and Kase like this.
  4. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    While that is true, I don't think having a comma separator would cause that much confusion and I think it would look graphicly better than having a space separator. They are already using a decimal point which goes in line with the comma separator. If people who are used to a comma as a decimal separator can handle EQ using a decimal point as that I am sure they can handle a comma as a thousands separator.
    Wyre Wintermute and Tatanka like this.
  5. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    Couldn't we settle this with a compromise? We dirty Americans will adopt the metric system (even Celsius), and you foreigners will stop using commas as periods. It bloody insane anyway (see I'm compromising), if you did that with sentences instead of numbers you'd see why.
    Fanra and Tatanka like this.
  6. Eaedyilye More stonehive bixies.

    This is what I do. Say I buy something for 4 million plat. I type in the 4, then while hitting the 0 key, I count to 6. I then look to see that 4 million is the proper amount deducted from my total.

    If you pay attention, you should be ok.
  7. The real Sandaormo Augur

    I'm not using the Metric system, NO!
    Metanis likes this.
  8. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    You are, you just don't know it yet. Aside from carpentry and vehicle speeds, a lot is metric here already. Would you like a 10mm socket to remove your brake calipers? :p
  9. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    This is true. I suppose in order to be consistent they can use the comma as the digit group separator.

    Since our experience is already shown as 15.222% into level, they can have two hundred thousand show as 200,000.
    Elyssanda and Nennius like this.
  10. Metanis Bad Company

    I always count zeros.
    Elyssanda likes this.
  11. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    My eyes can sometimes glaze over and give me difficulty if something is 200000 or 2000000. I would be very happy if commas were introduced. Make it an option in the options menu if possible, so people that don't want commas can be happy too.
    minimind and Elyssanda like this.
  12. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Commas would be good. As I get older, my eyesight has faded some and every little bit of help is appreciated. I haven't yet made a big Ooops!, but that time will come for me.
    Zynt, Celephane, Cicelee and 4 others like this.
  13. Duder Augur

    I like that you enlarged the font size of that reply in a topic regarding eye sight! ;)
    Zynt, Cicelee, Fanra and 5 others like this.
  14. Stymie Pendragon

    I have to use Sillymeters at work for Airbus parts, but that's as far as I'm willing to go!:) I just convert everything to imperial anyways.

    As for commas or any separator, I have to assume that there is a technical reason they haven't added it over the years much like the 32 bit limit in the Bazaar.
  15. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Metric is used in the US alot, but its just silly to argue that it would be better for highway signs and home thermostats.
  16. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    Yea its pretty sad when someone offers to pay 13-18m for a krono then sells for 5m on fv and yea someone is scamming people. I just know on the trade window the pp is so small be nice if they would enlarge that part. Im done with krono's myself had like 40-45 and sold for 4.5-5m pp each i bought for 4m so decent profit and now i just pay daybreak yearly now.

    Andarriel
  17. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Just like arguing that we shouldn't use a measurement system that 95%+ of the world uses. Sure it would take time to get used to it but having a single standard for measurements world wide would be useful.
    Fanra likes this.
  18. Laronk Augur

    Not to mention that metric just makes sense

    Units in metric are very easy to convert to other units whether its grams to kg or mm to cm to metres.
    Fanra likes this.
  19. Strawberry Augur

    Not only does the metric system make far more sense. The use of a comma makes far more sense too.

    A comma is a divider of something, a period is an ending of something. Since a fraction is the result of a division of a whole number, a divider like a comma should be used instead of a period.

    Ironically, even in the US this is called a "decimal separator", commas are separators, periods are endings.

    There exists a solution to this. 4.000.000 = 4e6

    1 million = 1e6

    You'll see this "E notation" on calculators, but it's also used anywhere where big numbers can result in mistakes, science, economics, etc.
  20. Strawberry Augur

    The reason why no one in science or economics uses 10k, 10m, 10Bn, 10Tr...is because a billion means something else in every country.

    In some countries 1 billion = 1,000,000,000, like the US. But this number is instead called "milliard" in many other countries. But ironically, this term "milliard" is also accepted in the US, but then billion no longer means the same thing.

    In countries where milliard is accepted (including in the US if you want to mess with people), 1 billion = 1,000,000,000,000

    And since transactions happen internationally, you really don't want to introduce a word like "billion" that has a different meaning everywhere.

    Sites like Forbes actually make this mistake all-the-time, especially when they are talking about European budgets or ECB bond purchasing programs, many writers do not understand that 1 billion in the US is not the same thing as 1 billion in other countries.