Imagine thousands of miles of flatlands slowly rising in elevation across a wide and open country. Now imagine a wall of mountains thousands of miles long that bisect those flatlands. At the base of that wall, sits the city of Denver.
There is no river, or lake, or obvious natural reason for Denver to exist at the exact spot in which it sits. It could easily be a hundred miles, or hundred feet, somewhere else. And it struck me, riding into the city, exactly how this happened.
Denver was settled by lazy people.
No insult intended to those living there now. But your ancestors, having trudged across disease and native american infested flatlands for months and months, took one look at the Rocky Mountains and said - Fuck that. And pitched a tent.
There are 5,000 systems in New Eden. And all the lazy people have settled into one of them. We call this place Jita. "Jita" means Wal-Mart in the native tongue. Y'know, if you had to get thru hundreds of thieves, pickpockets, and scum in order to get inside to actually shop.
I try never to go there because it depresses me. It sucks the life out of my experience, my game, and any enjoyment or hope I have stored up inside me for the future of New Eden. Unlike Denver, I fully intend any insults that residents of Jita may feel towards what I am about to say.
But, despite my intentions, every so often I am forced to waste an entire day of gaming to trudge my alt up to Jita to buy supplies. And that's what I did yesterday. I was in a good mood, until I landed in system and docked up for four hours.
Everything about Jita flies in the face of everything I enjoy about Eve. It is artificial. It is obvious. It is vulgar, but not in a fun way. It breaks the barrier. And above all it is horribly, disgustingly lazy. It is lazy because it is the ONE true trade center in all of New Eden. It is lazy because of the swarm of lazy ass opportunists sitting outside just waiting around for some idiot to undock. It is lazy, because it is infused with the spirit of quit. Give up. Far enough. Can't. Why bother?
For those of us pounding away in the hinter-lands, Jita represents the worst of shiny, boring, settled, "civilized" opulence. It was even worse this week because I had just spent two days in Null Sec space, reporting on "one in local", or "plus 2" in local. It amplifies the effect of constant 12, 24, 7, 18, 36, 2, empty, empty, empty - when suddenly there are 2,000 in local.
My blood boils and I just want to yell at everyone, "For goodness sake!! Split up!! There is a huge universe out there!!" and bash some heads in until someone agrees with me. But I don't of course, cause for all its faults, Jita sure is convenient.
I feel the same way about Wal-Mart. I try to avoid it, it makes me feel terrible, it sucks the life right out of me, but sometimes I really can't justify paying 20% more for something I really need across town. And I pinch my nose and plunge into it. All in the name of savings.
I don't feel good about myself when that happens. I need a shower afterwards. I'm left with a vague feeling that Wal-Mart is destroying the universe. And that there is nothing I can do to stop it.
And then I go home and tell myself that I probably, most likely, won't ever have to do that again.
Maybe I can stretch these supplies out further this time?
Comments
Put another way, Jita is alive, and everywhere else in highsec is basically dead. The deadness of nullsec is one thing -- it's the deadness of the wilderness. But a dead system with 20 people in it is another thing.
Or Sugar's hub (Bosena, I think it is) if you don't want to see population?
Could it be... laziness?
I only have one weapon to punish a retailer, and I have implemented it.
(Amarr has close access to Kor-Azor, Kador, Tash-Murkon, and The Bleak Lands)
(Hek connects to Heimatar and Sinqu Laison and is right next to low-sec making it more easily accessible for low-sec denziens.)
(Dodixie connects to Everyshore and is close to Essence and Genesis, travel the Genesis connection and you have a wider range of access to the other regions while also enabling access to Verge Vendor.)
That's how I see it.
..." , it was founded at the confluence of the South Platte river and Cherry Creek where gold was discovered. Ya low down Durned know-nothing flatlander!
Dralv is essentially correct about "Why Jita?" As I understand it the history is a bit more involved than that as CCP tried game changes to spread out the trading from various hubs (and lessen the load on that part of the server cluster), but people just found new ways to cooperate. Which is, after all, what non-fraudulent trading is.
But I'm not sure you will understand me...yoiur posting show little interest is letting others play eve the way they want to.
I know exactly why Denver was settled, but that doesn't mean you can't see the humor in thinking it was settled by lazy people. If we are all going to start treating the world seriously we should probably call all the comedians now and tell them they are out of a job.
I personally can't stand Jita. Obviously that doesn't mean I don't see the value in having it, I go there myself once a month for that very reason. And yes, I do also sometimes use the other markets.
And I am certainly the biggest advocate for everyone doing exactly what they want in Eve. Sheesh.
Dont go to J-Mart, send someone else to shop, say you don't care where it comes from as long as they deliver in time and no more as j-mart +10%
Jita was originally where you would get sent at the end of the old-style new player experience. Along with a large number of manufacture and lab slots in system, it was a manufacturing wheelhouse even during the Yulai days. When the highways were removed, Jita was pretty well the 'center of mass' of manufacturing and therefore a good place to setup shop to sell.
Add into that the majority of players (at the time) were Caldari, running Caldari Navy missions...reducing tax at the navy stations. All sort of added up as Jita 4-4 being a good place to trade at for a large percentage of players. Currently it is the main trade hub because...it is the main trade hub. (That and CCP has lavished big machine power on it to be able to keep up the large trade volume there so it isn't a lag-fest of slothness)
Other trade hubs have sort of fallen to the wayside in recent years. Oursulaert used to be the Major Gallente trade hub, but it is now Dodixie that heads that spot up.
But Jita is mostly the main trade hub now-a-days 'Because it is so.'