Something new every day

This one better fit.

Edit: You may notice a change in picture, the previous one resisted all attempts at editing, or formating, so I killed it.

I spent yesterday as an internet spaceship mover/liquidator. The null space area that my current corp resides in, is about 30 jumps away from the region I had been calling home before. The end of last week, and yesterday even more, saw me going about the grueling process of transporting my ships to my new home. The amount of stuff that you accumulate over time in EVE can be impressive, and I’m not the type who likes to horde – I stand over the garbage can when I go through my mail. Having a scroll bar on my assets list bugs my inherent sense of order, so last night I spent the beginning of my evening liquidating goods to cut down on transportation – going so far as to strip and sell one of my drakes. I’m sure I took a bit of a hit on my net worth – maybe 15-20% of the sold goods, but I got a Drake for free from the corps, so it’s a wash.

It’s taken me over a week to get this move wrapped up, because the travel aspect is torturous to me. 30 jumps isn’t a whole lot, but it’s still a good chunk of time just in going from point A to point B – at least 45 min, to an hour. Which is about half of a typical play session for me (one more reason I decided to sell the drake). However, my talking about this with my new corps, the clued me in on an aspect of the game I had no idea even existed: jump bridges.

The universe of New Eden is connected by stargates. Each solar system is connected by these technological wonders that were previously hauled there by explorers to connect different parts of space. Some regions, like Old Man Star, have interesting back-stories for the construction of the stargate. However, stargates are all NPC created and static objects. Which, on the whole, isn’t very interesting. Jump bridges are the player version of stargates – only better. From a pure function view, they jump longer distances, and the path to my corps home is one that would normally take about 40 jumps from the hi-sec access point, but with these jump bridges, it’s about ten. Additionally, it’s all player created content. They are created and placed by corporations. Their access is limited to those with the password, so usability is restricted. Having a network of jump bridges is tactically advantageous, as well as a huge relief to players making a long trip – for allowing them to avoid both the repetition of jump, warp, jump; but also because it makes them more safe by cutting down on total exposed time on a trip.

Travel in MMOs is a concept that, with the rest of the genre intricacies, been reduced to novel and simplistic tasks. Warping, flying, and recalls have all made most MMOs space a negligible issue. EVE, has some ways to relieve that (jump clones), but all of them are limited and restricted in some sort of significant manner (passwords, real-time limits). So, as much as I hate to do the travel myself, I appreciate it for what it means to the game, and what it creates as a by-product. A move should not be considered lightly, or something done on a whim – just as in real life, you set down roots and leaving a place you’ve become established in becomes more difficult as time goes on.