The Nethernet Community News

Part 3 of 3 in a series examining the Past, Present and Future of PMOG. Three days ago, PMOG was renamed to The Nethernet.

PMOG becomes The Nethernet

…we wanted a name that was more fun, a name that didn’t have to be explained. A name for a place, where wild chaos and bold order exchange salvos in a war over truth and distraction. We want a name for the layer of play is happening over the web. We call it The Nethernet.

We want to mix games with everyday life. We’re too busy to play games all the time. But we want to be able to play games all the time!

We thought PMOG was a good name for a new type of game – a passively multiplayer online game. Like a massively multiplayer online game, except not massive, in the middle of your life, taking up space, but passive, like drop-in, drop-out, play when you want, always ready.

Turns out it can be pretty hard to explain a PMOG to someone who doesn’t already know about MMOGs.

So we wanted a name that was more fun, a name that didn’t have to be explained. A name for a place, where wild chaos and bold order exchange salvos in a war over truth and distraction. We want a name for the layer of play is happening over the web. We call it The Nethernet.

So what might you see in the future on The Nethernet?

Take a look at the Events feed, and you’ll see our latest tools and our old stalwarts being liberally exchanged. We plan to make more Tools, Upgrades and Abilities, so every Class has more to look forward to as they Level Up on The Nethernet.

Look at the incredible stream of Missions, player experimentations with pathways across the web. We want to give tools to make and share better Missions.

Watch our active community in the Latest Posts and in the PoW posts on this weblog. We want to give people a sense of who they are playing the game with, who their rivals really are, and who their allies might be. Already, you can see a rich social game in progress, and that’s what we aim to amplify.

Our toolbar is now filled with exciting stuff you can do to web pages, and a layer of playful information you can toggle over your web surfing. We just added the ability to make a rival or ally on the spot, when an event happens. We’ll be adding more social buttons for you to reach out and play with other people who share the same web with you.

Building The Nethernet could not have been done without some great help from a few folks. The team at GameLayers worked with our fantastic, thorough Stewards. They support our players, test and manage our game with us, and make The Nethernet a fun place to be alive. We had web development help from the patient and playful Lance Arthur. David Phillips helped us fill our toolbar with fun icons. Our lead illustrator Colin Adams not only draws our tools and characters, he makes his own steampunk devices. And thanks to our advisor Michael Buhr – we have a ton of ideas about how to make the internet more fun, Michael helps us focus around our best ideas and watch how we can evolve them with you, the players.

Finally, a huge thanks to everyone who played a web toolbar MMO with a weird name – you took a chance on a game experiment, a new kind of play on a new software platform. You made the game yourselves by spreading game events across the internet. And now you can watch The Nethernet grow as we continue to play!

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Links:

• Discuss this Post in our Community News Forum
• A History of PMOG 18 February 2009
• PMOG Today 25 February 2009
• Duncan Gough describes the shift
• Merci Victoria Grace describes her process for name-finding

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 04:30 and is filed under Features, Special Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.

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