Veteran players of The Nethernet likely know the player who I have I dubbed as the “PMOG (TNN) Tycoon.” He is responsible for many of the ventures surrounding The Nethernet, including: The Tubenauts, a player-run Podcast; The PMOG Lottery; Goldensneaker Casino; the late PRisk; Auto-DP Generator v6.5; and a number of others. This player among players is the one and only Zous! All of his works can be found on his website Zousware.
I recently virtually sat down with Zous and asked him a few questions to look into what drives him to continue his community-strengthening ventures.
The Masked Zous himself
When asked about what has driven him to dedicate so much of his time to these side projects Zous said, “The [Nethernet] is about the community to me.”
“As I am a Software Engineer by profession anyways, I’m always excited by the prospect of building something new assuming I have the time to do so. Being able to provide it to a community like this though, who I know will use it and hopefully enjoy it, makes it even more worthwhile. In general, anything I can do to better provide for the community and help it grow is both exciting and fun to me.”
It hasn’t always been easy or perfect though. During PRisk a number of issues sprung up, including PMOG’s transition from a JavaScript-injected overlay system, to the new XUL-based toolbar. More recently, some holes were present in the Goldenseaker Casino, which resulted in the need of stimulus funds from Thomas Hoggins to get it back on its feet. Despite these and other caveats Zous has yet to be deterred.
“It’s part learning new things as I build them (as I rarely try to stick to only what I know) and the knowledge hopefully they’ll make things more engaging for others that I enjoy most. The only times which I have not enjoyed it is when someone tries to break the system actively out of pure greed and even more so when I realize how much I want to do that I don’t have the time to handle,” he said.
Zous, and myself, welcome anyone who wants to provide a better, more engaging atmosphere for our little piece of the Internet. If you’re interested in learning more about developing side projects for The Nethernet and other games alike, join #pmods on irc.freenode.com (Contact Stephen or DavidSev for enterance).
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