The Nethernet Community News

Greetings.

Elections for  The Nethernet Prime Minister Cabinet positions officially close today and it has been brought to my attention that some of you may not have voiced your opinion and selected your preferred candidate.

All you could ever want to know about the elections, the candidates, and more can be found in the forum thread here.

If you already have someone in mind you can head straight over to the polling station by clicking here. Just enter your Nethernet User ID and Password to login.

The community needs your vote, and participation is fun.

Vote now and secure a seat for the candidate you want.

“Nader 09″  – The right choice, the wrong election

The cries of Chaos have been heard. You’ll now earn 25 datapoints for traveling through portals, in addition to the DP you earn hourly and the DP you earn from taking missions.

This change is going out momentarily.

Recently some of The Nethernet Stewards teamed up with the NPCs and other assorted Nethernet gods to update the inventory of the Real-life Nethernet Shoppe.

If you’ve yet to check out The Nethernet on Zazzle, it’s worth a look, especially now! There are over 60 items available some of which were custom made for specific TNN players.

sylverling created a custom “Watchdog-Destroyer V-Neck T-Shirt” for Riko. When asked about her future shirt Riko exclaimed, “I was very excited when sylverling offered to design the shirt to order. I have repeatedly said that the watchdog buggering…er…biting the Destroyer is the BEST ARTWORK EVER! Now I have the opportunity to share it with a broader audience. As I had selected the woman’s sheer v-neck T-shirt, I decided the artwork should be placed on the back, to avoid distortion. I think the shirt will provide an opening for many interesting conversations about the Nethernet, watchdogs, and the actual place and role of Destroyers within the game.”

A few of the newly available items in TNN RL Shoppe!

According to Elder Steward salmontickler, “The Shoppe needed some attention; we added some great new summer lines!” Of the new items he said his favorite “is the Nethernet 500 error, with the shoat legging it from the explosion. I made this and ordered it myself.”

Shoat Patrol Lead Steward sylverling said, “I love the puzzle crate tank – so fun and flirty! – and the Good Watchdog shirt. Cute and fun. I also like the Happy Destroyer stickers and will be ordering a bunch to plaster all over my hometown. Viral marketing ftw!”

Elder Steward chetyre believes some of the new items are going to be a big hit: “I think the tool stickers are going to sell well. I also think that the tool use badge buttons will be a big hit. I remember since the start of the game, people have asked for real badges–plus they look snazzy!”

Each of the Stewards mentioned above have indicated they’re more than willing to create custom product for interested buyers. More information and requests can be posted in this thread. Enjoy and thanks Stewards!

The Nethercast of the Week (NoW, for short), is a weekly installment of the best Community content from the week prior. Too busy to keep up with everything on the forums? No worries. We have you covered. Make the jump below!

This week: Tubenauts, TNN IRC Help, NPC Theories, and more!

Tubenauts #14: One Year and Counting is available for your listening pleasure over at Zousware and on iTunes. The Tubenauts

Bunni3 has created an entire page dedicated to helping you understand irc.thenethernet.com, also known as TNN Chat. Check it out at http://tnn-irc-help.davidsev.co.uk/. Thanks Bunni3!

Posts of the Week:

ionstar’s The NPC Theories – Playful thoughts and growing ideas: Have some ideas on how the NPCs should be used? Should a PC transcend into the NPC world? Leave your thoughts inside.

rumple’s Put It On – a Message from Your Friendly Bedouin Committee: “Do not let the dark side fool you, chaos has many faces and will make use of any means to trick, deceive and distract you from the most important thing while traveling the Netherdepts: Wear your armor – put it on! Travel Safe!”

shyiskhar’s Dear TNN Chaots, A word please: Shyiskhar has called for all Chaots to unite under a single symbol. Are you in?

Mission of the Week:

mshawaiianbread’s Arriving on Earth for Dummies : “When traveling to Earth from another planet for business, pleasure, or even with desire to become a citizen, life here on Earth may seem bizarre and even frightening. I hope that this guide may be able to bring you up to date on how to interact with one particular species: Homo Sapien. From the species views on extraterrestrials (believe it or not, that’s you!) to the typical method(s) of dining, “Arriving on Earth for Dummies” puts you up to date in clear and easy to follow language. The author acknowledges that the reader’s knowledge of English may be limited, so many pictures and videos have been included.”

bunni3burn, Prime Minister

The Nethernet is endowed with a community who believes in democracy. Throughout the game’s history there have been two elections held for head of the player-run government. sylverling, PMOG President for Life, called for the election of a Prime Minister of The Nethernet.

The winner of that contest was bunni3burn, a long-time veteran of the game and Queen of the Bedouins. Bunni3, as she is known by most (notoriousB by others), has graciously run our LiveJournal and Last.FM communities.

The following is a short interview with her regarding her tenure as Nethernet Prime Minister.

Continue Reading »

The Nethercast of the Week (NoW, for short), a weekly installment of the best Community content from the week prior. Too busy to keep up with everything on the forums? No worries. We have you covered. Make the jump below!

Thanks to your Community Steward birch262 and nitwit88 for some of this week’s submissions.

Don’t forget you can always submit content, including your own Missions to the NoW just by PMailing @burdenday with a link.

This week: TNN Soundtrack, Shoat Flu, Going Viral, Awesomeness and much, much more!

Continue Reading »

The Tubnauts, an unofficial player-run podcast

Just about a year ago, The Tubenauts released their first unofficial PMOG Podcast. Since then, 13 sporadic episodes have followed, each covering various releases, community happenings and game events, all while chronicling the progressive nature of both the game itself and its community. Hosted by tonedef, snocrsh, pixielo, chetyre and a varying cast of commentators, The Tubenauts have provided hours of entertainment for The Nethernet community, as well as critical feedback for the GameLayers. Always honest, but ever constructive, I have taken careful notes from each of the podcasts in hopes of improving our product and communicating the feedback and feelings represented by our player base.

If you have yet to listen to one of The Tubenauts episodes, head over to their home on Zousware and subscribe on iTunes. Then, once you’re hooked, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to all of the episodes for a complete picture of the metamorphosis I described earlier.

In Episode 13: Dog Market, Shoat Market, The Tubenauts opened up their podcast for player-submitted audio. So, if you have something that “Nicks your Mines” or a gameplay aspect you’d like the world to hear about, record your piece and e-mail it to tubenauts at gmail dot com.

You can also follow the gang on Twitter.

A huge thanks to all members of the cast, especially tonedef, for keeping the podcast alive for over a year now. As they transition to welcome new commentators into their fold, stay tuned for continued excellence and hilarity in podcasting.

-Joe

The Nethercast of the Week (NoW, for short), a weekly installment of the best Community content from the week prior. Too busy to keep up with everything on the forums? No worries. We have you covered. Make the jump below!

Thanks to your Community Steward birch262 for some of this week’s submissions.

Don’t forget you can always submit content, including your own Missions to the NoW just by PMailing @burdenday with a link.

This week: TNN Rap, Take a Quote, Shoat Wars and more!

Tubenauts #13: Dog Market, Shoat Market, a Nethernet player-run podcast, has been released for your listening pleasure. You can also download it from here.

Continue Reading »

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).

The Nethercast of the Week (NoW, for short), a weekly installment of the best Community content from the week prior. Too busy to keep up with everything on the forums? No worries. We have you covered. Make the jump below!

Don’t forget you can always submit content, including your own Missions to the NoW just by PMailing @burdenday with a link.

This week: Keepers of the Torches, Class Philosophy, Self-Mining and more!

Update: Tubenauts #12: The Dirty Dozen, a Nethernet player-run podcast, has been released for your listening pleasure. You can also download it from here.

Continue Reading »