I had some good times playing the game formerly known as PMOG and I will miss it, to be sure. What’s the Nethernet? It was an MMO that we played all over the web. The Internet was our game board and a toolbar on Firefox was how we interacted. The game developers are turning out the lights and moving on to other projects.

I started playing around the same time that I joined Twitter. Last night during a chat with a close friend from The Nethernet on IRC,  we realized that PMOG/TNN was the first time we took a chance and joined a social game. We let our walls down and made some real connections. I remember several months ago, the developers posted in the forum asking what parts of the game the players really enjoyed. I would guess, 99% of us said, “The community.”

Bean counters & marketing gurus are all about numbers. If you get the players/users, then you have a base number which you can use to estimate your all mighty profits from ads, subscriptions and the like. The formula is practically a law in the Internet business world. So, the developers of The Nethernet did what any start up company would do, they went out looking for numbers. Instead of numbers, they got us. We are a community.

We may not have a home, but I have hope to keep the connections that I have made. I humbly offer a refugee camp for those of you interested in remaining in contact. Snocrsh has also made a Ning for lost souls. You can also find many of us on freenode. You can connect through the web using their webchat or you can download xchat, pidgin, colloquy and a number of other free IRC clients. You’ll find your Nethernet friends in the channels #pmog, #thenethernet.com.

Share your own experiences, ideas for a new home or questions about IRC in the comments or the refugee camp. We’ll do our best to keep on jaunting.