Planet Namek
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Planet Namek in the Dragon Ball Universe
Planet Namek is a planet in the fictional anime series Dragon Ball Z, and home to the sentinent snail-like race of Nameks. The planet is otherwise physically similar to Earth, even having a similar level of gravity. (However, the atmosphere of the planet is green.)
See also: Namek (the species)
The planet is primarily notable as being the homeworld of Piccolo and Kami, and being the only other known world in the series that had its own set of dragonballs. (These were created by the Great Elder, who may also have been the Kami of the planet.) Unlike the dragonballs of Earth, the Namek balls grant three wishes and have fewer power limitations.
During the Freeza Saga in Dragon Ball Z, the planet was destroyed by Freeza during his battle with Son Goku. Nearly all the inhabitants of the planet were rescued by the Earth dragonballs and they eventually used their own dragonballs to select a new homeworld which they named New Namek.
Planet Namek the Website
Planet Namek was also the name of an extremely popular Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Ball GT fansite founded in the late 1990s by "Mr. E" (James Guillochon). He was soon joined by "SkullMac" (Brad Smith) and later by "Kaio" (Reid Sheridan), and while these three teenagers were working on the site it reached its apex of popularity (late 1999 and early 2000), receiving approximately 40,000 hits per day. The GameFan network, which was hosting Planet Namek, soon began to collapse, and the site jumped around to various servers which Mr. E paid for out of pocket. The expenses quickly overwhelmed him, however, and the site was shut down in February 2002. Prior to its demise, the site was also joined by Jonathan Allen and Julian Gybrowski. Planet Namek gained notoriety among Dragon Ball fans through its wide selection of media, series information, expansive forums, and daily news updates.
In mid-2000, due to the popularity of Gundam Wing and Rurouni Kenshin on the Planet Namek forums, two spinoff websites based on the site's format, Gundam Lounge and Kenshin Web were founded. By early 2001, however, hosting, cost, and content issues plagued the sites, resulting in the shutdown of both by June of that year.
The forums of Planet Namek, known as PNMB, had its own culture, like many forums with large memberships are apt to have. Notably, it spawned a series of short flash movies made by a member named Gutcruncher, including important events such as when a member named Bebi became a moderator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderator_%28communications%29) and had a power trip, or the shutdown of the website itself. This "culture" lives on in two new message boards founded by Planet Namek Message Board members advertised upon Namek's closure, including [1] (http://www.shadowsofnamek.com/forum) Shadows of Namek, now Shadows of Nothing and [2] (http://www.guiltyparties.com/forums) Otaku Haven, now Guilty Parties. The two sites share many members, such as Lobok, Bebi, and Matt Cruea (http://www.mattcruea.com/).
PNMB also had a role playing and "sparring" community who in turn started their own semi-successful community called NeoNamek (http://www.neonamek.com), or n2, in early 2002. N2 is run by Lucas Wolf, known as NeoWolf on the forums, and is joined by many other ex-members of PNMB in the running and maintinence of the forums, as well as many others. The forum culture is very relaxed and in-jokes include the worship of pie, dancing, and "silly sparring", a form of roleplay involving pretending to beat people up in a humorous or ludicrous manner.
Planet Namek related links:
- NeoNameka (http://www.neonamek.com) spin off on the role playing community in PNMB.
- Shadows of Nothing (http://www.shadowsofnothing.com/forum) Another somewhat related forum; formerly Shadows of Namek.
- Yue's Article fer j00 (http://www.angelfire.com/dragon2/dwilson/Yue.htm) An article on the history and nature of online roleplay resulting from the PNMB roleplay community.