IRC: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:33, 15 December 2009

What is IRC?

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication. More information can be found in the wikipedia article

How do I get on?

You need an IRC-client to connect to the network. There are many clients available and it's up to you to decide what you use. Every clients homepage usually has a nice tutorial or help-page on how to connect with the client.

For a more full list of clients refer to this wikipedia article.

Usable on all operating systems is the online webclient.

Windows clients

mIRC
ChatZilla - a Firefox extension
Pidgin - A multi-platform, multi-protocol, open source IM client (Formerly known as gaim. Simultaneously handles MSN, Yahoo, AIM, IRC, and many more.)
Trillian - another multi-protocol IM client
X-Chat 2
X-Chat 2 - A free unofficial Windows port of X-Chat.

Unix/Linux clients

Mac OS X clients

Battlemaster IRC history

The Battlemaster community has traveled through a multitude of irc-networks. Here's a little background information on the history of each network and why it was abandoned and why we moved on to other networks.

Jurai (irc.jurai.org)

This is the original and first network where a BattleMaster channel appeared, around October 2002 by mostly Perdanese players at first. It was a nice small network with plenty of other browser-based game communities flourishing around, but unfortunately it went belly up and merged with IRCWorld.

IRCWorld

As a result of the merger, on November 12th 2002 the BattleMaster community "moved" to this network. Unfortunately the network caused lots of headache & gray hair (mainly reliability issues: on top of the higher-than-usual split ratio, connections were getting reset, pings were lost, the network had some mysterious limits, suffered from constant reboots. then there was the occasional outsider invasions on the channel from elsewhere of the network), and generally performed badly, so the community decided to move again.

IRCWorld homepage

QuakeNet (irc.quakenet.org)

The third network where a Battlemaster channel appeared and it is still the home for #battlemaster. QuakeNet is the bastion of BattleMaster related channels. There are many realm specific channels and of course there is also #battlemaster. #Battlemaster was created on November 16th 2002 and it serves as a gathering point for all BattleMaster players. Currently the channel hovers at around 25 people at peak times and sports a wide variety of troopleaders (kings, bankers, dukes, regular nobles and so on) and players (from the USA, Mexico, Finland, Belgium, Netherlands and so on).

QuakeNet homepage

irc.battlemaster.org

There was a time when Tom had created an own IRC-server for BattleMaster. The server was up for a short time, but was closed down. The reason probably being that it never really caught on or that it was more trouble than it was worth.

Also, it existed simultaneously with the more established Quakenet channels and had some interesting future prospects with some level of game-related integration. Alas, the project winded down after the initial enthusiasm from both the developers' and users' part wore off. One of the major problems with the concept was that whenever BattleMaster crashed, the BM IRC network became inaccessible as well. And whenever BM crashes, the IRC activity tends to spike as well. People crave for their daily fix and start to wonder if the problem exists only in their end, or is it down for all.

Hopefully we'll see the server up once again and see it catch on.

The channels

Here's a little list of channels that exist on various networks.

Quakenet

#arcaea - The channel for Arcaea on FEI.
#atamara - The channel for Atamara.
#battlemaster - The main BM channel. Talks go from BM related stuff all the way to the meaning of life(and lots of silliness and vulgarity). Even Tom stops by sometimes ;)
#beluaterra - The channel for Beluaterra.
#BloodStars - The channel for Morek, Astrum, and Sanguis Astroism on Dwilight.
#bm-far-east - The channel for Far East Island.
#Cagilan-Empire - The channel for Cagilan Empire on Atamara.
#D'Hara - The channel for D'Hara on Dwilight.
#Dwilight - The channel for Dwilight.
#east-island - The channel for East Island.
#Falasan - The channel for Falasan on Atamara.
#Fontania - The channel for Fontan on East Island.
#Ibladesh - The channel for Ibladesh on East Island.
#Itorunt - The channel for Itorunt on East Island.
#libero-empire - The channel for Libero Empire on Dwilight.
#oldgrehk - The channel for Old Grehk on Beluaterra.
#Pian-en-Luries - The channel for Pian en Luries on Dwilight.
#Perdan - The channel for Perdan on East Island.
#Riombara - The channel for Riombara on Beluaterra.
#Sirion - The channel for Sirion on East Island.
#South-darka - The channel for Darka on Atamara.
#Thalmarkin - The channel for Thalmarkin on Beluaterra.
#Tlahtocayotl - The channel for The Blood Cult on Beluaterra.

The People

So who hangs out on #BattleMaster these days?

Regulars:

Occasional Visitors:

Once in a Blue Moon:

_Tom_

Gone, but Not Forgotten:

Anthem

The #Battlemaster channel has its own anthem! You can hear it here. The lyrics go as follows:

(To the tune of Pomp and Circumstance)

Evil! Evil! Evil!

Battlemaster also has its own anthem! You can hear it here. The lyrics go as follows:

(To the tune of Pomp and Circumstance)

Land of War and Intrigue, lightweight, fun, and free,

How much shall we play thee, who are called to thee?

Larger still and larger shall thy database get;

Tom who made thee awesome, make thee awesomer yet!

Quotes

IRC is a very social medium and as such there's lots of talk and funny moments. Here are some memorable quotes from various channels.

Quotes

You can also see various statistics related to the chatter in some of the main channels (particularly #battlemaster) at the statistics page.

@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 === Mac OS X clients ===
 * [http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net XChat Aqua]
+* [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16 Chatzilla]
 * [http://colloquy.info Colloquy]
 * [http://gaim.sourceforge.net Gaim - a multi-protocol IM client]