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Thread: #PGD irc.freenode.net

  1. #11
    PGD Community Manager AthenaOfDelphi's Avatar
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    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    The point I was trying to make is that of convenience.

    For me, chatting on IRC is no problem as I have mIRC and KVIRC already installed... I also have MSM, ICQ and Yahoo, but I find they are far more distracting than IRC, thats why I dislike them... and the emphasis I put on that post was copied straight from Roberts, to try and highlight that statements like I HATE JAVA don't really help anyone... why do you hate Java? Is it that the problem is not Java but Microsofts flaky VM? Would Suns latest JRE fix the problems?

    I'm not really a fan of Java either, but casting aside my personal views, you want to achieve more activity... I'm merely providing you with a solution... a solution that has been tried and tested by me... and perhaps most importantly... one that appears to work.

    And why does it work? Convenience. Some people, no matter what you say, simply wil not go to the trouble of downloading, installing and registering a nick name just to chat. But if you give them a one (or two click) solution, they may just drop in and have a chinwag when they have five minutes.

    As for making it fit the site design and tweaking it so you have total control... the Java client I was talking about is open source, runs quite happily in IE, Mozilla and Firefox... its only dislike it seems is the Microsoft VM (although I should say that of the 10+ people I know have tried the client, only 1 has had problems that required a new VM). But even that is fixable by non-techies (we had one guy struggling to get it going... gave him a link to latest JRE from Sun and five mins later he was on-line) It has a wealth of options and looks pretty smart right out of the box. In short, if it took 5 minutes (which is roughly what it took me to add it to our game site) and it increases utilisation of the channel... surely thats 5 minutes well spent.

    How effective is it? We've been running our game for just over 2 weeks and in that time, we've held three creators hour chats... the first one, we had one new player turn up... the second one we had none and the third (with the in-game client) admittedly, we only had one new player in there, but then it went mad and from like 5pm Sunday, we didn't stop talking until nearly midnight. We had like 5 new players on and they were ALL using the in-game client. I know 5 doesn't sound like a lot, but that more than doubled the normal population of our channel. And now, if they want to chat, they can... with just two clicks of the mouse.

    I can understand you want control WILL, but sometimes you have to be prepared to sacrifice a little to achieve the aims, and if getting more people on-line on IRC is the aim, then you can't be asking them to be installing messaging software, mirc, gaim... whatever... because quite simply, if they were prepared to do it, they would have done it and they would be chatting. You need to give them a simple, no fuss, no mess solution that takes them straight where you want them to go. The easiest way to do that right now is to use a third party Java IRC applet.. and seriously, five minutes work... isn't that at least worth a try? Of course the flipside to all of this is that maybe other people don't want to chat... its not everybodies cup of tea, so regardless of how much time and effort you put in, you may not get any extra people in there, so if you spend a lot of time writing your own and no one uses it... you'd be pretty miffed. Thats why giving a ready written client a whirl maybe a good starting point.

    Just my $0.02.
    :: AthenaOfDelphi :: My Blog :: My Software ::

  2. #12

    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    There is a nice firefox plugin: ChatZilla. I have used it a bit, and it seems a good mIRC replacement
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  3. #13

    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    Quote Originally Posted by Legolas
    There is a nice firefox plugin: ChatZilla. I have used it a bit, and it seems a good mIRC replacement
    Somebody knows something like OSZilla? to replace windows in my work laptop when i run firefox?

  4. #14
    Legendary Member NecroDOME's Avatar
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    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    Use GAIM instead...
    I use Trillian http://www.trillian.cc/
    NecroSOFT - End of line -

  5. #15

    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    I use Sun's JRE and it's still flaky, but that's not the point. I hate Java for 2 valid reasons: 1) Run-Time compilation 2) It's caused me as much trouble as .NET; And when it's as aggravating as .NET to me I'll never use it. It's installed, but I turned it off in FF because of this. When i've reformatted and reinstalled completely, 7+ times, due to .NET this ought to be a not-so-subtle hint about my liking of Java.

    But there's a better reason as to why we shouldn't use JAVA. It's on our banner. PASCAL. Indy has built in IRC Components, so why hasn't anyone made or considered making an IRC Client? Or at least starting a community project? All you'd have to do is download, it'd be faster then JAVA (no run-time compiling), and enter your nickname. There you go, that's it.

    Besides, we're almost all programmers to some extent. We want to chat together with other programmers and newbies who want to learn. These aren't the people foreign to computers or the online 'world' per se.

  6. #16
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    #PGD irc.freenode.net

    Well truth is, IRC was never in my plans. A few staff members asked for it. I said on one condition, "You run it!" and you can see what obviouly happened. It's not a medium I prefer to use personally, but if members want support for it, thats ok by me. So long as I see an interest.

    I'm willing to make concssions for IRC if there is going to be a userbase for a #PGD channel, but not at the lengths that I am going to deface the site to do it.

    PGD is a polished professional presence site and it will continue to be so for as long as I have a say in it's visual design and professional presence. That means if I cannot customize it and make it a part of PGD then it does not belong as a part of PGD.

    Flash has already been considered and is a planed technology to the site. Java on the other hand is not, due to several cross-platform, slow performance and stability issues. Add to this the fact that I do not work in Java, and it does not fit our 'PGD mold'.

    All things said, IRC is not a priority for PGD. However I'm going to take the FPK approach to this. If there is a member or staff member willing to run the IRC channel on freenode and/or someone willing to make an application and/or a Flash-based IRC app then I'd be willing to work with them to make IRC more intergrated with the site. But it would have to fit under specific criteria so that it meshes with the site in a professional way. The website takes priority.
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





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