Lost connection to Steam, will rejoin chat automatically when connection regained.

[Shmitz]

Has anyone besides me had repeated thoughts lately on how much better our group chat would be if we had it on IRC? :bored:

 

[Narkissus]

having never used irc and knowing nothing about, im gonna say no.

 

[DJive]

Has anyone besides me had repeated thoughts lately on how much better our group chat would be if we had it on IRC? :bored:

qft =)

 

[tedrock]

currently on 28 channels spread across 8 servers. what's one more gonna hurt? i personally prefer irc over steam chat.

 

[ryodoan]

I prefer steam chat to IRC for several reasons:

1. Its already heavily integrated with TF2, steam, and the community website. This alone does multiple good things for us:
   1. Everyone that is looking for help with Hammer already has steam installed, ergo they already have the ability to access steam chat, they dont need to download a 3rd party program.
   2. Most people dont know how to use IRC, or have only used it a couple of times in the past. This makes people less likely to join a channel regularly and less likely to hang out in the channel.
   3. If people search the steam community for TF2 Mapping help, can go straight to the chat room to ask for help.
2. While it can be buggy at times and drop people from the chat room, the fact is it reconnected by itself within 3 minutes and nobody was talking at the time anyway. This is what our amazing chat was looking like right before the disconnect:

   1. Paul: Moo
      dp: baa
      TF2Maps.net|DJive: pfft.
      Paul: Got an air leak DJive?
      TF2Maps.net|DJive: lol
      TheBladeRoden: gobble gobble
      BonaFide [UK] is now playing Team Fortress 2. Click here to join
      DigitalReaper entered chat.
      BonaFide [UK] left chat.
      R3dRuM.cdn disconnected.
      R3dRuM.cdn entered chat.
      Lost connection to Steam, will rejoin chat automatically when connection regained.
      Lost connection to Steam, will rejoin chat automatically when connection regained.

3. You can easily see when other people are playing TF2, in the Source SDK, and then either join them in their games or know at least that you are in the right place to ask mapping questions.
4. You can assess the steam group chat from in game which makes it nice for the game days to easily coordinate activities without having to alt-tab TF2 which we all know is a pain in the arse.
5. You can easily contact people that are currently in games if you need to. Have a burning question about the server, but DJive is playing TF2? Send him a message over steam and he can respond without exiting or interupting his game.
6. Fewer greifing fucktards. From my time on IRC I saw about 100x more jackasses than anywhere else on the internet, and frequently it would happen when all the moderators were afk, so everyone in the channel has to put up with the greifer until they get bored.

Really, the only benefits I see from us switching to IRC are:

1. More easily log chats.
2. Not have as many disconnects, because they will still occur.

If there was some way to integrate the Steam Community group chat into IRC then I would be all for it, but I highly doubt this exists.

 

[Vilepickle]

If people want to map they'll find it if the IRC channel is there. There aren't 1000's in the Steam chat because it's integrated with TF2, there are like 10-15. In IRC you'd have the same or more.

In fact, MANY people I know have no idea there's even a Steam chat. They're off on their own, and they know about IRC. It's been out for over 10 years, it's common enough.

Plus, I hate the fucking flashing task bar with Steam chat, it's the worst thing I've ever seen.

Start up a Gamesurge channel and have at it.

 

[Vander]

I'll say it before someone else does:

"If we already have Steam Chat, why do I need to download yet another program to chat with our community?"

Bear in mind this is from a guy who has Xfire/Teamspeak/Steam and sometimes Hamachi up in the background at all times. Having said that, I can go either way. IRC is easy enough, but I think Steam Chat's ability to instant connect with anyone's ongoing game in the channel is going to win it out over IRC.

 

[Shmitz]

For those unfamiliar with IRC and IRC clients, it is possible to integrate a java client with the website, so one would simply click on a link in the bar at the top and go to a browser-based chat window. Thinking With Portals has a good example.

Given that people are far more likely to search the web for mapping help than search steam, it'd probably see a lot more use.

 

[Vilepickle]

i miss my old q3radiant irc idle channel. :*(

 

[MacNetron]

For those unfamiliar with IRC and IRC clients, it is possible to integrate a java client with the website, so one would simply click on a link in the bar at the top and go to a browser-based chat window. Thinking With Portals has a good example.

Given that people are far more likely to search the web for mapping help than search steam, it'd probably see a lot more use.

Ahh... good ol' Java applets appear to be still alive

When searching the web, now ryodoan's chat loggings already show up in google. Maybe he can add some extra advertisement on it to the steam group, because that is not showing up on the archive.

Personally I think the advantages of steam chat (see ryodoan's post) are bigger than the advantages of IRC.
Although the browser-based chat is a good alternative of not having again having to install another program, it will too force the people who are already on chat to join two channels.

 

[Nalidor]

I'd prefer IRC. Not everyone (Hell, maybe hardly anyone) keeps steam open 24/7. On IRC, perpetual idling is natural and I can easily scroll up to see anything cool was said while I was gone/not looking. On Steam however, we have to depend on uptime and a 3rd party logger.

 

[Colt Seavers]

fyi

http://coltsplayground.net/irc/

we use this java irc client which is the point and click variety from the site. well, i say use, in fact its usually pretty dead since we all forget to join and jump streight in game

 

[VelvetFistIronGlove]

I agree that the integration of steam chat in the game outweighs the disadvantages of it; the worst problem is the random disconnections, but they don't happen often enough to cause a major problem.

 

[Vilepickle]

I agree that the integration of steam chat in the game outweighs the disadvantages of it; the worst problem is the random disconnections, but they don't happen often enough to cause a major problem.

I don't see how that matters though, since we're a mapping group, and we're not always ingame. Source IS our game, and we can do anything else when it's open :x

If anything, I go ingame to get away from the damned blinking.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

...I once cheated steam into loading regular web pages in it's browser so I could use web IRC applets from the in-game overlay... <_< Though, it was rather unhappy trying to run java inside the game.

 

[Snipergen]

I love the steam chat even if it has issues. I hate IRC

 

[drp]

well this topic piuqued my interest,

irc.gamesurge.net
#tf2maps

 

[Vilepickle]

/me goes on in and prepares to answer random questions at his IRC idling convenience for Gamesurge residents.

 

[ryodoan]

I just want to say that I still do not think its the best of ideas and that I think for our purposes the steam community group chat is a better interface.

 

[Vilepickle]

Shrug, both should still work.