Website/forum chat

[Jazzza]

I suggest a realtime chat for the website/forum. It could be IRC, it could be AJAX, although I think a lot of people are biased towards IRC.

Linking into the in-game chat would be a bonus. Since you're already linking in our accounts, it sounds do-able, with some extra elbow grease. Then again I know nothing of how the in-game chat works.

[Pickle]

You can just open the game in another window an access Global chat.. I sometimes do this, reduce the game window and slide it off the screen to the right so that I can only see the chat pane.

[Helmic]

The forum I hail from uses Cometchat, fifty dollars and adds a bit of stress to the server hosting the site but it's manageable with this population.  I don't see a great need for it though, we want to keep the meat of the live chatting in Region chat where people can actually invite one another to play the game.

[Jazzza]

What do people think about an unofficial IRC channel?

[Kyren]

Well, the problem I see with an IRC channel would be that you've got to open it seperately. It's like having the Forum on Firefox, GoIO opened on Steam, and then mIRC started to access the GoIO channel. Unless there was a forum or ingame integration. Linking the ingame chat somewhere off game would be great of course, and I suppose it'd greatly increase its activity. With an IRC Channel that would work just wonderful, I suppose. There'd be a need for programming an IRC bot that copies the ingame chat-information to the IRC channel, though.

[Jazzza]

Well, the problem I see with an IRC channel would be that you've got to open it seperately. It's like having the Forum on Firefox, GoIO opened on Steam, and then mIRC started to access the GoIO channel. Unless there was a forum or ingame integration. Linking the ingame chat somewhere off game would be great of course, and I suppose it'd greatly increase its activity. With an IRC Channel that would work just wonderful, I suppose. There'd be a need for programming an IRC bot that copies the ingame chat-information to the IRC channel, though.

I agree. I wish the devs add in some kind of API for us developers to tap into. Unfortunately I have no experience creating IRC bots, but I'd dare say there'd be someone out there who does.

Also you do know there's an IRC client plugin for Firefox?

[Kyren]

Aye, of course I know the plugin, and all the other variants of java and flash stuff that also access IRC networks I even had it once, I think, but it somehow didn't convince me and I went back to my trusted mIRC.

I guess the bot-programming wouldn't even be so difficult, I played several browsergames that had a bot posting ingame information in the channel. We'd need to host the bot somewhere, though, or pay for a bot service.

[Jazzza]

I guess the bot-programming wouldn't even be so difficult, I played several browsergames that had a bot posting ingame information in the channel. We'd need to host the bot somewhere, though, or pay for a bot service.

Nothing can be done until this.

[Moo]

An official IRC channel would be good, even if it wasn't connected to the in-game chat. This could be used for discussions about the game itself, rather than the in-game chat which tends to be about more immediate things (please join our game...).
It wouldn't even need a page/link on the main site itself, just a sticky on the forum or something. Then people would just have another place to go for discussion. People could idle on the channel when doing non-gaming-type stuff without needing the game or even steam loaded.
It would be a bonus if the developers would hang out in the channel too.

[Clara Skyborn]

Well, there's always the Steam group chat, which could certainly be used more for general hanging around.

[Typhi]

I actually created an registrated IRC channel already

http://webchat.quakenet.org/?channels=Gunsoficarus

[RaptorSystems]

I suggest a realtime chat for the website/forum. It could be IRC, it could be AJAX, although I think a lot of people are biased towards IRC.

Linking into the in-game chat would be a bonus. Since you're already linking in our accounts, it sounds do-able, with some extra elbow grease. Then again I know nothing of how the in-game chat works.

From a web-developer's perspective (not related to muse at all) there is always a way of doing webchat. However, generally it is not cost effective with benefit vs effort. I might be surprised but I doubt muse would implement this.

@Clara Skyborn
I would love to give steam chat more love but steam group chat on linux breaks my entire window manager. :/

[Helmic]

Connecting anything with IRC is pretty damn easy, it's why everyone and their mother has made a shitty IRC client.  The effort required isn't the issue, it's whether or not Muse wants the social "hotspot" to not require people to be in-game.

[RaptorSystems]

In regards to effort I was meaning have the game lobby chat hooked into an ajax web client.