[iM SundeR]

I've set up an Australian eSports IRC server!

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, a communication tool that was very popular in the past in our area of the world. The most popular server was AusIRC, which shut down about five or six years ago.

Why did I set this up? At present, for communication between people we have Skype, Twitter, and a forum. While all this might be sufficient, Skype ends up being segregated into small group chats of teams and clans, leading to a community that is heavily divided into cliques.

This goes even further when you start to think about SC2SEA.com as a giant divide between other Australian eSports. How people do you truly know from League of Legends, Call of Duty or Counter-Strike and other scenes?

IRC is a great way to feel as though you are truly part of a "COMMUNITY". The Australian eSports IRC can serve as a public home for you and your team/clan, to a large extent unmoderated and free of rules that you might otherwise feel imposed upon you.

You can create your own channels, admin them yourselves and all that jazz. The only thing that this idea relies on is involvement from everyone! I've gone and set this up on a whim that maybe the StarCraft II scene might be interested in enough in coming together in another, more inclusive form - where DISCUSSION (and maybe drama) can take place more freely and openly, and be used as another tool of communication, just like SC2SEA.com is currently used.

I've put together a guide below on how to get started with IRC and how to connect to irc.auesports.net.

1. Download mIRC from www.mirc.com
Fairly straight-forward, simply download & install!

2. No need to register mIRC, you can use well past the 30-day evaluation period.
Click continue through the introduction screen.




3. Under 'Category - Connect', choose the name you which to use.

This can later be registered to the server, with a password, so others may not pretend to be you! You can also choose an Alternative nickname if the name you want is taken for whatever reason.



4. Under Connect - Servers, click the Add button.

Here, add these details:
Description: AU eSports IRC
IRC Server: irc.auesports.net
Ports: 6667



5. You're ready to connect!

The window that will be open and blank is a 'status' or 'server' window. Simply type /server irc.auesports.net to connect to the AU eSports IRC server. You will be greeted with a Message of the Day and a default list of chatroom options. You can go ahead DEselect 'Pop up favourites on connect' as they are not related to eSports, and even don't exist. Click OK.



6. You're almost set up! Register your nickname.
In the status window, type /msg nickserv register *YOUR PASSWORD*. This will register your nickname with the server to protect your identity.

7. We're going to add some final options to make everything easier for you.
Go to Tools -> Connect -> Options and select the Perform button. Tick the 'Enable perform on connect' checkbox and have 'All Networks' selected from the drop-down menu. These commands will execute every time you connect to our network.

Enter these in the 'Perform commands:' box.
/msg nickserv identify *YOUR PASSWORD*
/join #SC2
/join #ESPORTS



You're all set up and ready to go! In the status window, you can type /join #SC2 and /join #ESPORTS to get connected to the most popular rooms currently. You can also type /list to get a full list of rooms on the server - there are currently five! You are free to add rooms of your own, register them to your name and set up your own rooms for your clans and teams. I am always online, so if you have any problems I'm there to help.

I've added some additional screenshots below on how to adjust the colours, fonts and background to make it easier on the eyes.


Choosing a new Font, Colours and Background:

In the View menu, you can select menus for Fonts and Colours. You can choose one of their presets, or choose colours to suit you. The best thing to do is to select a background image. You can do this by right-clicking on a channel you are in on the right hand side menu, selecting Background and then Select. You can select your background here.

After this is set, to make things easier, right-click on the channel you just added a background to, hover over Background and make sure 'Set as Default' is checked. This will add the background to all channels from now on!





I implore you to please give this a chance. If you log-in and enter a chatroom where there's only three people, this is because the server is literally eight hours old. A huge part of IRC usage is 'idling', leaving the VERY small and resource-light program open while you go about your internetting, much like how you might idle in the SC2SEA chatbox. Only this is all inclusive of every eSport in Australia! It's fun, I swear, ahaha. Growth might be slow over the next month, but if more and more people are keen to just leave it open and connected, chat when they are there, and have fun in an open forum space, then it might be something that will make this and any other community better.

[Fenner]

Nice work mate, I'll hang out. Hopefully it can take off and it can be like the good old nerd days ^_^

[rezyn8]

An alternative is to use the the browser IRC client, http://chat.mibbit.com as well

[Dox]

I think you should suggest a convention whereby people suffix their ID's with their premier title so it helps to align various communities.

ie.
Dox|SC2
Naked|CoD
Fourby|LoL
mOOnGLaDe|Tetris
...etc.

Quick Comments

mGGDrGooSe:

haha tetris

[iM SundeR]

Yeah, that would be good. I think the hardest part at the moment is convincing titles like CoD and LoL that this is a good thing.

[ikki]

Originally Posted by Dox

mOOnGLaDe|Tetris
...etc.

Will join tonight

I'm the T-spin king will own glade at tetris :P

Quick Comments

	ROOT`iaguz:	Trust me, Jazbas is the tetris king of SEA, not glade.
	FvRelimzkE:	42 second sprint time here bois, bow down to me

[ETL.Santi]

well I was going to support this untill I got kick out for saying hello.

edit: yea i was trollin aswell

Quick Comments

iM SundeR:

LOL, gotta test the admin functions! harmless joke -_-

[Dox]

Originally Posted by iM SundeR

Yeah, that would be good. I think the hardest part at the moment is convincing titles like CoD and LoL that this is a good thing.

I'll give 'em a nudge!

[iM SundeR]

I think making the point that everyone gets together 3-4 times a year for ACLPRO, and something like this is the perfect way to get to know other people from titles so there's not the huge divide between titles that there is now, I dunno. It's just the perfect way to communicate openly with people who aren't in your little group of buddies in Skype.

But this server costs me a very miniscule amount of money to run for a year, so I'll just leave it going and see what happens. It's not a fast process! But I'm very grateful that people are idling / tweeting as it is!

[iM SundeR]

IdleRPG is now operational on irc.auesports.net. All info here: http://idlerpg.net/

Gogo!

Quick Comments

Pox:

oh the memories

[EXCL]

ohhhh mIRC! wow nastalgia. will give it a go though - but i think it will only work if most ppl get on board

[ToRSpookToR]

Originally Posted by nicknack

Will join tonight

I'm the T-spin king will own glade at tetris :P

Avant spent like a week "laddering" and playing "custom games" in tetris, such a great game.

Quick Comments

Pox:

dano is a hacker in tetris

[nirvAnA]

Originally Posted by iM SundeR

This goes even further when you start to think about SC2SEA.com as a giant divide between other Australian eSports. How people do you truly know from League of Legends, Call of Duty or Counter-Strike and other scenes?

I think this IRC is a good initiative but with chat there are certain limitations, like it being hard to follow / read topics anytime you want - which is why forums are so popular. There needs to be a proper web platform that unites all these gamers from the different communities and if anyone wants to help me with the running of these portals let me know! I have always wanted to expand sc2sea but just never had the capable manpower who respected other games and shared this vision.

[iM SundeR]

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

I think this IRC is a good initiative but with chat there are certain limitations, like it being hard to follow / read topics anytime you want - which is why forums are so popular. There needs to be a proper web platform that unites all these gamers from the different communities and if anyone wants to help me with the running of these portals let me know! I have always wanted to expand sc2sea but just never had the capable manpower who respected other games and shared this vision.

I agree! That is the direction that I was looking to go in with the IRC - gamers from the different communities can come together in an informal environment and hang out. On the first day we've had a max amount of clients at 33.

All it takes is everyone remembering to open up mIRC or their favourite IRC client every day. If everyone remembers / gets involved in can be really a good thing.

[mGGNemesis]

This brings back so many memories from uni days!

[Apth]

Yeeeaaahhhhhhh IRC. We need to start an esports equivalent of bash.org. ASAP.

[iM SundeR]

Originally Posted by Apth

Yeeeaaahhhhhhh IRC. We need to start an esports equivalent of bash.org. ASAP.

Oh dude! I'll implement it when I get a chance.

[CZE]

Don't worry nirvana, IRC is quite an informal type of program, it won't suck any power from you/sc2sea.

[iM SundeR]

We've hit the 50 client milestone tonight! #esports going off

[iM SundeR]

Cheers to everyone who has come and hung out so far! We've got about 55-60 people from SC2, the Fighting Game Community, League of Legends, Shootmania and CS:GO hanging out in #esports and the individual team and game channels are growing as well.

We're working on getting some incentives and rewards for teams who come and set up their channels and chill in the other ones. I'll do my best to make the OP in this thread cleaned and minimized so we can continually add updates of features etc!

We're also aiming to begin sponsoring tournaments next month, even running some of our own.

Over the past week has just proved that IRC isn't dead, just the servers in Australia were!