Intra Galactic Communication

[Monroe]

One of the big issues in planetarion that I have seen come up over and over again here in the forums is the lack of galactic unity, and how difficult it is to get new players really involved in the game. Part of the problem is that new players can have significant trouble understanding the advantages of using IRC, and can have technical issues getting it to work, further decreasing their interest in the game. Might it be possible to directly integrate IRC channels into the game? I realize the client already exists in the side bar, what I am suggesting is a way to directly integrate a specific chat room with the com unit. So the regular IRC members could setup a gal room as normal, and then the GC could have a place in politics to set the room name so that a new player could simply launch the com unit and end up in their galaxies chat room. I think this might help get new players more quickly involved with their fellow galaxy members in a useful way. Thoughts?

[Lookabunny]

I guess it would be nice for some people, but come on, IRC isn't hard to use.

[Appocomaster]

it might be possible to set the java chat client to join a specified channel given by the GC / MoC on politics (at one point, I think, you joined by default a channel such as #x:y].
However, many people do change over to IRC fairly quickly, and for some people both IRC and the java client don't work due to firewall restrictions, meaning they have to go and use CGI IRC anyway. (which we're currently unable to run)

[Monroe]

Well I know I've had gal members who we've had trouble getting on IRC, and some that simply either can't (because it's someone else's comp or whatnot) or won't because they don't like IRC. If there was a simple way to use the java version to hit a specific channel they might be more willing to use it. Your right though, firewalls and a lack of java sometimes cause problems, idealy there should be a way to add interactive chat directly into the game, but I don't expect it to happen. I just thought that if a new player had to simply click on the comm unit to see everyone else who was on and to be able to interact with them immediatly it might stir their interest in the game.

[Ultimate Newbie]

I like the idea of the GC/Ministers being able to set the 'base' channel to the Galaxy channel - that's actually very clever and should help quite alot. Unfortunately i'm not a technical person so i dont know whether it would be possible to do something (but the fact that someone hasnt said that it cant be done yet is promising ) - though i would imagine that being able to see an IRC channel without an applet or something similar to it wouldnt work.


But still, its a good idea - thanks .

Edit: You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Monroe again.