New page in Civ history

[Rasbelin]

I have been these past months very passive on Apolyton and only now and then stop by to check for posts of interest. However haven't really done anything noteworthy. This hasn't really been that much due to real life matters, but more like the project I and several others have been working on. Now however has the time come to reveal to you, dear fellow Apolytoners, what has been going on behind the scenes.

The afforementioned team of three Civ playing geeks is proud to present you a new Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network dedicated to Civilization and the fans of it.

This new service, CivIRC, is the first IRC network ever to focus on Civilization gaming and is going to rectify the previous lack of a dedicated chat service for this target audience, by helping Civ players to get the most out of IRC. It is a new, independent network available to all - not just Civilization enthusiasts, but also other similar usergroups.

What is IRC and what are the benefits?

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an Internet system for real-time chat, which has proven its usefulness in several venues, including gaming communities. Civilization players could have several uses for a dedicated IRC service, especially with the Democracy gaming or various Civ development projects, where large teams of players need to discuss matters quickly and efficiently. Another example would be multiplaying: real-time discussion allows for a quick exchange of information on rules, dates and lets players arrange their games with as little hassle as possible. Then there are special occasions where an audience can ask questions from and talk with an honoured guest.

What makes IRC superior to email or forums is its speed, and it is based on channels, "rooms", where several people can discuss with each other simultaniously. This makes IRC particularly useful for groups of people.

Our team has nearly two years of experience from running an IRC service, and we have been members of various Civ communities for up to six years. This has given us an understanding of the needs of Civilization players. Therefore, by concentrating primarily on Civilization, we will be able to help out our users directly: this has proven useful especially in arranging tailored services, e.g. for the Intersite Democracy Game.

The CivIRC team invites all Civ fans to join us on the 23rd of April (ie. next Saturday), at 20:00/8:00 PM UTC [local time conversion], when the service will officially open. More information on the CivIRC network, the opening ceremony, and how to take part in it, can be found at our new official website, http://www.civirc.com/.

I hope that we on CivIRC can define what really is great chat between Civilization, and what not*, devotees.

Welcome to the opening party next Saturday!

A news item about CivIRC is expected to pop up here on ACS any hour now, depending on how fast Dan is.

* = The Civ community isn't just Civ, but also SMAC, FreeCiv, CtP, etc.

[Locutus]

/me points Ras to the Apolyton IRC chat service which has dutifully served the Civilization community since 2002 and which is fully integrated with the forums

Not to rain on your parade or anthing...

[Rasbelin]

Your point is okay, but actually no. ACS has not been providing a dedicated IRC service, not to mention a whole IRC network to the Civ community since 2002. ACS does indeed have an IRC server running on this box, but it's not a dedicated service or an IRC network. CivIRC still and will be the first Civ related IRC service to held both titles.

Why isn't the IRC service of this site dedicated? Certainly one can agree it's not an IRC network, because it runs on one server only. Now, as for being dedicated or not, the analogy is simple. The IRC server of Apolyton doesn't have anything common with dedicated IRC services, except that it has services running on the server, and you can quite freely create channels. But it lacks visibility (only a chat link on the pages and user listing for one channel), doesn't have a dedicated IRC staff, doesn't use any IRC naming or access convention (no irc subdomain, only one port, etc), it's poorly run (where's the staff exactly? haven't seen or heard of such being present), nothing has been further developed, etc. As known, it's just basically a replacement for the old PHP chat system, as that one caused too much load issues.

[Rasbelin]

Oh, and as for dutifully, one can not simply omit all the reboot and crash issues back in 2003. It tooks several months before it began to work properly. That was one of the reasons why back then many prominent Civing IRC chatters left the ACS run IRC server, as they were not happy with the quality and affinity of the service.

[Kassiopeia]

The ACS server is good for sporadic meetings and that sort of thing, but it's really not a service as Rasbelin has pointed out. Naturally the admin at ACS has not had much resources to focus fully using the potential of an IRC service, but that's only good because it has meant that more work has gone into making the fora what they are today.

(Another CivIRC cronie here )

[Zoid]

Great initiative

[Immortal Wombat]

Whewt.

I think I might reopen my CivIRC sweepstake with Real Money.

[DrSpike]

Good luck with it.

Not sure civvers are natural IRCophiles though.

[Rasbelin]

Yes, that's the common understanding of the overall picture in terms of how Civers communicate and found groups. However I dare to questionise this and suggest there's a potential for a chat and communications service that is tailored for Civers. It's an easy way to do multiplayer matchmaking, chat while playing PBEM or MP (you bet we have active chats when playing Civ II MP, a good replacement for the in-game chat and makes possible to have group chats) and have team meetings for democracy games and game developers (like FreeCiv). Also a good IM replacement. Just think how many eg. Civ II MP players use ICQ. Yes, they're accustomed to it and most likely never do a switch, but a theoretical potential.

If we don't try pioneering, someone else would.

[DrSpike]

Well I'm sure you'll tell us all about your progress.

[Rasbelin]

We're also reported by ACS now: http://apolyton.net/misc/

Some Poly staff also spotted on the network.

Thanks Dan for the news item!

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
We're also reported by ACS now: http://apolyton.net/misc/

Some Poly staff also spotted on the network.

Thanks Dan for the news item!

Is some more than one?

[Nikolai]

Grumpy, gramph?

[PLATO]

What makes this different from ( or better than) something like msn messenger or icq? I am not familiar with IRC.

Thanks!

[FlameFlash]

Interesting and good work.

Just wish I knew what he was talking about...

Hopefully somebody will answer PLATO, because I'm also interested in an answer to that question.