0000698: Ingame IRC client - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

Notes
(0001265) x4000 (administrator) Oct 18, 2010 9:52 pm	Pretty highly unlikely, but perhaps.

(0001266) Lancefighter (reporter) Oct 18, 2010 9:54 pm	<3 was only mostly kidding about the browser

(0012356) Volatar (reporter) Jun 8, 2011 12:05 pm	This would be a rather useful feature.

(0012362) Lancefighter (reporter) Jun 8, 2011 10:00 pm	arg why you people bumping mah decades old threads :s

(0012363) x4000 (administrator) Jun 8, 2011 10:01 pm	Get off his lawn! ;)

(0012405) Entrenched Homeperson (reporter) Jun 10, 2011 2:36 pm	This is lawn I'm definitely on. It's poetry. :P

(0012408) x4000 (administrator) Jun 10, 2011 2:51 pm	Nice poetry. :D

(0012409) Lancefighter (reporter) Jun 10, 2011 3:31 pm	shakes cane at people damn you kids always on my lawn

(0012421) doctorfrog (reporter) Jun 12, 2011 12:51 pm edited on: Jun 12, 2011 12:59 pm	If the dev cost is relatively low, integrating IRC into AIWar will look better than having the user visit a web site or download an IRC client, and make the overall matchmaking experience appear more integrated and professional. This will make it much easier for new users who are not yet familiar with the game to chat with the faithful, ask questions, and start new multi games. Voting up re: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,8670.msg77319/topicseen.html#new [^] However, since the game does not lend itself to casual matchmaking, there will always be a contingent of unhappy players, who IMO are less likely stick around for a full game anyway. In short, some players who are not willing to connect to IRC/forums to start a game, aren't likely to complete a game anyway. However, if IRC integration is enough to win over some fence sitters, it may be worth the dev time.

(0012422) Lancefighter (reporter) Jun 12, 2011 1:19 pm	Well like the general idea is that it might be a good idea to let people imgame chat from ingame on irc - thus, those that are in the middle of a sologame would have an easy way to segway into multiplayer fairly easily Since the advent of unity, tabbiibg out to irc became that much harder, making this much more important

(0012586) Vinraith (reporter) Jun 28, 2011 11:42 pm edited on: Jun 28, 2011 11:47 pm	Not something I'd ever use, so it's really a matter of whether it'd take up a lot of dev time.

(0012587) Lancefighter (reporter) Jun 28, 2011 11:59 pm edited on: Jun 28, 2011 11:59 pm	really? you had to bump this just to say you dont support it? thx bro edit: meant in an entirely sarcastic manner, pretty please dont jump on me because im mean :(

(0012588) Vinraith (reporter) Jun 29, 2011 12:10 am	Eh, I felt bad voting against (even just "inclined against") without offering an explanation. It hardly matters anyway, it's comfortably in the top ten at this point. Making it more visible will also more likely help it than hurt it, so the bump's nothing to complain about. :)

(0012589) Lancefighter (reporter) Jun 29, 2011 12:18 am	My lawn! youre on it! waves cane

(0012618) BobTheJanitor (reporter) Jun 29, 2011 3:52 pm	>Not something I'd ever use, so it's really a matter of whether it'd take up a lot of dev time. Just going to save that quote for posterity, so I can post it back to you when I see you in the in-game IRC client. :D

(0012621) keith.lamothe (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 6:03 pm	"edit: meant in an entirely sarcastic manner, pretty please dont jump on me because im mean :(" It's ok, we know you're from EvE, it's understandable.

(0012622) keith.lamothe (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 6:54 pm	FYI, this is high enough in the vote tallies that I'm doing some brief research on the client and server pieces we'll need to do this. Don't have enough time to really dig in though, AVWW work coming first.

(0012623) x4000 (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 7:01 pm	There is a free IRC client rough codebase that is in the Unity Asset Store, by the way, Keith. I figure that's a good place to start, but it has to be game-integrated and re-skinned, and I'm not sure how many frills it really has. And then there's the server side to consider: we need to host that ourselves, or via some service that we control at any rate, and I'm not sure what is involved for that and if we could set it up on rackspace.

(0012624) keith.lamothe (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 7:56 pm	I have code for the client side pieces, the gui would presumably just be a modified mode of our chat functions already, wasn't planning on pulling in a 3rd party client due to the need for the gui to be heap-static and so on. But we can look at it when there's time. And yea, server-side is a bit more complex architecturally. I don't think our Cloud Sites account on Rackspace permits us to install stuff, so a standalone IRC server would seem to be out (unless we want to get a Cloud Server too but that's not cheap). If there's one that runs as a web-service thing or otherwise on top of IIS presumably that would work, though I'm not aware of such an IRC server. Probably a hosted IRC service would be the simplest, though I really don't know how many simultaneous users we'd be looking at here. From what I've seen a hosted solution could support something over 100 simultaneous users for $5/month and something over 1000 simultaneous users for $20/month, though that begs the question of how much we can afford for this feature.

(0012625) keith.lamothe (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 8:00 pm	Found what looks like an IRCd hosting option with a free trial: http://www.exsyshost.com/shared-hosting/ircd-hosting/ [^] Just making a note for reference when we come back to this.

(0012626) x4000 (administrator) Jun 29, 2011 8:24 pm	Neat, that looks like we could do it for only about $15/month, which wouldn't be too bad. And if you have client side code that you're comfortable with, then that's great. I agree that we don't want to do a cloud server, although we could do an Amazon EC2 instance potentially. Those I believe are billed by cycles and bandwidth, so it could work out fairly cheap. But probably not substantially less than $15/month, and it would definitely be more than that if it's popular.

(0012627) vordrax (reporter) Jun 30, 2011 1:34 am	I would love this, please add.

(0012680) vehementi (reporter) Jul 8, 2011 11:00 am	This would be great.

(0012704) Zephilinox (reporter) Jul 13, 2011 2:28 am edited on: Jul 13, 2011 5:27 am	I don't know how feasible/possible it would be, but you could compress messages on the client side, send them server side and convert them back to normal text client side (not the same one, a different client reading it). the way I understand it, words, or part of them, are replaced by a unique signature stored in a library inside a normal compressed file, which then gets read when uncompressing to restore it to it's orignal state, meaning small texts like those sent in an IRC chat wouldn't be cut down very much/at all. but if instead of the library being created based on the text you wanted to compress it would instead be pre-created with popular words and phrases that people may often use it could convert what would otherwise be a 50-100 character string to something maybe 20% of that, assuming the words those 50-100 characters represent words that are stored in that library, that would allow more players to chat at a lower price (again, assuming it really is feasible, or even possible, plus I'd imagine it would take a lot of work) another problem with text files you would normally compress is that the library adds to the size of it, this wouldn't be a problem with my proposed suggestion as the library would only take up a small amount of space on the client's computer, with no extra bandwidth used. Sorry for the long read, but I'd love to see an in-game chat, not only would it serve to organize multiplayer games but would also bring the community closer together.

(0012706) Lancefighter (reporter) Jul 13, 2011 2:42 am	i thought the internet progressed beyond needing to compress plaintext? Arent most emails sent via plaintext? why complicate the system >_> its not like we need the speed or bandwidth of compressing plaintext, and i assume it will be easily opt-outable.. what im saying is, do we really need to compress text?

(0012707) Zephilinox (reporter) Jul 13, 2011 2:52 am edited on: Jul 13, 2011 2:53 am	No, of course not, but it's not as if the dev's have an infinite pile of cash like hotmail, google or yahoo, to quote: "From what I've seen a hosted solution could support something over 100 simultaneous users for $5/month and something over 1000 simultaneous users for $20/month, though that begs the question of how much we can afford for this feature." "Those I believe are billed by cycles and bandwidth, so it could work out fairly cheap. But probably not substantially less than $15/month, and it would definitely be more than that if it's popular." although I do agree with you that it isn't necessary right now, and as the game gets more popular the dev's will have more money to spend on more bandwidth, but it's an idea, albeit complicated and perhaps unnecessary.

(0012709) Lancefighter (reporter) Jul 13, 2011 3:04 am	well, yeah, but thats more an issue with the number of concurrent users more than the amount of traffic.. at least, thats what I read from it

(0012712) Zephilinox (reporter) Jul 13, 2011 3:28 am	I think that was just an estimate, since I went to the link and it only showed bandwidth, not user count, maybe I wasn't looking in the right place.

(0014415) chemicalart (reporter) Sep 28, 2011 3:11 pm	Having this onboard with your next expansion would help retain players...and maybe attract more trial players... Just saying...you can use this to both enhance gameplay and get more players.

(0014416) keith.lamothe (administrator) Sep 28, 2011 3:13 pm	It's something we intend to do at this point, there's enough interest in it. I already did the preliminaries on sending IRC messages from the game, there's just a ton more work that has to be done for it to be an actual usable feature, etc :)

(0014443) Lancefighter (reporter) Sep 28, 2011 4:22 pm	Yay :D I'm guessing it will still have a backseat priority to doing avww for the meantime, butwhen that finishes it should be awsome and all

(0014447) keith.lamothe (administrator) Sep 28, 2011 4:36 pm	Yep, so in theory you'll be able to idle and talk about LoL from within AIW! Ah, modern convenience ;)

(0014449) Lancefighter (reporter) Sep 28, 2011 4:53 pm	Its not all about LoL anymore... there's some World of Tanks , a little bit about SC2 when tournies are going on, and even some victoria 2 being discussed at the early hours of the morning! You should visit more often ;)

(0015291) Entvex (reporter) Oct 2, 2011 11:59 am	I would like to see this too.

(0018875) Spikey00 (reporter) Feb 10, 2012 8:52 pm edited on: Feb 10, 2012 8:52 pm	Sorry to necro but I think this would be something to strongly consider during the length of the next expansion. You guys had several sales and bursts of new players, but saw very little of that traffic materialize on the IRC, forums, and the AI War group. I'd like to see the community flourish beyond the few regulars (and personally because the currently IRC is on a flatline, but there are still occasional players popping in looking for a game, only to be turned away and never seen again). Even if it might be an on-the-fly Q&A chatbox over organizing games, that's more helpful for new players who are reluctant to register on the forums to ask a simple question, and gives some comfort to those who think the game's community is [totally] devoid. And you'll give us more people to talk with, because you devs hate us and have abandoned us.

(0018876) x4000 (administrator) Feb 10, 2012 8:54 pm	Yes, it's certainly one we're considering. The sarcasm isn't terribly appreciated, though.

(0018877) Spikey00 (reporter) Feb 10, 2012 9:55 pm	Heh, at least Keith who has yet to pay us a visit since his short pre-Spire release Q&As. >_>

(0018878) x4000 (administrator) Feb 10, 2012 9:56 pm	How so? He's updating the game, responding on the forums, and such more than I am. He might not be in IRC, I don't know, but that was always an off-hours thing.

(0018879) Spikey00 (reporter) Feb 10, 2012 10:04 pm	Mostly poking fun at his way (although it would be nice to have at least one of you here with us; would help with the vacancy of AI War in here). Apologies since you took the wrong way.

(0018880) x4000 (administrator) Feb 10, 2012 10:07 pm	No worries, I just can't tell tone. IRC has never been my thing, though, in general -- too many interruptions.

(0020800) Xeph (reporter) Mar 12, 2012 11:21 pm	Of the 2,500 or so members of the Steam AI War group, typically 50-200 players are in-game at any given time of day. 0 of those players are ever in the Steam group chat, and 15-18 are in the official IRC channel. An in-game client would spike those numbers so high and make multiplayer matchmaking so much more common it's scary! Also, it would be cool to talk about LoL and idle from in-game. xD

(0020806) Lancefighter (reporter) Mar 13, 2012 3:45 am	"Also, it would be cool to talk about LoL and idle from in-game. xD " THIS GUY KNOWS OUR SECRETS!

(0028482) Arkillion (reporter) Sep 22, 2012 11:05 pm	Dam that's something I'd definatly want.. LoL and Ai war at the same time ?? League of Ai ?? It would also make me less lonely while playing

(0029148) onyhow (reporter) Dec 19, 2012 2:48 am	Oh, so we have this already? Yeah, I'm supporting this too...should help a lot with matchmaking... At least Achron and Star Ruler already have implemented this relatively successfully (integrate with official channel, TOME 4 chat is separate from their official channel so it's a bit different...)

Only registered users can voice their support. Click here to register, or here to log in.
Supporters:	Volatar Cyborg x4000 Lancefighter leb0fh WeaponMaster BobTheJanitor Entrenched Homeperson rustayne dnatabar gamewarlord777 Oralordos dumpsterKEEPER Hearteater Moonshine Fox Orelius chemicalart vordrax ShadowSirius07 ljdp Lotion Zephilinox Zitrax TopShelfCookieJar Spikey00 realcoolguy doctorfrog rjblackwolf keyblademastertnt Xeph amethyst Arkillion zespri onyhow Enrymion
Opponents:	Vinraith mindloss gxam 7cardcha

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Oct 18, 2010 9:51 pm	Lancefighter	New Issue
Oct 18, 2010 9:52 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0001265
Oct 18, 2010 9:52 pm	x4000	Assigned To	=> x4000
Oct 18, 2010 9:52 pm	x4000	Status	new => confirmed
Oct 18, 2010 9:54 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0001266
Oct 20, 2010 12:47 pm	x4000	Status	confirmed => considering
Jun 8, 2011 12:05 pm	Volatar	Note Added: 0012356
Jun 8, 2011 1:00 pm	x4000	Relationship added	has duplicate 0003492
Jun 8, 2011 10:00 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012362
Jun 8, 2011 10:01 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0012363
Jun 10, 2011 2:36 pm	Entrenched Homeperson	Note Added: 0012405
Jun 10, 2011 2:51 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0012408
Jun 10, 2011 3:31 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012409
Jun 12, 2011 12:51 pm	doctorfrog	Note Added: 0012421
Jun 12, 2011 12:59 pm	doctorfrog	Note Edited: 0012421	View Revisions
Jun 12, 2011 1:19 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012422
Jun 28, 2011 11:42 pm	Vinraith	Note Added: 0012586
Jun 28, 2011 11:44 pm	Vinraith	Note Edited: 0012586	View Revisions
Jun 28, 2011 11:44 pm	Vinraith	Note Edited: 0012586	View Revisions
Jun 28, 2011 11:47 pm	Vinraith	Note Edited: 0012586	View Revisions
Jun 28, 2011 11:59 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012587
Jun 28, 2011 11:59 pm	Lancefighter	Note Edited: 0012587	View Revisions
Jun 29, 2011 12:10 am	Vinraith	Note Added: 0012588
Jun 29, 2011 12:18 am	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012589
Jun 29, 2011 3:52 pm	BobTheJanitor	Note Added: 0012618
Jun 29, 2011 6:03 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0012621
Jun 29, 2011 6:54 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0012622
Jun 29, 2011 7:01 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0012623
Jun 29, 2011 7:56 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0012624
Jun 29, 2011 8:00 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0012625
Jun 29, 2011 8:24 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0012626
Jun 30, 2011 1:34 am	vordrax	Note Added: 0012627
Jul 8, 2011 11:00 am	vehementi	Note Added: 0012680
Jul 13, 2011 2:28 am	Zephilinox	Note Added: 0012704
Jul 13, 2011 2:36 am	Zephilinox	Note Edited: 0012704	View Revisions
Jul 13, 2011 2:36 am	Zephilinox	Note Edited: 0012704	View Revisions
Jul 13, 2011 2:42 am	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012706
Jul 13, 2011 2:52 am	Zephilinox	Note Added: 0012707
Jul 13, 2011 2:53 am	Zephilinox	Note Edited: 0012707	View Revisions
Jul 13, 2011 2:53 am	Zephilinox	Note Edited: 0012707	View Revisions
Jul 13, 2011 3:04 am	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0012709
Jul 13, 2011 3:28 am	Zephilinox	Note Added: 0012712
Jul 13, 2011 5:27 am	Zephilinox	Note Edited: 0012704	View Revisions
Sep 28, 2011 3:11 pm	chemicalart	Note Added: 0014415
Sep 28, 2011 3:13 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0014416
Sep 28, 2011 4:22 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0014443
Sep 28, 2011 4:36 pm	keith.lamothe	Note Added: 0014447
Sep 28, 2011 4:53 pm	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0014449
Oct 2, 2011 11:59 am	Entvex	Note Added: 0015291
Feb 10, 2012 8:52 pm	Spikey00	Note Added: 0018875
Feb 10, 2012 8:52 pm	Spikey00	Note Edited: 0018875	View Revisions
Feb 10, 2012 8:54 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0018876
Feb 10, 2012 9:55 pm	Spikey00	Note Added: 0018877
Feb 10, 2012 9:56 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0018878
Feb 10, 2012 10:04 pm	Spikey00	Note Added: 0018879
Feb 10, 2012 10:07 pm	x4000	Note Added: 0018880
Mar 12, 2012 11:21 pm	Xeph	Note Added: 0020800
Mar 13, 2012 3:45 am	Lancefighter	Note Added: 0020806
Sep 22, 2012 11:05 pm	Arkillion	Note Added: 0028482
Dec 19, 2012 2:48 am	onyhow	Note Added: 0029148