Introduction
The channel's existence spans further back than the "Season One Gold" forums, and the thread for it was (and still is) the only thread stickied on the old "The 19th Hole" section.
The premise of the channel is to talk about any and all aspects of the game, be it anything from asking a question too simple and quick to warrant a forum thread, to arranging a vs. match, to discussing how you approach, say, the third green of North Wiz.
PPIrC.net was started by staff members of the original #albatross18 channel. Upset by the lack of features of their previous home, Quakenet, along with continuing issues with network staff and policies, they decided to start their own IRC network.
Along with the original Albatross18 IRC channel, PPIrC is a network dedicated to the Albatross18/Pangya community. Guild channels, special interest channels, anything the community desires. So please, have fun, enjoy your stay, and make sure to stop by #albatross18 and say hi!
Introductions aside, if you are interested in taking a look-see you'll want to find out how:
Experienced IRC Users
For those of you familiar with IRC in general, the bare-bones details are found immediately below. If you need a little more explanation, skip ahead to the following sections.
Server: irc.ppirc.net
Channel: #albatross18
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New to IRC?
Don't worry - We all were once.
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a communication protocol developed for real-time chat, making it a suitable alternate comunication form when compared with forums.
This said, you do not "connect to IRC". You connect to one of hundreds of IRC server networks which themselves host a potentially infinite number of chat channels.
In order to start this, you first need to download an IRC client. While it's worth mentioning that there are plenty of browser-based IRC clients out there, it also needs to be noted that none of them are particularly stable or functional.
There are a horde of IRC clients available, too. If you want to look around, search a download site such as download.com or just Google it. That said, here's a list of some of the most popular and notable IRC clients:
All listed programs below are Free to use
- mIRC - One of the most simple and popular. Free but bugs you after 30 days.
- irssi - An dedicated and thorough ongoing IRC project.
- XChat - Another apparently full-featured client. Open source.
- HydraIRC - Beta, feature-rich and considerably documented. A couple of hassles (i.e. quit message defaults to a HydraIRC advertisement)
- Gaim - A program much like Trillian designed to operate on numerous "instant chat" types, including Instant Messaging and IRC. More than suitable for IRC chat but like all multi-purpose utilities it can be a hassle to use, and probably isn't full-featured.
You probably have anyway, but it's advised you check out the websites of all of these, including the About, Documentation and maybe FAQ sections, to get an idea of which you feel would suit you best.
That all said, it doesn't really matter. If you just want to chat, grab mIRC and come join us.
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How to join us?
Different clients will have different server management settings, but regardless of client you can join by text command so for the time being I'll explain that.
When the client starts up you (normally) get a single blank server "status" window with a text input often at the bottom. Enter the following into it and hit enter:
/server irc.ppirc.net - This should bring about a LOT of text, pretty much all of which is connection information, the server's "welcome" message and a link to PPIrC's rules page. Feel free to ignore all this for now (it's not likely that casual use will break any rules).
Okay, so you're connected to PPIrC. Now what? Enter this next line into the same text input box:
/join #albatross18 - This will start up a second window (the status window remains separate), and in that window is us! And you're in.
From then it's just like a "Multiplayer Instant Messanger". There'll be a list of everyone's names somewhere, a big area where everyone's talking happens, and a text input box so you yourself can contribute to the discussion.
You'll probably want to establish your own name, so that everyone can recognise you.
/nick yournickname - is the command to do this. Keep in mind that if the name is already being used elsewhere on PPIrC you won't be allowed to use it, and if it contains disallowed characters the name will be cut short.
For recognisability's sake you might want to use your Albatross18 player nickname. A lot of games are arranged between members of the IRC channel and it makes everything smoother if your names match.
With all that out of the way, there's not a lot that needs explaining. A lot of the settings in your chosen IRC client can be configured so that some things (your name, joining the channel when you start it up) are automatically set so you don't need to waste your time.
That said, a lot of that is better explained if you ask in our channel. There'll usually be someone willing and able to help with all the fiddly settings and this topic is already big enough as it is.
Hope to see you soon!
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