IRC Chat for Renegade X Launcher

[Newbie]

Back with another idea,

I'd like to be able to talk to other players waiting in the lobby or even view the chat on an active server (without playing) through the Renegade X launcher. There would be a numerical indicator of active players in lobby (connected through Renegade X launcher). This may encourage others to talk while servers are full (and perhaps join another server). Original suggestion from @Fffreak9999.

Thanks.

[Fffreak9999]

Just as an FYI, I wasn't even the original suggester. It was one from a while back.

[Ryz]

Why not use Discord or a 'custom chat room' as a lobby instead?

[Eagle XI]

Discord hogs resources.

Firing up IRC and searching for an Renegade X channel probably may not fall upon heads of standard players. If launcher would get an inbuilt link to an chat room that may have best chances of seeing use.

 

[HuskerDoggo]

I know a game that has a lobby chat. Its super cancer. Just feels like reading youtube comments the whole time

[roweboat]

In this case, I'd rather have something over nothing.

[NodSaibot]

9 hours ago, Eagle XI said:

Discord hogs resources.

If you can't afford to run Discord, your PC probably won't run RenX

[testman]

is it easier to integrate Discord into some program than it is to get simple IRC client in there?

[NodSaibot]

7 minutes ago, Testman said:

is it easier to integrate Discord into some program than it is to get simple IRC client in there?

Nope. The original launcher had an IRC client in it. It's quite simple I think, but I don't do C#, so I am of no use to our launcher. (BTW we are looking for a launcher dev)

[Goku]

Or let the servers link their own discord servers and have a link to the offical renx discord? Could embed a web browser to keep it within the launcher if thats what people want.

The launcher dedicated lobbies always feel lame.

[Agent]

2 hours ago, < blank > said:

BTW we are looking for a launcher dev

This is the primary reason there isn't a chat client in the launcher. Someone did make a quick implementation for one, but it did not meet design standards and thus was not released.

There's also a solid chance that we would not use IRC as a back end, and ideally the client would be designed in such a way that the actual chat backend is entirely hidden from the user. One key concern with IRC specifically is that we don't want the launcher to suddenly start getting false positives from anti-virus applications, which was the case when we had the in-progress implementation embedded but unused in a previously released launcher.

 

I guess for anybody who's interested: the ideal implementation would most likely use some custom protocol that can have multiple simultaneous connections for the same user, and would require users to login using their forum credentials. Those requirements guarantee that usernames will always be unique, and we could then theoretically incorporate this into the game client's main menu (or even the website or discord server) at a later date. The design should be minimalist, consisting only of a chat feed and a place to input text -- no addition windows should be necessary. Here's a quick MS Paint concept:

 

My MS Paint skills are obviously crap, but I think you guys get the idea. The names would also probably need to be a different shade or color, such as white or something. Any login system would need to be incorporated into the name thing at the top left.

 

Obviously this could be implemented with something more like IRC in the meantime, while the other features (login, etc) are worked on.

[roweboat]

Yes that's exactly how I pictured it. Simply how many game studios built a lobby into their multiplayer in the past. Stylistically I mean.

 

@Agent What sort of coding skills are we needing? I can ask around I might know a few people.

[NodSaibot]

15 minutes ago, roweboat said:

Yes that's exactly how I pictured it. Simply how many game studios built a lobby into their multiplayer in the past. Stylistically I mean.

 

@Agent What sort of coding skills are we needing? I can ask around I might know a few people.

Proficiency or knowledge in C#
https://github.com/TotemArts/Rx_Launcher