thats becasue u are an alt-tabber game crasher

I think those aren't really good answers.

What I think is important to note is that is a beta.
That means few people are playing. When this game goes gold, people playing this game online increases dramatically. By that time I don't think you need to check the IRC for new players. There will be many people online for you to play with.

I don't think we need another chat program. The chat program that is being used now ingame, is good enough for the gold version.

I agree i was thinking this today, having the IRC thing is silly.... but having a game lobby a bit like in Battlenet for WC3 where you can chat and find players to talk to organise games etc. It would be a nice add-on

battle.net has been doing this since starcraft... Loby means: diff chat rooms, organization rooms for clans, friends list, etc... Granted that most people nowdays use ventrillo or whatever, if the devs decide to finally put a voip client itno the game then this would be very useful.

there was one on gpgnet for supcom, i cant see why the devs wouldn't implement one for demigod. Fancy ingame chat features would be nice, but i fear that cleaning the netcode and balancing the game wont leave a lot of time for other things.

The plan is to have Impulse Phase 3 take care of it: In game overlays.