PLEASE don't release the game without the ability to communicate!

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/343083

I saw that post...  but it looks like to me that it will open a shell chat window like the crap irc that we have now...  Or even worse it will min your game and take you to Impulse.  Everything should be ingame.

It has in-game chat that can be reached anywhere. What more do you want?

how about everyone play with friends in person so you can actually talk to them and not into a mic

Pardon, but what makes the irc chat "crap"? 

I mean, if they want to do their own GPGnet style lobby, that's fine by me, but I don't seen any issues with the current one.  In fact what's great about the current approach is I can reach it no matter where I am in the game, which I can't say for any other game I've played.

Well, personally, what I think makes the ingame chat crap is the fact that it doesnt work for me. Obviously it cant be reached anywhere.

I really don't understand.  Do all of you want this game to be successful?  Do you exspect the average joe to chat with other players online with irc?  Like myself, the game, no matter how good it is, it will be piontless to play if no one plays online.  End of Story.  If the average person has to know irc to play the game, then there is a problem.  Chating, adding friends, creating clan rooms, whatever...  should be transparent to the user.  No is going to learn irc and the only ones that will thing its a great idea are the uber nerds, sorry but it's true.

You don't have to know anything about irc to hit shift-tab in game.  It automatically drops you into #demigod.

All that other community stuff is being built into Impulse.  I don't know whether it will all carry over in game.

IRC is pretty much the same thing as the battle.net style chat.  The only major difference is that you can connect outside of game and they use an overlay vs a chat window you have to pass through.

Whopper, have you even used it?  The backend being IRC is irrelevant to how users see it. What they see is a chat lobby that they can access anywhere. 

I get the feeling you haven't used it.

I think the IRC solution is fine if it worked.  It doesn't work for me and I know I'm not the only one with the problems I'm experiencing.  Half of the game is community and with the built-in stuff I don't get any of that. :/  Luckily I'm fairly savvy and know how to get on IRC with other tools but the average player won't.

We haven't seen many reported problems with in game chat.

Frogboy...  I've used it before, but I still don't see it to be extreamly helpful.  OK, I can chat in a general lobby...  But lets just make a example:  Say I'm in a game and I have the irc window up.  And lets just say that I'm in a clan (I hope this game will have support for clans btw)  And lets just say that during a heated battle another clan member logs on and see me in the chat lobby...   Now here are my questions:  Will he know I am in a game at the moment?  If he messages me, will I know without looking at the irc window. maybe like a sound notification?  When I chat with him, will I be able to do it privately?  Can I invite my clan member into a current matchup through irc?

If irc can do all this with a click of a button without adding /name crap then the system will work.  If I have to write/memorize extra / whatever's what usefullness will it be to the regular computer gamer?  I just want to know how much has been put into the chat/clan part of the game?  It's important to know, because in today's level of gaming it will determine how many people will be active on online play.  I can only play against AI for so long until I move on to the next game.

That is the limitation of IRC.  You're not going to get integrated features like hot linking to game lobbies or replays with IRC.  They are building all those features into Impulse.  So far they've got a friends list, chat and the ability to see and join games.  I'm sure we'll see that expanded as well.

I like the convenience of the IRC approach for easy access to the chat room.  I will agree with you though that it's going to severely limit GPG/Stardocks ability to integrate game features directly into the chat. GPGnet did this.  Whenever a friend/clan member hosted a game, you'd get a notice with a link to join the game lobby directly in the chat window.  You could also link replays, mods and maps through it. 

I have a feeling based on the current design direction that we are not going to see all that stuff built into the game, but rather built into Impulse.  Frogboy of coarse can correct me if I'm wrong

You're correct, tech.  

GPGNet had a lot of great features but it also required GPG, the developer, to maintain a pretty significant infrastructure that was only used in their own games.

Impulse is being expanded to support everything that has been discussed in this thread (and more, Voice over IP, notifications from clan members, friends, etc.) all as an overlay.

It's too timely and expensive for developers to do that kind of thing on a per game basis.  

really it needs about 3 things to make it on par with GPGnet. Friends, easy private messaging, and clans (clan chat). Also if it doesn't work for you why don't you make a bug thread about it instead of whining?

Interesting.  So the Impulse Overlay will allow in game notifications if I'm reading this right.  That should solve all the issue brought up in this thread.

I look forward to it being added to their other games as well.