IRC is good, for many reasons and I can least a few:
+ Players can get to now the player, not only the char
+ Players can have their questions answered in real time
+ Players can share jokes, make fun of themselves, have fun together
+ Players can share information about the game
+ Players can RP in real time and later post it to the game
All this, and I am sure there are many others, improve the game, don't divert from it.
- Players can troll other Players
- Players can get angry with other Players
- Players can confused the player with the char (some players act as their chars at IRC which is extremely weird)
I can share a weird experience from another game. People used msn instead of IRC. We tried IRC but didn't work.
There, everyone talks IC even at msn probably because there is a tavern IG that is a chat for 7 people only (but you can have lots of taverns). At the tavern, you are supposed to be IC but not at MSN. But this is a characteristic of this specific game and is not good, not good at all. When those people came to Facebook they did the same. They act as their chars at Facebook. Each of them created first a game account and later a personal account.
We had good times at msn, we had parties and we did good RP there too but what happen is that the RP stays at the MSN, were almost never posted to the game. The game doesn't have a good message system like BM. No "send to all realm" opiton so, people use forum to RP. That's why I had antagonism against forum before. Forum for me was just a really bad experience.
