Back when I was a newbie player, in my very first realm, quite a few of the players there had this exact same opinion of IRC as you. In fact, they hated it so much, they refused to use it. "All that chatting is bad for the game. They form their own cliques, and band together."
So you know what they did?
They all went over to MSN and hung out in their own private chat rooms. Doing the exact same thing they accused all the IRCers of doing.
And now, people come here to the forums, and do all that stuff, too.
The medium that people use to talk to others isn't the problem. People talk. They will do it over any medium to which they have access. To accuse one medium of being somehow worse than the others is to blind yourself to human nature.
I remember when people were trying to get others on msn... however, IRC is and will forever be questionable as well as any outlet. Plain and simple.
Sadly I finally logged in IRC and am attempting to try it out. I'm making a effort since it's on that left side bar I tend to ignore unless im on a character. Has that thing always been there? If it has I need to start wearing my glasses or contacts more often.
