In order to ask ic or ooc, I would first have to have him either my contacts list or in a guild/religion that I'm in. Outside of that, I find that IRC is a horrible experience, especially because it is mostly unmoderated in comparison to the forums. Besides, you can only really talk to a relatively small number of people on IRC, because I feel that most people really don't want to pay attention to a chat constantly in case they might miss something, while in a forum you can just leave a post and read the new ones whenever.
