Proposal: Out with the old, in with the new

[SL33PY]

Hey guys, I'm thinking it's time to say goodbye to good old IRC and switch to slack

http://slack.com

check it out, evaluate it as you want

it has great plusses: integration to a lot of platforms, no it dude is blocking slack, custom bot programming possible, ...


check it out and report back!

[BlackDove]

I'm not against it, but our current one has been working well, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That said, if you think it's a smart or necessary move, I wouldn't mind it.

[NF]

I may be missing something but Slack seems to be more of a collaboration portal for projects rather than a dedicated chat tool..

It looks nice and I can see it being useful at work but not sure I can see it working in the context of a gaming group..

(Like I said though I may just be missing something fundamental here as I've only glanced at Slack briefly.)

Oh and ref the customised bots - fairly sure that IRC can do this already as I do remember seeing it used as a quiz machine and a rudimentary MUD.

[M.Steiner]

Doesn't look too bad from a click glance but I'll have a closer look tomorrow.
I had been wondering about IRC myself this week actually. Not so much leaving it behind it but with our channel being #ssx it would make sense to make a #str one or whatever. I suppose rather than doing that we could shift over to this if it fills our needs and is a little more modern though. Will have a proper look tomorrow as I say. We've been using IRC ever since I've been here hehe

[SL33PY]

It can be used in a project context. But the basic functionality is a chat room, where you can set up channels (for each game fe) or just a general channel.

You can PM each other, have phone notifications (android, apple) there is a windows client as well. It does everything that we use IRC for and in my opinion it's better because
1) several platforms (web, mobile, lightweight fat client)
2) no open irc port needed when at work
3) When we get newer peeps on board, slack is lower entry than IRC, we're all old farts and have known IRC since the mid 90's... we're 25y later now
4) messages are retained when you're not online

[M.Steiner]

Is this a marketing trick, SL33PY? Upgrading to something newer and better many years later?. Why not stick with the old?

Show

Only playing with ya lol

Few questions:
- Are channel/pm messages saved as logs which can be backed up and searched through for keywords etc?. I always keep my IRC logs just incase I need to check something and still have records of those going back to 2006.
- Are channels permament?. So if we create a #STR room or whatever, will it still remain open even if nobody is in there?
- All the screenshots I've seen use real first names, could we just as easily use the online handles we use on IRC and/or the forums here?

I'm up for giving it a try but I'd suggest us running it alongside IRC at first. A trial of sorts, so we can compare the two and see how this works for us. That way we can also point IRC users to this at the same time rather than all of us vanishing from there, since some people may miss the forum post(s) and wonder where we've gone.

[Anubis]

I don't really see a need. As BD has said, IRC has been and still is working for us fine. Why change?

Can only speak for myself, but whether we changed or not ability to use at work would not come into play for me btw - our company has a no chat systems policy, so whether it be IRC, MSN, AIM, whatever, I can't be around in work hours. I suspect most companies would operate similar rules.

[Whizbang]

I use slack at one of my clients and I've not put much thought into it as a chat tool. It's always been used to communicate between their site in Dallas and in Solana Beach so that we can discuss matters of the office and it always seems as though it's good for when you can't immediately chat but chat in bits and pieces.

I feel that IRC is more of a 'real time' chat application that allows us to communicate 'on the go' rather than 'when available'. But that's my preference. I've used IRC for a very very long time and it's what I'm comfortable with.

[BlackDove]

I do agree with Sleepy though.

IRC has a higher barrier of entry due to its age, and it's also ugly as <censored> and unappealing aesthetically.

That said, we have talked about this before in another context, and that was the TeamSpeak one. A free client that has text and chat functionality, which not only fulfills the IRC role, but carries heavier adoption among gamers, and provides the ever crucial voice chat mechanism which is indispensable in games.

That would be much more of a logical solution and something to move to.

That said, I don't know.

But a shatteredstar.org TeamSpeak channel wouldn't be bad.

[SL33PY]

I see TS as an addition to slack for messaging/service tying

[NF]

If you're looking at TS then can I throw Razer Comms in to the mix. Takes away the need for hosting a server and integrates messaging, groups and VOIP very well. The in game overlay is pretty neat as well.

[M.Steiner]

Honestly, I'll happily try slack or whatever as an alternative to IRC if it's going to benefit this place (if we're to trial it alongside IRC first as I said) and I'd support a shatteredstar.org TS server as well for stuff like Star Citizen even though I have always disliked using voice comms myself (and plan to use them for SC this time), but I think our immediate focus should be on the forums and playing together and trying to find ways of increasing activity & participation among us in those areas first instead. As old and outdated as IRC is it is still doing its job and whilst this slack may be a newer and superior platform to it (we will have to see on that), the forums have already started to go quiet again and there's still only a few of us actually playing together. For now I think we'd be better off doing something about that first.

Star Citizen is one answer to this. We have such a promising roster for the group already and yet the only people I have actually seen in there and played with this year are BD, Rah & Chaos (Kahn too before he uninstalled due to his system struggling to run it). I hadn't played with Rah since our days in Neocron either so it has been really great to get ingame with him.
Peeps are already interested in Star Citizen so it's not like WildStar or whatever where I tried and failed to get anyone else on-board to help start a new group with me. The interest for SC is not only there but lots of us have already pledged towards it and have flyable ships, plus there is no required subscription fee on top of it either so peeps can jump in and out whenever they want. I've said it before but why don't we get more of us in there?. Not expecting anyone to play as much as BD & myself have been doing these last few months (we've had periods where we've played every evening of the week for example) but anything is better than nothing, right?. Sure the game isn't complete yet but there's fun to be had in there with several game modes within Arena Commander (player vs AI, PvP, races, free flight) and the FPS module is just weeks away too.
More of us playing will help to increase the forum chatter here and show that we're active and playing shit together, give us more group content to put out on YouTube and Tweet about (and stream for those able to) and help build our group presence within the SC community itself as well - all of which will (hopefully) help bring in new blood. As a gaming community who's focus is on simply having fun, chatting and playing together (so our site says), how are we supposed to attract new people if we don't practice what we preach?.

A few of us are planning to play some GTA V Online together on PC too (probably when we're done with the SP campaign as I haven't created a character yet lol) so there's that too which peeps are welcome to join us in. We already have the people for SC though and that is more long term. Such a great opportunity sitting right there for us, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it


TLDR: Get people chatting here on the forums first and actually playing games with each other. Get more of us into Star Citizen and playing together which will help with forum activity, YouTube/Twitter/Twitch content and building our presence within the game and making a name for ourselves. Maybe introduce a shatteredstar.org TS server for the group to use in there at the same time. IRC is still doing its job atm so either look at upgrading that later or do all of this at once. Chatting here and actually playing together is most important, imo.

[NF]

My issue here is that with the baby I'm tied down as a sofa gamer at the moment and although I appreciate that SC can be played with a pad I just can't get on with it and really need my flight stick to enjoy the game - and unfortunately I think the Mrs would lynch me if I started trying to set it all up downstairs.

GTA5 has proven extremely fortuitous, timing wise, as it's perfect for a pad and short bursts that I can pick up and drop on cue. I've mostly been playing online as it's great fun though I have to say the matchmaking is terrible and getting in to a game with friends and/or crew is just broken at the moment.

In summary I'm still hugely keen on playing SC but it might need a more sleepy baby than I currently have to really throw myself in to it properly. In the meantime feel free to spam me with invites in GTA5 to your game (the only matchmaking method that seems to work) if you see me online.

EDIT:

Oh forgot to comment on the slack/TS part. I've actually started using Slack at work now and I admit it is impressive but I really dont see it as an IRC replacement (though it does integrate with IRC which is a neat function). For me it is an email replacement and collaboration tool. It could work for a gaming group but if it provides a different option to anything it is really the forum rather than chat.

I've used TS for years so I'm very comfortable with it, I even host a server of my own which STR is more than welcome to use but I've never been able to find a solid solution to the fact that I don't have a static IP for it so always end up having to send the new IP via steam chat to my buds whenever they need to use it. It was essentially this problem that was switching me across to Razercomms.. If anyone can offer up a solution then I'm happy to offer it up to the guild,

[M.Steiner]

Understandable with the baby, that's cool dude. You're still active here though so that's good
We had 14 members vote on the Community proposal vote last month but we never see anywhere near that amount of people posting though. How can we improve that?. I've been trying stuff for a long time like with the timeline project, trying to think of topics which more people can join in with, handing beta keys out, once did a competition thing in TOR with prizes, even held game giveaways before today..

As for Star Citizen, to those of you who have it but have yet to play any with the group, have you tried the racing mode on there?
A game of Vanduul Swarm (players vs AI) can take around 30 minutes to complete so as short as that sounds to me, it may not be ideal if some of you are strapped for time or working around stuff. Racing on the other hand (and which we have been playing more of just recently) is much, much shorter. You can do a race on Old Vanderval in just 3-4 minutes for example. Not directed at you, NF but surely even our busiest members would have time for a race or two every now and then? no?

But yeah, my point above still stands. I think we'd be better focused on fixing what needs fixing first before looking at replacing things which are still working for us. That being the chatting here and playing games together. IRC can be very quiet at times whilst we're idling but there's generally far more activity on IRC than there is here on the forums.

[Kon]

I have an issue with moving to a proprietary service when IRC is a protocol which can be accessed in dozens of ways.

Speaking of which, I just set up the #STR channel with the proper flags for everyone and everything arranged just as on the #SSX channel. Same server, of course. Please set your autojoin.