Which chatroom do you use?

[Jordan Palmer]

Hey all.

 

Well as most know, I'm in the middle off finishing developing my new game, And I've stumbled across an issue. I have too pick which chatroom too use, I'm really not clever at picking the best so I'd thought I'd ask what everyone else is using. And why you're using that particular chatroom service, Please also post where too download/purchase from as I'm sure alot off people are having this issue.

 

If you know any downsides to them please also let us know, Try and follow this post template

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POST TEMPLATE

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Chatroom Name;

 

Chatroom Version;

 

Good points/bad points;

 

Rating (/10);

 

Demo link;

 

Site link(To purchase from);

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[Cronus]

mIRC

[Jordan Palmer]

mIRC

I use that too connect to CE'S IRC, However I'm not sure I'd like it on my game (Well IRC but I'd use that to connect)

[Redex]

Mirc and Wsirc.

[Joshua]

Pro chat rooms was a lot easier to integrate my users with the existing db >,<

[Shole]

xat since i dont know how to isntall the others :S

[Renkia]

I Vote flash chat. :P

[Joshua]

bleh for flash, i never could get it to sync with my users

Pro chat when a user signs into the chat it is basing their User name from the game, which is what i was after >,<

[Jordan Palmer]

bleh for flash, i never could get it to sync with my users

Pro chat when a user signs into the chat it is basing their User name from the game, which is what i was after >,<

I'm gunna use that possibly. It's a nice chatroom and it's got pretty hefty features :thumbup:

[Zero-Affect]

I'll be adding wsIRC to support Alain on CrimGame and wsIRC seems to be coming along great wsIRC FTW!

[Jordan Palmer]

I'll be adding wsIRC to support Alain on CrimGame and wsIRC seems to be coming along great wsIRC FTW!

I won't be adding WsIRC, I don't like IRC on games, Unless they have millions off user's then IRC would probs be a good option

[Joshua]

Flash Chat is "sudo nice"

I just dont like how much of a hassle it is to "sync" databases with user integration >,<

[mdshare]

Any non irc chat is a resource hog for your game. That's why IRC is popular with game companies , as it doesn't eat resources from the game server.

[Zeggy]

IRC is able to handle many users without adding any load to your own server.

Also, it's easy to manage, you can get bots on the channel and improve the user experience, and you can let users create their own channels (for example, each gang can get their own private channel).

A shoutbox is not live and is only really useful is everybody using the shoutbox knows each other (since a shoutbox is basically just leaving messages for each other, not really real-time chat).

 

As for a live chat system hosted on your server.

Assuming it's web-based (ajax or similar) and in PHP. 30 players online (not too much) in the chat, with chat updates happening once per second (still pretty slow for a live chat). That's 30 connections per second to the database (unless you use persistent connections). 30 connections at once to the database is the limit for many servers. Of course, the example I just gave is 30 connections over a period of 1 second so the database should be able to handle it (30 connections over 1 second is very different from 30 connections instantly, since database connections can last for milliseconds), but a chat system is very read/write intensive, much more so than a game (which is already more read/write intensive than a regular site). Your database will slow down, and so will the rest of your game if the chat isn't coded extremely well.

Add to that your regular game and the people not in the chat who are also creating database connections while they play the game. Shared hosting will probably not be able to handle that.

[a_bertrand]

Zeggy true and not true, I have more than 30 players online (depends on the time of the day) and yet the chat doesn't bug. However I don't use normal MySQL tables or files, instead I use memory tables (which are fine for a chat). Also, you need indeed to increase the number of connections as 30 is way to low and for that you are completely right.

But if I must say the whole story, I'm currently checking about writing my own IRC server to handle my game specificity inside the chat system, like fixed role (independent of the channel), invisible users, login only for known users, etc...

The advantage for me would be the possibility to use wsIRC as client and integrate it into my game, as well as let players use whatever chat client they want.

[Gwink]

I've tested numerous chat and shoutbox... Take care about server ressources : As your goal is to grow your game it's much much better to start with a good one directly :)

My 2 beloved ones :

http://cbox.ws/ shoutbox/chatbox used on Cityslaves, it's hosted, cheap and offer enough customisations.

http://www.flashcoms.com simply the best chat system worldwide IMHO but most expensive too. Could include (but then it's very expensive) webcams, chess and other games, msn/icq, mp3 player and more... They can host your chat room too.

[Jordan Palmer]

Thank's

 

Gwink, the bottom one look's pretty good. :D

[Nickson]

Voted IRC

mirc, or other clients can't be integrated into your game, wsirc, mibbit, qwebirc, .. can. But I do believe you should go with an IRC chat if you want to integrate a real chat system into your game. There are many irc networks into existence, it's rather powerfull and not so hard to manage while it offers a lot (a very lot) of options to suit your needs. Also it would be very easy to create multiple channels on that an IRC server.