OpenArena Message Boards

I have setup a pickup channel, bot and passworded server, on irc.geezernet.org.uk #openarena.pickup

irc://irc.geezernet.org.uk/openarena.pickup

If you are uncertain how to connect to IRC, or have never seen a pickup channel, please ask for help!

For those that are familiar with this, i am fully open to suggestions!

Please keep in mind that this is a new channel, so its quite empty at the moment. (me and the bot :( )



The basic premise is that many users idle (to sit in even when they are not at their computer) in a IRC channel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#Channels).
When they are active and looking for a OpenArena game, they issue a command to the channel's bot, which maintains a list of game seeking players, to indicate they wish to play.
When there is enough players, the bots calls all players to the game server.

The benfits of such a system are that players are less likely to leave the server mid game, because they signed up to play!
Although not so important in FFA games, it can be a pain in CTF/DM games, which creates an unbalanced team.

There is also the availablity of non-playing channel vistors (perhaps connecting from work), that will are still willing to chat with like minded OpenArena players.

to clarify, basically the channel is to organize and "pick up" people to play DM games?  if so sounds like a good idea to me.
you may want to add a few links to some popular irc clients to your post, personally i use chatzilla for firefox from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16
some people might also like mIRC: http://www.mirc.com
there are also numerous linux irc clients like bitchx, xchat and ircII

i may jump on eventually, just got stuff to do first.

A java based client can be found here : http://www.geezernet.org.uk/infusions/irc_chat/irc_chat.php

Set yourself a nickname and alter the Channel to openarena.pickup

then click Login.

that works too but i dont recommend for most people since java tends to be rather bloated and will cause cpu spikes ingame. probably not much of a problem for people with dedicated gaming rigs, but ordinary players such as myself would be better off using a real irc client or chatzilla.

you would need to explain what pickup is in this thread- to gain more players and channel visitors.

you might be right there zuma, added more info to first post.