Seems to me that the main problem in this is a very inconvenient GUI code warzone has. Sort of hard to re-arrange things.
_____________
As far as i know, guys in glest (megaglest) open-source RTS project already implemented a
built-in IRC client in their lobby (they also use a built-in FTP client for map and mod transfer and have a dedicated server). The game logins to a freenode channel when it enters and posts messages like "/me connects to the NoQ's game" before leaving when the player joins the game. You can also stay in this channel without starting the game (the game greys out your name in this case), even though it's a bit noisy, you can easily monitor the lobby activity without mouse clicking and game running.
It'd probably be good to separate by languages
Not enough people to separate. Also, *everybody* knows things like "hi" and "lets play" in english, and that's sort of enough. Only later, when massive multilanguage chat becomes a problem, it will make sense.
Also this is much better than CAPCHA on freenode irc...
Note: the CAPTCHA is not on IRC, it's on the web gate. Use an IRC client for convenience: you just click the icon once you turn on your PC (or even put it into autorun) and stay in IRC all the time without any extra efforts.
)
