MAngband

Hey! Every so often PW or avenger or someone will be offline but still talks to the players. I think it is called IRC. I kinda want to know how it works and how to get it for me so i can use it. I have some thoughts about what it does and would really like it if somebody responded to me... I want to know what it does in mangband. Like does it tell you what all the players have? and other things. See me in game and PM me, PM me here, or just respond :D

Thanks!

IRC - Internet Relay Chat - Is one of the really old ways for people to chat online.
The servers hosted by the MAngband Project Team are connected to IRC through something we call the "mangbot", this allows people to participate in the chat without being logged into the game, and also connects the chat on the main server with the chat on the Ironman server.
The mangbot also offers a few additional services, like showing which players are online (the same way that the in-game playerlist does), but nothing as intrusive as showing what items they have.

To connect to IRC you will need something called an IRC client, which can connect to one of many networks, or even specific servers within that network, note that it usually doesn't matter what server you are connected to, only what network.
On these networks you have the option to join one or more channels, which is probably easiest explained as a chat room, it has a name, may require a password or other rights to connect, and may have rules for what you can and cannot do within it.

Our servers have been connected to the Freenode network, and to a channel named #MAngband
If you use Firefox as a web-browser I would recommend ChatZilla as an IRC client, because it is a Firefox addon, works well, and is fairly easy to use. Otherwise popular IRC clients are mIRC, irssi and WeeChat.

Using IRC also has the advantage of being able to use Thorbot to check on artifact/monster spoilers when playing on other servers without having to connect to the main server. Which you seem to do a lot...