[Leif_-]

Not everybody knows about / how to use Irc. What Illwinter _could_ do, is to embed an irc client within Dominions itself, pre-configured to connect to #Dominions on a particular network. It would lower the threshold and get more players into the channel.

On the other hand, while embedding a client dosen't have to involve all that much work, it _does_ carry with it potential legal pitfalls re licensing, and also some amount of work in getting the UI to match with the rest of the game. And let's face it - Illwinter doesn't like doing UI (not that I blame them - it's excruciatingly painful and boring work.)