F2C.NET IRC Guide

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, and is a chat program that allows any number of people to talk in a 'room' or 'channel' that they have all joined. Most clans have their own IRC room, where their members can meet up and discuss tactics etc. The leagues run by F2C.NET have several rooms for each league.

Getting Started

To use IRC, you need an 'IRC Client', which is basically a program that connects you to the IRC network. There are many different IRC clients, but one of the most basic is mIRC, which can be found at http://www.mirc.com. The following steps will get you to join the IRC network:

• Download mIRC from http://www.mirc.com.
• Install the program onto your Hard Drive, following the on-screen prompts.
• Run the program, a shortcut should be created in your Start Menu.
• Close the 'About mIRC' window if it appears.
• An box labelled 'mIRC Options' should appear, if it does not, open it by going to File -> Options or clicking Alt+O.
• Make sure the very top category, 'connect', is selected.
• Use the 'IRC Network' drop-down box to select 'QuakeNet' as the server you wish to join. QuakeNet is the network used by most gamers in the UK and plenty in Europe. All the F2C.NET channels are available on this server as well.
• You can enter your details in the four boxes labelled 'Full Name' (You don't have to enter your actual name if you do not wish), 'E-mail Address', 'Nickname' and 'Alternative'. The last two can be anything you want, with most gamers using their in-game name as their nickname. If there is someone else using that, IRC will use the alternative nickname you entered in the 'Alternative' box, so make this something unusual that no-one else will be using.
• You should now be able to connect to the server my clicking the 'Connect to IRC Server' button. You can close the Options box now.
• You should have seen lots of information pop up on the screen. This is basically telling you that you have connected to the server. However, just because you have connected to the server, you still need to join a room to be able to talk to anyone.
• To join a room, you need to click on Commands -> Join Channel. This will bring up a window asking for the room you wish to visit.
• All IRC rooms start with a # followed by the name of the room. If you wanted to join the UKTFCL room, you would enter #far2cool.uktfcl, for the ECSL room, #ecsl, etc.
• Once you click OK, a new window will pop up. This is the room, you can type messages in the bar at the bottom which will appear above as a chat message.
• On the right of this window is a list of all the nicknames of the people currently in the room. some of them have a '@' or a '+' at the start of their name, these are Room Operators, which in the case of the league rooms, are the League Admins.
• You can join more than one room at a time, using the Commands -> Join Channel command. You can also type '/j #channelname' in any room you are in to join a room, where #channelname is the channel you wish to join.

F2C.NET Channels

There are different channels used by the F2C.NET Leagues. The main ones are:

• #far2cool - The portal IRC room.
• #far2cool.uktfcl - The Community Channel for the UK Team Fortress Classic League.
• #far2cool.uktfcl-admin - The room where the UKTFCL League Admins are available to answer questions.
• #far2cool.uktfcl-ref - The room where the UKTFCL refs are available should you need them to ref a game.
• #ecsl - The Community Channel for the European Counter-Strike League.
• #ecsl-admin - The room where the ECSL League Admins are available to answer questions.
• #far2cool.edodl - The Community Channel for the European Day of Defeat League.
• #far2cool.edodl-admin - The room where the EDODL League Admins are available to answer questions.
• #far2cool.ebfl - The Community Channel for the European Battlefield 1942 League.
• #far2cool.ebfl-admin - The room where the EBFL League Admins are available to answer questions.
• #far2cool.uknsl - The Community Channel for the United Kingdom Natural Selection League.
• #far2cool.uknsl-admin - The room where the UKNSL League Admins are available to answer questions.

Further Help

For more information on using IRC, especially QuakeNet, visit http://www.quakenet.eu.org/.