While this is a somewhat decent idea, this is going to get insanely cluttered really fast if you don't keep this restricted to team representatives and leaders. Let those people join specifically and then allow them to contact each other and organize stuff themselves. Good idea, but just needs a little modification.
Well I've joined, a steam group is a great idea! IRC is infinitely more complicated than just messaging someone who you have on steam.
IRC has been the place to go for scrims ever since quakenet has been conceived, Steam groups are neither dynamic enough nor are they useful for such a thing as finding scrims. Greetings from #tf.wars and the various other channels.
Probably games that aren't being played by ancient clans that don't at least consider every option available. In this instance, you have it whether you ******* want to or not, Steam Overlay. Steam groups make it easier to just click -> add friend so you can chat in-game or out. Plus Steam groups have their own chat room anyone can just pop into which is also moderatable. IRC on the other hand forces peeps in fullscreen to alt-tab (which can break a UT3 engine game) or play windowed, which makes it render using 2D clocks for some. Plus you can't actually tell if anyone's in there or just idling/AFK, and most games don't allow you to chat from inside the game.
apparently you cant click and chat to people on IRC, I always thought that was the basic ideal of how IRC worked but w/e. They're both useful in their own right at the end of the day it comes down to personal preference.
I've used IRC before because I was forced to sometimes when I scrimmed in TF2, but I've gotta say that it's user interface is completely unfriendly, Steam is much more compatible with actually playing games and is simpler and thus more useful for casual chatting. That's pretty much all I've got to say there.
Yeah, except the steamgroup is now a clusterfuck of people, with no direct indication as to who each clan leader/representative is, or if these players even have teams. This was executed poorly. EDIT: To clarify, in IRC you can at least ask in a general chat if anyone's willing to scrim, and then take it over to direct messages. In this Steam group, you'll just have to guess who's who or recognize the leaders straight up. It also doesn't help that the actual comments section for Steam groups is clunky and slow. Very few people will have the Steam group page up often, but it's much easier to keep IRC running. I'll join if and when he either starts only allowing clan reps in, or if he starts promoting all clan reps.
Friends, A steam group is not mutually exclusive with an IRC channel. If you want to make an IRC channel, feel free. If you want to join the steam group, feel free.
Everyone has permissions to post announcements which have pop-ups that people will notice if they are in game. This is the way to find a scrim: post an announcement, and wait for people to PM you on Steam. If this starts getting spammed, then I will make announcemends mod-only and I will only promote clan reps. I'm not, however, going to put that effort in until it becomes an actual problem.