November 1, 2014, 10:15 pm
Posted by: Kara

This year Desert Bus is changing our chat system. Instead of running our own IRC server, we will be using Twitch‘s larger and more stable chat network.

What does this mean for you?

  • to participate in the chat you will need to register a Twitch account (reading the chat without participating will not require an account).
  • If you wish to bid on live auctions, you must attach your Twitch account to your Desert Bus account so that BidBot can verify your bids as valid. To do this:
    1. Log in to your Desert Bus donor account
    2. Go to your Profile page
    3. Click the add button to add your Twitch account.

    Otherwise, bidding works exactly the same as last year.

For those of you that prefer web chat over an IRC client, we will be using Twitch’s embedded chat on our site.

For those of you that prefer IRC clients over web chat, you can find instructions for connecting to Twitch’s chat here.

Subscriptions will NOT be required for anything.

We think this is a good move because:

  • Twitch has a larger chat network which can handle load and attacks better than we can and should be more stable
  • Twitch’s embedded web chat is more user-friendly
  • Twitch can provide better access to the chat on mobile platforms
  • We can utilize their team of engineers to help fix problems as they occur

As with any new venture, we understand that there may be some challenges, however, we feel that the benefits of the additional stability and ease of access that Twitch’s chat offers outweighs the risks. We will do everything we can to keep the Desert Bus chat that we all know and love running as smoothly as possible; it’s full of some of the most creative, inventive, and ridiculously silly people we know.

Desert Bus chat is the best chat, no matter who hosts it.

Tags: , ,

20 Comments on “Moving to Twitch Chat”

  1. I’m gonna wild out due to this change. Luda. Luda. Young Buck.

    Who am I? What’s my name?

    Please relay this message for the next DB. SALMON, FRESH, ORBITAL.

    Farewell.

    By P. MOUNDS - November 1st, 2014 10:42 pm
  2. I was wondering about this. Last year, the Twitch chatroom was full of trolls and “lol wuts this its ghey” types. I figured this year, either Twitch chat would be disabled entirely, or the chats would be merged.

    It’s going to be a rough transition, what with the culture that’s sprung up around the regular chatroom, but it’s for the best from a tech perspective.

    By Twoflower - November 1st, 2014 10:45 pm
  3. I miss having capital letters in my username. T_T But for stability and the like, t’is probably for the best! I suspect the banhammers will have to strike hard and often at first to convince the Twitchchat trolls of yesteryear that their shenanigans won’t fly anymore.

    By Firefury Amahira - November 1st, 2014 11:55 pm
  4. Aw damn, Irc is nice and simple and i like that. i can easily have it on a laptop full screen or even on a tablet. but now we get the way to busy chat pushed into a tiny little window on the side of the video. yeah thats not going to work for me. too bad i always like hanging in the chat, but ill skip this year then.

    By sudden - November 2nd, 2014 2:28 am
  5. sudden: You can connect to Twitch chat via an IRC client, it’s not very difficult.

    By Simon - November 2nd, 2014 5:58 am
  6. you can? oh I thought that it was some closed-off chat protocol. if i can connect with a normal chat IRC client then ill take it all back, go ahead and switch to their servers.

    By sudden - November 2nd, 2014 6:59 am
  7. @sudden: I use Textual on a Mac to connect to Twitch channels all the time. You should be able to connect with any IRC client. Twitch provides this handy guide if you have any trouble: http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1302780-twitch-irc

    By Stephonee - November 2nd, 2014 8:04 am
  8. I am currently testing chatty, if anyone is looking for options. Looks promising.

    http://getchatty.sourceforge.net/

    By Stoffern - November 2nd, 2014 9:19 am
  9. If you’d prefer to open it in browser window, that is always an option at http://www.desertbus.org/live/chat

    By Kara - November 2nd, 2014 9:44 am
  10. May the Mods be blessed with sharp swords, and the quickest of banhammers.
    DB8 Is going to be FUN.

    By Suffix - November 2nd, 2014 2:52 pm
  11. We’ve been looking at this for a while and the mod team will definitely be laying down the law early to establish our baseline. We think once we get the early on spammers/raiders, we’ll settle in to our usual comfortable rhythm.

    As for the IRC issues, if anyone is having trouble connecting through a third party client (mIRC, colliquily, etc) just message me in the DesertBus channel or Loadingreadyrun twitch channels as I’m there a lot of the time in the afternoons and I’ll gladly walk you through it.

    By Dix - November 2nd, 2014 3:55 pm
  12. @Firefury Amahira When you log into Twitch, use your capital letters desired. They will translate to chat.

    I’m a little scared of the trolling. But we have a great Mod team and I’ve seen chats get tamed before.

    By SweedChef - November 3rd, 2014 4:48 am
  13. When they say “enter your twitch account” in the instructions, exactly what information do they mean? The user name? The e-mail associated with the twitch account? Sorry I am just confused :)

    By malfunct - November 3rd, 2014 11:36 am
  14. important info we need to know: How mutch kappa is to mutch kappa?

    By Doh - November 3rd, 2014 12:07 pm
  15. Never mind, I figured it out.

    By malfunct - November 3rd, 2014 12:09 pm
  16. Will there be a second fundraiser to cover the lasting medical expenses for the moderators. Banhammer Repetitive Stress Injury is not a laughing matter.

    By Mike Smith - November 5th, 2014 6:06 am
  17. Is there any chance there will be a way to stream Desert Bus to my phone as an audio only stream? I have a 5GB/month bandwidth cap on my phone, and not even the lowest quality stream would allow me to view a video stream throughout my workday. If there was an audio only stream, however, it would just barely be under my bandwidth cap.

    By Eklinaar - November 6th, 2014 6:26 pm
  18. That is, to my Android phone. I know the Twitch iOS app has an audio only mode, but the Android app does not.

    By Eklinaar - November 6th, 2014 6:43 pm
  19. Is DB Chat now going to live on the Twitch channel year round? I get the case for stability and tech support, but it just seems… less intimate? I know the banhammers will be swift and judicious, but there’s still that weird psychological factor that seems to make it difficult for tight-knit communities to flourish in massive open forums (YouTube, for example). Of course, the Chat has always been open for anyone to drop by, but it was rare for people to just stumble upon it; you’d kind of have to be looking for it, and I think that’s the difference. I hope the specter of the “‘lol wuts this its ghey’ types” (as Twoflower puts it) doesn’t discourage regular DB Chat denizens from the supportive and more personal interactions that made the DB community so strong in the first place. For further illustration, please consider the following (Bill Nye reference totally intentional); it’s a clip from DB7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOpOfYEvHOg

    By TheMadPunter - November 10th, 2014 6:48 pm
  20. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,
    Twitch is blocked on my school computer

    By George Dvoynos - November 12th, 2014 4:47 am
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