Welcome to TG Able! Based on your first paragraph alone, I think you'll find TG is going to suit you well. To answer your question, we *technically* do have an IRC channel, but I dont think anyone ever uses it...at all. At one point we had it linked to a chat applet in the forums, but even then, I think maybe 8 people ever found use for it.

But thats all for good reason. TG is a MASSIVE community. We sport over 15,000 members and over a quarter million unique visitors per month from around the internet. Of course, not all of them choose to participate, but the openness and slow relative speed of typing in a chat room with that many people in there would be nearly impossible. So we built our communications structure around two primary things:

1. These very forums. They're huge. Feel free to poke around anywhere you feel like. Find something interesting? Chime in! We welcome it, even if its a game you've never seen before, heard of or played.

2. Teamspeak. We have a community dedicated teamspeak server with channels for every game TG is involved in, and we have empowered our registered forum members to create temporary channels at their leisure if theres something we havent set up yet. If it needs to be something more permanent, our very large and active administrative staff would be more than happy to make it happen. All you need is a microphone, Teamspeak, and then follow the instructions here to get started!

Like I said, feel free to poke around and get involved if you want. If you have any specific questions, feel free to post here and either I or one of the other fine members of TG would be happy to answer, or if you'd rather ask privately, dont hesitate to send me a PM.

Again, welcome to TacticalGamer!