How to connect to the Saivryth chat room with mIRC

A) Download mIRC from here

B) When download is finished, open the program

B1) At the first prompt, hit Next

B2) At the second prompt, hit Yes. Be aware this is shareware, so if you have conscience about such things, you'll need to pay $20 within 30 days to the programmer.

B3) Unless you're running out of drive space, it's best to leave the top line alone. The checkmark next to "Backup any existing mIRC Files" is pointless unless you're upgrading, then it's advised to leave that on. The checkmark next to "Keep my current mIRC settings" is the same, pointless unless you're upgrading. The checkmark next to "Create Shortcut Icons" is highly recommended to be left on. After all that, click Install.

C) The installer will unpack rather quickly. When it's done, you'll face box with 2 checkmark boxes, both turned off. Might as well turn on the second one "Launch mIRC". The first can stay off unless you really want to browse the help file (might want to do that in the future to learn how to tweak mIRC to your liking).

D) Launch mIRC. You should be greeted with the About Box. Click anywhere in the box except the picture of the author (actually, click on his nose for a cute noise) or the two buttons marked "Introduction" or "How to Register" unless you intend on paying for the software, then click that first.

E) A mini-window marked "mIRC options appears". Under Full Name put anything BUT your Full Name there. Same with the Email address. Nickname and Alternative should be self-explanatory. Click the Add Button near the top right. A new mini window appears labeled "Add Server".

F) In the Description, put "Saivryth". In IRC Server put "209.178.198.91". Change port(s) at "8000". In Group put "Saivryth". Leave password blank and press Add. The mini window should Disappear and Saivryth now be in the drop down.

G) Now that the Server is added, Click on Options on the left side. You may want to turn on "Reconnect on disconnection" if you have a shaky internet connection, or just don't feel like having to manually do it. Leave the rest alone.

H) Unless you're behind a router/firewall, turn on the checkmark next to "Enable Ident Server". If you do not know if you're behind either of those two things, turn it on anyway. This will speed up your connect time since Fleetchat does an Ident check. Might as well turn on User ID from email address unless you really feel funky, then put something in User ID. If you're in a rush to connect, go back to Connect on the left, make sure one of the servers you entered is listed in the second drop down and press Connect to IRC Server, and then skip to Step O

I) Double Click IRC on the left side, it should open up a LOT more items. Under IRC, however, turn on anything you wish. I would highly recommend "Keep Channels Open" as if you get disconnected and reconnect to the server with this off, your chat windows will close.

J) Click Options under IRC on the left. I recommend turning on both Flash on checkmarks, especially if you shift focus off mIRC. May want to turn on "Hide ping? pong! event" if you are observing in the channel. They can get annoying.

K) Click on Logging under IRC. If you wish to keep a log of the goings on in the channel, drop down the Automatically log to what you want. Channels will record only messages from channels. Chats will record things from private messages (talked about later). Both will do that.

L) Click on Sounds once. If you turned on Flash in step M, might as well turn on both unchecked marks under beep (Channel message and Query message). Unless you wish to do your own tweaking, that's enough from me. Click on connect on the Left, make sure a server you entered earlier is listed, then press "Connect to IRC Server"

M) A bunch of stuff will fly across the screen, depending on your connection speed. If you get an error message, click OK to the error message, then go back to the options menu (File menu-Options) and drop down to a different server and try again. Afterwards, a new window will appear : mIRC Channels Folder. You can either simply enter your channel name and hit enter/join or automate the join by doing the following : Click Add. In Channel put in the name of the channel. Leave Password empty. Put anything in Description. May want to turn on the "Join channel on connect button". If you do, I would advise clicking the Add button and finding Saivryth there. Click OK. Click on the Join button midway down to join the channel. You've successfully connected to Saivryth IRC, home to Saivryth online RPG!

Advanced mIRC tricks

Nickname Protection : You may wish to register your nickname so nobody can take it (well, without a fight). Or you may receive a notice in the status (first) window saying your nickname is registered. If you do, you must change your nickname as soon as possible. To do so, simply enter "/nick newnickname". If you get the warning again, keep trying until you get a nickname that doesn't give you the warning. Then, if you want to register your nickname, enter "/nickserv register <password> <email address>" The email address must be real because you will get a confirmation letter shortly after to activate the registration. After all that work, your nickname can only be used by you. To identify yourself as the owner of the nickname the next time you connect, enter "/nickserv identify <password>". If someone is using your registered nickname, you can force them off by entering "/nickserv recover <nickname> <password>". This will kick the 'offending' user off the IRC network, and lock the account for a minute. Following the onscreen directions, you need to quickly enter "/nickserv release <nickname> <password>" to undo the lockout, then enter "/nick <nickname>" to assume control, and finally identify yourself. A lot of work, but if you're possessive about your nickname, you'll do it, or you can program an Alias (mentioned below)

Aliases : Aliases is like programming-lite for mIRC. For example, in the previous trick, you need to enter four commands to take back a nick from somebody else using it. Programming an alias makes it only one command. Here's how : Click the 5th button on the mIRC toolbar (a white /a on green background). Make sure the Aliases tab is highlighted in the new window. Scroll down to the bottom and enter the following (without the quotes)
"/recovermypass /nickserv recover <nickname> <password> | /nickserv release <nickname> <password> | /nick <nickname> | /nickserv identify <password>"
Press OK and that's it. Now whenever you wish to recover your account from somebody else, just enter "/recovermypass" and mIRC will do the rest? Simple, huh?

Speech Synthesis : For the ultimate in laziness (Or if you're just observing and rather not watch the channel, just listen to it) you can activate the Speech Synthesis in mIRC via Microsoft Agent. However, some more downloading will be required. First, it depends on what operating system you are running. If you are running anybody but Windows XP (Home or Pro) you will need to download more.
Go here (will open a new window) to the Microsoft Agent download site. You will need to download the Core Components first if you are not running Windows XP. Feel free to install it as soon as it downloads.
Next, skip down to "Microsoft Agent character files". (Un)fortunately, Agent requires a 'cartoon' character running to do the text-to-speech. You have four choices here, Genie, Merlin, Peedy the Parrot (eh..), and Robby the Robot. Windows XP user note that Merlin is prepackaged, so unless you want to try another agent, skip this step as well. Select one and then click the "Download selected character" button. Feel free to install that as soon as it finishes.
Next, skip down to "Download the Microsoft SAPI 4.0a runtime binaries (824 KB exe)" and download that and install it on the fly. Windows XP must install this first.
Next, scroll back up to the "Select a text-to-speech (TTS) Engine.". The first one (Lermout and Hauspie TruVoice TTS Engine - American English (1 MB exe) should be fine for anybody. Then click "Download selected Engine". As soon as it's downloaded, feel free to install that. Note Windows XP must install this as well.
Finally, if you are the tinkering type, download the Speech Recognition and Speech Control Panel items. I couldn't get Speech Recognition to work.
Downloading finished, now for the play! Open mIRC, get rid of the About window, and get back into mIRC Options. Double Click on Sounds to open up Agents. Click that. Turn on Agent for what you want (Channels, Private Messages, Other Events {Which is primarily server messages}). I would turn off the balloons since you can look at the text in the chat window any way and the bubble gets annoying after a while. Next, click on Events. Turn off whatever you don't want. I turn off Modes, Topics, Nicks, and CTCPs. Then click OK, then OK again. Viola, you have mIRC speaking to you now! If you want to turn if off, you'll need to go back to that option panel (File menu->Options) and turn off the checkmarks next to whatever is in "Enable Agent For", then right click the agent and click "Unload Agent"