One of the best features of TOME is that it is single player, but there is a chat client built into the game. Anyway to plug an IRC client into TOME and then when you start you can choose to connect to IRC? Would get more people chatting. Could help increase the size of the community. Help out newbies and in general perma newbs like me who suck.
I like the idea, but it would probably be hard as tits to implement.
Make it radio that consumes batteries, but if you use IRC on client via batteries other chatters can create random items for you on undiscovered map locations like “Give shotgun to McPlayerDude” <- this message translates to “I remember my nephew having a nice Mossberg, he lived near your location” - and game map would display rough area where that shotgun will be generated (decided by game). Naturally these gifts would have cooldowns to prevent scumming. Also “Give location hospital/gunshop/pawnshop/library/manor” etc etc …
This way users could kind of help each other out and the “deserted world” would have nice little radio broadcast network with real purpose gamewise, and player would have incentive to keep radio open every now and then to beg for help and items 
If everyone played in character, this would be a great way to add flavor in a really dynamic way. Players passing stashes via radio coordinates, maybe sending NPC’s as visitors when that works better, even calling for ‘artillery’ in tricky situations when someone has access to a nuke silo and the other player has access to hundreds of nightmare creatures.
I guess the biggest issue would be players abusing the debug menu, but if you just say that anyone who’s used it can’t actively trade elements with other players, it would be fine.
Trading items is a little weird, but I like the idea of needing a H.A.M radio to chat. You should be able to adjust it so you can hear In-Character, Out-of-Character, or both.
Trading is not possible - but giving “gifts” that have cooldowns. You wouldnt receive an item directly, but you were given directions where such item might be, so you need still to dig it up by yourself.
So other people can “steer” your game a little thus kind-of-give but you would need to see effort to get the thing.
It could also be uncertain, so especially high end items would appear only at little percentage (20%) so having someone give you directions to power armor would only give chance to get one, not get one reliably. Also these things would not neccesarily be exact, if other player gives you “gun” then it could be just highligting a gun shop at big map. “I recall I saw a gunshop at your area” - so you spread just information trough this broadcast system.
The higher tier item is in question the longer the cooldown is, so if other player points you to power armor (which may or may not be there, but you are much better running to powerarmor by hint than just randomly) then youre on cooldown for a week gametime… But should you know where to find more bandages then cooldown could be just few hours.
This makes broadcast system kind of “Story telling engine” besides being flat chat.
I don’t know how I feel about having other players reach into your game and change things. I can see how some people would like it, but IMO it’s something that should be done very carefully, if at all. It’s also not something that I intend to implement, personally (I like my singleplayer games!).
As for tying the game into IRC in the first place: yeah, seems reasonable. I’m just not sure how hard it’d be to code a good in-game IRC client. If someone does end up doing that, though, I think we should probably split off the dev chat into its own channel.
Well, there is no need to code an IRC client. Just pick an existing one in library format and drop it in. It’s really simple and there are tons of free options out there.
Try it out, if you dont like it then turn IRC_QUESTGIVERS = FALSE in options. I like the idea of turning my two-way radio on in-game just to ask some help from the stranger out there. Would give you reason to have one and keep one in good condition, and even lug it around in this hostile world. Idea itself is very unique, I dont recall having anything like this in any game ever and I see some very emergent gameplay arising from this.
Heck. Im a kind of players who relies to Wiki/Forums really quickly if i run into trouble. It would be so fun to have a backup information source in form of peers, so i could in-game ask for something instead of fireing up wiki for spoilers. That would be huge immersion factor.
So just a chat menu that pops up while a your two way radio is active? Consuming batteries to keep the window up? Chatting with people to get tips?
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Genius. Make the IRC available strictly through radios, which go out to everyone, or walkie-talkies, which connect to a random player/s who also have one and only them. Yes it should drain the battery, and make noise.
I don’t think you should be able to interfere with each others worlds unless everybody shares a regularly updated map.
The Idea is fantastic for some very simple reasons:
The implementation could be done so it uses up quite a few batteries, giving out coordinates for a survivor who has no idea where he is relative to other things is quite hard after all and would take a lot of time to communicate. Also, it would need to be a random item, not a specific one, something in the direciton of ‘There is food stashed away at location x’x’x’. This gives the possibility of it being absolutely useless as well. Also, deciding on the quality of the item could be a valid option too, at least with a good downside to it. ‘There is a high tech gun there, but I couldn’t get it because the place was overrun, maybe you got more luck?’ And flavor text like this could be used, generally using a quest system like the one were a mother zombie is created, just with for instance a crate or locker with the items, and several mobs in the vicinity, from 2-3 normal zombies for crap up to shocker brutes mixed with hulks and other high end zombies swarming the place.
While it is not very useful for an advanced character besides the fun of it, it surely is good when in a pickle, but you’re never sure what you will get from your fellow ‘friends’ 
The biggest part of it all thought would be implemented cooldown, make it only available once every 10 days for instance and you have a perfect way for a twitch streamer to get the attention of their community, which in reaction would be a nice way to boost the popularity of the game, interactive game mechanics are always a blast as seen with quite a few other titles. It opens up a lot of possibilities while having no downsides with proper implementation, or at least none I could think up, the word is ‘proper implementation’ as it can easily ruin the balance otherwise.