Alright, Discord is a thing that exists and from what I can tell it does everything IRC does (that we actually utilize) only better. I've set up a channel for people to try out here: https://discord.gg/eT6bgu3
Here's a quick rundown on what it does compared to IRC, bold emphasis mine:
- Native in-browser Chat or stand-alone Program on all platforms, including mobile devices, no complicated instructions on how to join
- Registered account that automatically pops you into your channels
- Records Chat History while you're offline
- Friend Lists
- PMs
- Auto-parsing of smilies, image and video links (you can turn this off)
- Various notification settings, including Sounds, Desktop Notifications and Push-Notifications on mobile (adjustable by channel)
- Mobile actually fucking works instead of disconnecting every time the App loses focus
- Not based on 28 freaking year old technology
- Voice chat, I guess?
- Not Skype-eating-your-CPU
- Black or White background, depending on which you prefer
- Chat Avatars (you can turn this off as well)
- Bot support (if we really want dice rolling for instance)
- It free and doesn't remind you to upgrade your free version all the time unless you use an outdated version that allows for Registry fuckery (*cough*mIRC*cough*)
- No Magicstar being stupid, no Mibbit weirdness, no random disconnects