ToejamS

While I agree that there is a cost for running a server, a server is required in any case. The chat server would simply run in a VM or as just another thread. FAF was down for a while after Zep took leave, resulting in players having to use the steam client to find games and we know how well that turned out. I have friends on the FAF server that I have met in real life and talk to about things other than FA. Its a social thing, something that everyone can feel a part of. If player

For any sort of community to form, there 100% needs to be a chat client or it will just die. Given the scope of this project that should be a simple task to undertake. ZePilot made an open source client/server which is being used for FAForever that could suffice with little modification. https://libraries.io/github/FAForever