Step 1: Get an IRC client

Download mIRC (recommended for Windows). This guide will focus around using mIRC, but there are other options. Xchat is a nice linux alternative, irssi is for fans of the linux terminal, and some other options are Pidgin and Chatzilla (Firefox plugin).

Step 2: Enter your info

The first thing we need to do is fill in our nickname, name and e-mail address. All these are mandatory, but don’t need to be your real email or name. If you’re starting mIRC for the first time, a window where you enter all this should appear automatically. Otherwise, go into options (alt+O) and select Connect in the Category menu on the left. Now, fill in the information. People will be able to see what you put in for Name, but they’ll only be able to see whatever’s before the @ in your E-mail.

Step 3: Set up autoconnect

There are several ways to set up mIRC to do all the stuff you want automatically. The easy way is to do it in the options. Go into options (alt+O), and then to Connect -> Options in the Category menu to the left. Make sure “Connect on startup” is checked, then go to Connect -> Servers in the Category menu. Scroll down to QuakeNet, select the server that’s closest to you and hit OK. You should now see a wall of text as you’re connecting to the server.

Step 4: Set up autojoin

IRC is pretty pointless if you don’t join any channels. To join channels once, all you need to do is type this and then press enter:

/join #channel

To set it up so that you auto-join a channel every time you start mIRC, we will use the Favorites window, which we can bring up by pressing alt+J. Let’s add #redditeu as a favorite and set it up so we auto-join the channel every time we connect. Click “Add” and then type #redditeu as the Channel. Make sure “Join on connect” is checked. Then, under “Networks”, press Add and select QuakeNet (you don’t need to scroll all the way – instead just hit the Q key to jump directly to it). Click OK twice. Finally, make sure “Enable join on connect” in the Favorites window is checked before hitting OK, and you’re all set!

Restart mIRC to make sure it all works!

Advanced: Autojoin more than one IRC server

Our channel is on QuakeNet. But what if you want to join another channel as well, but it’s on a different server? Unfortunately, mIRC’s built-in multiserver support is a bit lacking, but there’s a good and pretty easy solution to connect to several servers automatically. Press alt+R in mIRC and you’ll find the mIRC script editor. There, paste this in:

on *:START:{
server QuakeNet
server -m EsperNet
server -m EFnet
}

Here, replace the names of the networks with the ones you want to connect to. You can also add or remove lines depending on how many servers you want to connect to. You can also use specific irc server names (like port80.se.quakenet.org). If you want to have different nicknames on different servers, you need to apply a little if-else-then scripting of your own. Copy-paste this:

ON *:CONNECT:{
if ($network == QuakeNet) { nick aGi-Raziel }
elseif ($network == EFnet) { nick Raziel }
else { nick Raziel2p }
}

You can also change your real name and email on a per-server basis if you want to. Here’s an example of a full script you can use to change all of these things:

on *:START:{
server QuakeNet
server -m EsperNet
server -m EFnet
}

ON *:CONNECT:{
if ($network == QuakeNet) {
nick aGi-Raziel
fullname http://www.agitated-sc2.com
emailaddr not@realemail.com
}
elseif ($network == EFnet) {
nick Raziel
fullname Andreas
emailaddr not@realemail.com
}
else {
nick Raziel2p
fullname Andy
emailaddr fake@email.com
}
}

Advanced: Authenticating with Q

Q is the name of QuakeNet’s bot – their automated service provider. Basically Q is your interface for managing your account on QuakeNet, and by sending messages to Q you can register, log in, manage your account, manage the channels you have control over and more. To start, we need to register with Q. Before you do this, note that the nick you use a the time of registration is the username you’ll be given with Q, but this does not mean you can’t switch nicks later. To do this, we simply type this in and press enter:

/msg Q hello your@email.com your@email.com

Remember to type your email address twice (to prevent spelling mistakes). You’ll receive an e-mail with a link you need to follow to activate your account. Here, you’ll be given a password which you should probably write down!

Now we need to make it so that mIRC authenticates us every time we start the program. To do this, open options (alt+O), go into Connect -> Options and press “Perform…”. Here, make sure “Enable perform on connect” is checked, then click the “Add” button and find Quakenet, then press OK. Select Quakenet where it says “Network:”, and then paste this into the large text box named “Perform commands:”

msg Q@CServe.quakenet.org AUTH username password
mode $me +x

Then press OK. Click here for a screenshot if the above explanation seems a bit convolulted!

The AUTH message should be self-explanatory. mode $me +x does so that other IRC users can’t track down your IP – qxc once got DDoS attacked while playing in a go4sc2 final because he didn’t do this.