Alliances at War has an own IRC-channel. This channel is pretty active during the whole day. There are a lot of good players in this channel which can give you answers to most of your questions. Staff and members of the moderator group are the ones with op status in this channel. The people who have voice status have a lot of power over the game and can help you with just about everything. When they can't help you themselves then they will send you to the one you need, or they will contact the one who can help you to get in touch with the right person.

A lot of alliances also have their own IRC-channel. This is because it is easier to communicate on IRC than through the forums.

How to join the Alliances at War IRC channel?

Without downloading anything: Chat (Mibbit IRC client)

Or, download an IRC client, the most popular is mIRC, downloadable at http://www.mirc.com/get.html ( I will use mIRC for the rest of this manual, but for most clients the settings are the same, maybe you have to search a bit to find the right fields to fill in).

Install and run mIRC. In the start-up screen press continue. A new window will now pop up, this is the options window. Fill in your name, e-mail, nickname and alternative nickname in case your preferred nickname is already in use. Next, move to servers in the left menu.

Scroll down in the first drop down menu until you find Netgamers, select it. If Netgamers is not in the list press add. Fill in the following fields:

Description: Netgamers: Random Server
IRC Server: irc.netgamers.org
Port(s): 6667
Group: Netgamers

After you have selected the Netgamers network, press ok. Got to file, then press connect. Now you are connected to Netgamers, a pop up with favourite channels will appear. Enter #orkfia in the top field and press join. Now you are in the official Alliances at War channel, have fun!

(Copied from the Player Guide)