As a consequence of the change in hosting, the IRC server that has, for the last couple of years, played host not only to #Moongate (the woefully underused Codex IRC channel), but also to the official Shroud of the Avatar IRC channels,  is no longer available.

While I’m kind of sad to see it go, #Moongate was basically unused; we’ve had far more activity on the Ultima Dragons Discord server and the Spam Spam Spam Humbug Discord server than #Moongate ever saw. So I don’t think there’s actually any tangible loss in that respect…only an emotional one. 

The loss of the Shroud of the Avatar IRC channels does impact some people, however, and for that I offer my apologies. If there had been a way to keep the service alive in a way that was affordable to me, I’d have gone for it…but no such option exists at this time. Too, use of Shroud’s IRC channel had dropped off significantly with the creation of a now-official Discord server for the game’s community…so much so that participation in the IRC server stopped being mentioned as a way to qualify for prizes during Hangouts of the Avatar. 

So, if you’ve been trying to reach irc.ultimacodex.com lately and have found it down…that would be why. As for what I’d recommend? Well, it’s possible that Portalarium will roll out their own solution for those users who are unwilling to walk away from IRC. Failing that, consider getting on Discord. It’s actually a really great service, and then specifically built for gamers.