Trillian just got better for gamers

[Dr.Flay]

http://blog.trillian.im

Trillian for Windows: Group chat improvements, in-game chat! (5.3 Build 7)

Lots of great new improvements coming your way in the new Trillian 5.3 for Windows beta now released to testers!

Group chat improvements.
Save chats to your contact list, automatically join selected chats, stay in chat rooms even when closing the window, edit topics directly from the chat window, and much more!

Trillian group chats.
In addition to beefing up group chats across the board, we're also unveiling Trillian group chats in 5.3! Right now you'll need to be on the beta to take advantage of group chats but we’ll be rolling support out for other devices soon. Trillian group chats are a great way to keep a team connected – they’re persistent and cloud-history backed, ensuring you can catch up on conversation that happened while you weren't around.

In-game chat.
Just in time for Mists of Pandaria, the new in-game plugin exposes an overlay that works inside of full screen games to keep you connected while you play! In-game chat supports tabbed chatting, alerts, and a cool “unread badge” that sticks around even when the overlay isn’t visible so you always know how many unread messages await you. To try it out, simply load a full screen game while the plugin is running and wait for the welcome alert.

DOWNLOAD the Beta version from the blog (22.7 MB)
http://blog.trillian.im

[papercoffee]

mhm.... Trillian?
I use Miranda as multi-messaging (and chat) client ...I like how unadorned it looks like.

[Dr.Flay]

I use Miranda and Pidgin (on Linux), but prefer the usefulness of Trillian.
Skype integration is the key here for UT gamers, as it is becoming more popular for VOIP.
Using Trillian, you can avoid installing the real Skype, and have more control over the bandwidth usage.
Facebook and Twitter support in Trillian is also far superior and make both networks easier to manage from a tiny icon.

Forget the horrible default skin from Astra v4. That is now an option.
Trillian has a no-skin option, and people have made clean minimal skins, so it fits on a cluttered desktop or one of those crappy notepads.

The main point of posting about this beta is the "In-game chat" overlay, which combined with VOIP should make it indispensable.

If you are a server admin, you can chat, talk, and monitor your forum/site RSS feed and email, without leaving the game.

I have yet to test it, and it is in the Beta, so it is not for everyone.
Trillian is not perfect, and the Xfire plugin never got updated for v5
Feedback from people willing to test it is much appreciated.