IRC makes our beta testing possible.  Without it we wouldn't have any way to hold discussions, quickly organize up games, coordinate testers, and deliberate about changes.  Without IRC we'd be down to using forums, which would mean waiting two to three days for feedback on each item from everyone, rather than two to three minutes.  IMs are completely out also as the difference is me sending one message to several dozen people in a single centralized chatroom vs the IM approach which is sending several dozen copies of the same message spread out across multiple IMs, and having to respond to everyone individually.  And that doesn't even cover the concept of being able to start up dynamic impromptu conversations between the group (or listening in on them).

So yeah, IRC is good and we're happy to be using it.  Plus I'm sure others can attest that we are usually a lot more relaxed in IRC than here on the forums about things

Fear the Woodzilla

Spying on us eh? What an outrage!

And indeed, it is much more relaxed in IRC than in the forums, and it's cool to be able to talk to the devs in real time instead of this turn based forum thing