ok first off...how can you earn IC's.  There are several ways really.  Most of the time you will earn IC's in competitions, most of these will be announce in the comnet.  We have right now "The Return of the Reply" which is a little comnet that can award big bucks if you post alot on it.  Division competitions such as squad names and activity can award ic's.  You can also make web site, and can be submitted into the site of the week program, and if the site wins will be awarded 10,000 ic's for your work.  In the near future we (HC) will have numerous programs our for your enjoyment on making tons of ic's which will be used in role playing and for purchasing products at our store. Second on the java chat...I'm not sure why It would not be working.  You might need to update your browser I would recommend getting the latest internet explorer which can be found at www.microsoft.com.  Most of the member are using a better program to get onto IRC then the javachat and that is mIRC which can be found at www.mirc.com  the Server is: irc.massassi.net and the channel is #Vast_Empire.  We have more info on this at our IRC tutorial page from our main page. If you have anymore questions please reply   ----------------------- -=:General Anakin:=- Operations Officer for the Vast Empire OO/GN Anakin/HC-3/mSSD Atrus/VE [SCP][CDS][IOC][CM-SS][LoCx23] E-mail