I am new to IRC in general and it seems as though even DCC requires a server connection first. Is that correct? Is there any chat client that would allow a set of networked local users to chat when no server is available but also connect to a server when that is the need?
You can use an ip address instead of a nickname with the /dcc chat command.
Type /help /dccserver
Okay, but from everything I read on DCC, it seemed to need to negotiate the handshaking via the server first no matter what. I will try it out though.
Best case, though, this will only allow 2 people to directly chat, not a group, correct?
Well, from what I can see so far, it looks like this absolutely won't work without a server to connect to first.
Well, you're seeing it wrong.
No, he isn't. Whatever he's defined as "IRC Client chat" (in the topic) requires a server. He hasn't specified whether this server is central, or distributed, IRC or DCC. It's still a server.
An IRC server is not required to initiate DCC chat when specifying an ip address. I referred him to the dcc server section of the help file for instruction on how to do this. If this is not what he meant, then he needs to clarify.