Tribes 2 in-game community...how?

#1 You will need to code this into your own master servers, and then extend the game clients GUI interface to include these things.

Master servers are needed to verify logins, hold "email" (unless you use an external system), etc. On top of that they provide you with the current game server list to browse in the client.

Try to search for master server in the forums - there a a few (but not many) posts on this.

#2 The entire T2 community system was built on the IRC foundation. They used a special IRC server that was extended to handle the database calls and returns. This simplified things as it required only one socket handle for all of the community information.

I do have an unfinished resource for adding POP3 E-Mail checking.. (along with the unfinished IRC port from T2 to Torque) I hope to have RL time to work on them again soon.

#3 The master server as it stands now, though, is just a simple game server tracker. In the Tribes2 times, it was involved in authentication and stuff, but now it's just a shadow of its former self, so to speak ;)

(Of course, it sure would be neat to see it built up again, but that won't happen overnight.)

I'd suggest making a "login" server that the game connects to, does authentication with, and then either gets handed off to another server (a "mail/forum/im" server), or gets its data from. This is the simplest solution, especially since the master server uses UDP for its stuff (ie... it's lossy and unreliable. This is fine for game tracking, as the client requests multiple times anyway, but if you're doing must-deliver information using TCP/IP is simpler anyway.)