Westwood Online is a peer-to-peer gaming network which uses several protocols for chatting/gaming. The main portion of WOL is based on the IRC protocol. There are two versions of WOL: the WOLv1 protocol which is used by Westwood Chat client (later called Westwood Online). This client connects to a meta-server for chatting and arranging games. The Westwood Chat Client is an application used to launch a game and is not integrated into the game itself. Later games supported the WOLv2 protocol internally, you could search for games and chat without having to exit the game.