Remember also that one or more of you may suffer from the 'dynamic IP blues' !!!

If any of the friends with whom you wish to 'direct connect' are with dynamic (changing) IP addresses, you will need the chat connection so that if one of you switches off or crashes or whatever you will be able to report the 'new' IP address !

Be sure to save the logs of your chat connects covering the first 10 hours or so of you all trying to get this stuff down so it's almost easy !!!
Those logs will make great reading someday !!!

LOL