One thing that will be in the next client is that players will be logged into general chat automatically. So far it seems like if I actually join a chat channel and hang out other people will come around but generally it seems to be a self fulfilling cycle where no one chats because no one's chatting already. We're also looking into some more public scoring options so players are a little more aware of what's going on in the world around them from the get go.

As for in game forums / chat histories I'll talk with Zark / Tsagoth and see how time consuming something like that would be, etc.