I found a useful utility here: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...c-linux-minecraft-console-client-1-8-3?page=2 I would really like to be able to use this during non-peak times when I just need to go online to talk to someone and don't feel like waiting 5 minutes for Minecraft to load, or when I want to be able to chat AND do something else too without having my computer spend 2 minutes paging back and forth. Another useful example would be to continue a conversation with someone on another account while I need to be on one particular server to deal with something someone else needs. (Using two accounts.) Finally, a utility like this is useful for social situations where I don't want to be perceived to be playing a game and face all the negative stigma people seem to tack onto that, but I still want to converse with people and answer queries or hear what's happening. Ordinarily there are a lot of times when I want to stay online in case people have questions for me, however I have to close the Minecraft client because it's a big and bloated piece of software. The tool doesn't let you do anything else other than chat, so it's basically just a lightweight version of the Minecraft client. It doesn't do anything you can't do with the normal client. I didn't see it on either the approved or disallowed mods list, and I didn't want to get in trouble.
if you have python, worth checking out ammars version: https://github.com/ammaraskar/pyCraft I used it to simulate load testing before (bots branch let me spam tons of clients into server)