[KaVir]

Only if you assume that the players would normally all be playing together. The point of the Ice Age design is to target three separate audiences that wouldn't normally play the same game at all. In other words, you're not splitting the playerbase into three, but rather you're combining the playerbases of three very different games and allowing them to interact with each other in a controlled way that promotes, rather than disrupts, each other's gameplay.

However if you have strong feelings about OOC social interaction, there's no reason why you couldn't offer channels where the players of all three factions can communicate OOC using their account names. This would allow the players to chat and offer advice while keeping IC and OOC separate.