After spending a little time staring blankly at the atrocity that is this forum layout, I became a tad bi-curious as to why it is set up this way. In most forums, the OP (original post) is always the first thing you see, and that is most useful, because that way you don't have to sift through page after page of stuff just to find the original post on page 1034. The fact that new posts are displayed first is nonsensical. What if you just saw the thread and had no idea what was going on? Say a debate was taking place, and all you see is the tail end of it. Nonsensical if you ask me.
Now take a look at this.

A minor nitpick, but could we make the text here a tad bigger? It's quite small.
Now onto the colour scheme.

If you are seeing what I'm seeing, sorry. The colour scheme of the site is appalling to say the least. Nothing blends together, it flows like molasses, and it looks like a hot mess. Now look at this here:

You can see clearly that everything flows nice, looks nice, and isn't an eyesore. The font colour, module colour, and link colour are all really solid, and they just resonate well. These colours here need to go. Please.
On to the next subject: The post boxes look awful. Look here:

This is just a random reply to a random thread I just pulled off the site. Look at the reply box. Now compare it to this post I made on the Zelda Dungeon forums:

The first thing you'll notice is how much larger this is. The space management in the Zelda Dungeon post box is spot on and organized. One of the major points are a) the user information is on the left, making it less confusing as we read right to left, b) the amount of leftover space after the text in the post makes it feel less cramped, and also helps to separate that post with the post below. Also notice the userbox
http://puu.sh/ap1wC/3baf35b02b.jpg compared to this userbox
http://puu.sh/ap1yM/4abe599221.png. The Runouw userbox is far, far wider than it should be. I'd suggest slimming it down to increase post space.
Anyways, that's all I have for now.
[edit] Here is your forum as a filthy jpeg image.

[EDIT] Regarding the chat: Stop using irc. Most phpBB has other chat plugins. Chat keeps members on your forum, because chat gives them purpose. This is a proven fact.