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hope to have servers that can handle lots and lots of traffic so to get around the lag/latency/processing power issues



Servers have little to no effect on lag or latency. These are purely network effects and depend on the path between client and server. My terminology is that latency is the delay of a packet to make a round trip from client to server back to client. Lag is the human perception of this latency. This means you could have low latency and high lag because you have a slow client computer and it can't keep up with the game or low lag and high latency because the client code "hides" the missed or delayed packets with smoke and mirrors (such as animations and dead reckoning). None of this has to do with the server unless the server is SO overloaded that it starts adding to the latency because it can't process the game fast enough. Even then, the latency of the server will be minimal compared to internet latency.

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We're also going to limit how much of the immediate surrounding gamespace the server sends (there's a plug-in in the AUM).



I'm not aware of this plug-in. Which AUM is it in?

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Basically, it sounds like a LAN in the sense that the computers have the maps downloaded and are exchanging packets that only relate to the immediately surrounding players



If I read you correctly, this isn't possible with native 3DGS. It runs a strictly client/server architeture, not a peer2peer architecture needed for clients to send data to each other directly.

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The server will take the place of the LAN network and becomes the MMO's postal system, if you will



Don't understand this. The server will always be Wide Area Net (WAN) and never Local Area Net (LAN) unless you are planning for a Neverwinter Nights like architecture with one person hosting the server for all his other, local friends.

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Basically, we want to have the player's PC pick up as much of the tab as possible (I mean, their machine would be powerful enough to run the game anyway) leaving our server open for less lag and more players. Is this a solid idea or am I off my rocker?




Ignoring the fact that servers have nothing to do with lag, this is a good idea within limits. You never want the clients to be in control of "mission critical" processing. For example, if a client calculates whether he hits another player or not, then he could fake-send the "I hit you packet" and damage you even though they are no where near. This is me being paranoid but hackers and crackers are the bane of any MP game and the design should be created under the assumption that they will crack it, not that they won't. Otherwise you are correct: try to put as much processing on the client to take the load off the server, but since 3DGS is purely client/server AND you don't want to put too much faith in the clients, you are left with very few options as to what the client can do for the global game.

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The big thing is that theoretically if it would work would the number of players limited to a single server only be governed by how much processing power the server had open to make exchanges of packets to the user's PC?



Yes, the servers processing power factors into this. Moreso is your bandwidth. You have to consider how big your internet pipes are (and remember that all home lines have different upload and download speeds) as well as the network topology between client and server. If your players are right next door (ie: no more than one or two internet hops away), then lag and latency is minimal. If they are far away (say 5 or more hops), then the possibility of lag and latency increases.


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