Either I fundamentally misunderstand what you're trying to do or I see some serious flaws.

A limit of two to three clients per server is impractical in a variety of instances. Consider a major town center where upwards of 100 players can be in a geographically limited area at the same time. In this case, if each server is only supposed to serve two to three clients, you'd need to have 30-50 servers handling that small area. The problem is, each of the 100 players needs to know the positional information of up to 99 other players. In this case, you'd need to have the servers intercommunicate with each other which is problematic by my understanding: most importantly, this radically increases the amount of bandwidth and latency used to propagate player positions - instead of PlayerA->CentralServer->PlayerB + PlayerC + PlayerD... it's PlayerA->SomeServer->OtherServer->PlayerB, PlayerA->SomeServer->AnotherServer->PlayerC,
PlayerA->SomeServer->YetAnotherServer->PlayerD.

In an abstract sense what you're proposing is akin to a very complex equation that simplifies down to a known, simple equation. The p2p method you suggest is a complex way of handling the problem that should "simplify" down to produce the same results as the client-server model. The difference is in the inputs (bandwidth, latency, monthly fee, development time, etc.). In this case it would appear that you're proposing a solution that greatly increases the bandwidth, latency, and development time necessary to solve the problem and leaves the monthly fee at about the same level. The point is, the model that's being used presently is about as good as anyone has come up with thus far. Certainly, pursue your goal, but not to the extent that some sound skepticism doesn't give you pause.

I was anon because GAMEDEV.NET HAS CRAP COOKIE HANDLING / LOGIN HANLDING THAT IS BADLY BROKEN. Sorry to shout, but people keep throwing abuse (not you) or complaints (you) at those of us who have NO CHOICE but to be AP most of the time, and it's getting irritating. We don't do it on puprose: it's the admins who wrote a site that can't do what all the other community sites on the net have been getting 100% right for decades that are causing the problem!

Also, I actually signed my name on the post, so ... go figure.

Quote:Original post by certaintragedy

In an abstract sense what you're proposing is akin to ... you're proposing a solution that greatly increases the bandwidth, latency, and development time necessary to solve the problem and leaves the monthly fee at about the same level. The point is, the model that's being used presently is about as good as anyone has come up with thus far. Certainly, pursue your goal, but not to the extent that some sound skepticism doesn't give you pause.

Exactly. If you can't handle the fact that most ideas are hopeless or pointless then you won't get far with research; a part of research is about having 100 crazy ideas and then knowing which ones actually have some promise, and following those. All I'm doing is pointing out the fundamental reasons why what you suggest is useless in the real world of today; in 2104 with completely different society, technology, and telecomms links your ideas may be not only feasible but superior to what is used today. But most P2P advocates don't ever bother to check what the telecomms links of today are actually like (most of them never bother even to learn the basic practicalities of telecomms, the standards and protocols, the well-researched problems and solutions) and so sit around dreaming up ideas that are useless in real life. Shrug.