thanks for your help Bart,

just one question though. why would i need a flag telling me if its a remote or local player ? i mean, since it is a different class, wouldnt i know it was a local player because of the data type? i mean, im storing all of my remote players in a std::map<char,Remote_Player> other_players;

this maps a remote players ID to himself.. so i can do lookups and find who's ID a message is coming from, then do stuff to THAT other_player...

since im grouping all the other players to their own container, wouldnt i not need the flag? or is there something im missing...

also, i was planning on just updating all messages i received, even if i receive some old ones. is this bad? there will be a max of 8 players connected, and the primary thing that will be sent over the wire frequently will be player coordinates, which is just 2 unsigned short ints.... max of 8 people connected at once, also. (2d action / RPG with no NPC's and one map..)

thanks for all your help!

EDIT : im thinking you were suggesting the flag, so that my Input function would know what kind of player would be using it. in that case, ill probably just over-ride the Input function also. thanks again!