I hate asking questions like this because I like to do all my research on my own. I am very good programming in a variety of popular languages (C++, VB, Flash Action Scripts, WSH, VBS, etc...) and some unknown ones as well. I've done a lot of game projects but I have always wanted to do an online game. I work with networks all day at work but I don't really understand how to create multi user applications that work over the internet. To be honest I'm not even sure how to even start. Does anyone have an reccomendations for something that a mid-level networking/programming person could read that would send me in the right direction, something that will include all sides of the internet/computer connections work. I know there are different methods but any information would be a big help.

Some good articles in here:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=30

www.google.com will sure give you enough info to drown in.Ah, about learning to do real time multiuser networking over TCP/IP ,the simplest and the best(in my humble opinion) way would be to a chat server and have a lot of people test it.

A good book to learn TCP/IP internals would be TCP/IP in 21 days.

Well, if you're planning on going real-time then struggling too much in TCP/IP would be a waste, as you'll probably using a third-party package to handle doing UDP, as UDP is just too hard to handle on your own. There are some good ones, like enet.

Google for Beej, first link.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I may go check out that TCP/IP one, that sounds like a good place to start