Curse you, popularist science magazines! You tricked me into believing your faster-than-light lies!

Kylotan, that was mostly my point with the 8-second delay; that's still a ping of 16,000 - fine for space probes and constant downloads, but unsuitable for games.

Someone needs to get to work on that artificial wormhole technology.

Anyway, it's also interesting what you've been saying about market trends - you're telling me that if it was concievable (and it may be so soon) that twitch-based gameplay was used over the net, that people would prefer non-twitch-based games because of marketing ethic?

That's mildly soul-destroying. So we're probably doomed to playing in small groups if we want mainstream twitch-based gameplay? That's not very good news for even first-person-shooters; will we ever see a true depiction of, say, the Battle of Britain in an aircraft MMO, or a recreation of the Battle of the Somme in an FPS? What about the Battle of Waterloo?

Well, I recall seeing a study (misplaced the link, sorry), that MMO users tend to team up with people who are physically close to them for some reason, even though they don't have to.

This may of course be a reaction to problems of latency, but it may also be an indication that people don't actually feel a great compulsion to connect over great distances in games.

Of course, all this should be taken with a significant amount of salt, especially since I never looked at that study in detail - who knows how bogus it might be.

In all those battles, a single solider will only interact with at most about 100-200 people within their local area directly (over time) and maybe a few hundred more indirectly ( ie air support, artillery fire and possibly tank/cavalry support ). Easily achievable with even today technology, and the far field player can be emulated using some statical modeling and AIs.

Really how many real people are u gonna attack as a rifleman in a company directly and know you've hit them before u, urself are killed ? The lifespan of a solider in those battles in direct engagement can't be too long. Now if you're making a game, and allow respawns, perhaps jumping into an AI solider will allow you to play longer and have more effect on the battle.

There are already initiatives to bring the next generation MMOFPS to market but its too early to tell how well they will do. It's really not a technical issue, but a design one. How do you design a MMOFPS that is engaging and fun enough to draw away some of the hardcore MMORPG players or draw in new players. Standard FPS networking is already pretty good and a major feature/draw for the standard FPS, which the MMOFPS will have to also out compete if they want to retain players.

There always is the possibility of an open initiative MMOFPS, if enough people get together with the right skills and motivation. It's happened before, perhaps it might happen again.

-ddn