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> Seriously, I've been exploring options for a multiplayer game engine of some kind (*any* kind -- getting multiplayer pong working is the hard part; doing a complex multiplayer game after that is just work) for quite a while now. RinkChat is sufficiently flaky that I'm pretty sure I don't want to attempt a multiplayer game engine in CGI. I'm planning on exploring PHP and java servlets, which have better potential. The tricky part is figuring out the front end. Java applets are about all I can figure out for being sufficient for implementing the real time stuff on the front end, and we both know what nasty problems applets have.

Agreed, java = devil. Check out Netropolis (link below) for an example of a pretty massively multi-player game that doesn't use java. The game is pretty crappy but it runs somewhat decently (I tried it a long time ago on a 56k modem, and the biggest problem was waiting for graphics -- the processing speed of the servers don't seem to be a problem).

Stephen