Matchmaking Server

Sending people around isn't a big deal. Have some servers that act as masters. Have a client try to connect to one in the list, just iterating through them, taking the first free one. Have the master send the client to a server that can handle the load. When a server stops hosting stuff it reports to one of the masters. The masters all communicate.

That's the whole thing. You only need one master if your user-base is small.

The hard part in networking is reducing the necessary shared data to a very small amount and managing to carry a game on even if the stream hiccups. That stuff is like a million times harder. That's where all the work comes in.

Also, finding good matches is hard too. I still think its too much work to find a good server for games like Counter-Strike. Starcraft auto-matches but it's kind-of soulless, though it beats the nothing from before.

There should be some way to find a way into an interesting game that suits my skill level but is always a partial reflection of the type of match I feel like playing. Sorted lists are not the solution to this.... What we have is like browsing for books in a pile. Not cool.

Client - the players machine
Server - some server that hosts an online match
Master (Server) - a routing station that gets clients to "servers".

(I could have picked better terms)