Book excerpt: The demand for multiplayer games and virtual worlds has exploded over the last few years. Not only do companies want them for site stickiness through social networking, but developers have tremendous interest in exploring this niche area. While developing multiplayer content is challenging, it isn’t as difficult as you might think, and it is fun and highly rewarding! ActionScript for Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds explains fundamental multiplayer concepts from connecting to a server to real-time latency hiding techniques. In this book you’ll learn: How to connect users to achieve real-time interaction When to make decisions on the server versus the game client Time synchronization techniques How to use dead reckoning smoothing to hide network latency About tile-based games the isometric view Techniques for customizing and rendering avatars in a virtual world In addition, you’ll learn everything that goes into building: A real-time multiplayer tank battle game A real-time multilayer cooperative game A virtual world