Silver Platter Announces New MMOG Middleware

Silver Platter Software, a middleware tools company, today unveiled Alloy -- a new networking engine for MMOGs. Based on distributed computing principles, Alloy aims to replace the server farms used in traditional client-server games with dynamically assembled "virtual servers" composed of player computers. The company claims this architecture is compatible with existing game development environments. Alloy features dynamic scaling, so that additional server capacity can be raised by the publisher if demand turns out to be higher than earlier anticipated. The company claims Alloy can support hundreds of thousands of players in a single game world. Silver Platter Software (formerly Horizon: A Glimpse of Tomorrow) will show Alloy at the GDC next week.