This is assuming that the player’s PC is able to graphically handle the raw requirements of displaying 100’s of people at once and the internet connection is able to do the same. Is the limiting factor typical size of data? The amount of processing power of the server? If it is beneficial to the player and the game that hundreds of people are in the area, why do games shy away from such? (especially if the game is not resource hungry) Some games have even regressed in the amount of players being shown/allowed in that area as they have aged.
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When you’re alone, your client sends your position and actions to the server, and the server tells your client when anything happens to you.
When there are a hundred people around you, *everyone’s* clients send their positions and actions to the server, and the server sends *everyone’s* positions and actions to *everyone else* that’s close enough to see them, and tells *everyone’s* clients when *anything* happens to *anyone*.
It’s not just “more data”, it’s **massively** more data – both for the server to work through, and for your connection to handle.
It depends on how the game is coded. When players are distant enough, often the game won’t even try to establish communication between them as their actions are unlikely to affect each other. But as players are closer together, their actions have to be communicated and represented on all other nearby clients. Ramp this up to 100’s of players in the same area, now the client is trying to render actions of all those players all in real time. This is often complicated by games which allow the players to customize their characters, adding more expensive rendering to display them.
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