Comment Tribes / Garagegames TGE should be prior art (Score 1) 261
From working with the Torque Game Engine a while back - which was based on the Tribes engine (I think originally from 1998 but I might be wrong) - I think TGE works exactly like this in multiplayer mode. There's a central server that controls object position/etc so even if it's not a traditional MMO framework I think it fit's the bill.