After reading a few articles on MMOG architecture, there is still one point on which I cannot find much information: it has to do with how you keep in sync server data on the client, when you join, and while you play. A pretty vague question, I agree. Let me refine it:

Let's say we have an MMOG virtual world subdivided into geographical cells. A player in a cell is mostly interested in what happens in the cell itself, and all the surrounding cells, not more. When joining the game for the first time, the only thing we can do is send some sort of "database dump" of the interesting cells to the client.

When playing, I guess it would be very inefficient to do the same thing regularly. I imagine the best thing to do is to send "deltas" to the client, which would allow keeping the local database in sync.

Now let's say the player moves, and arrives in another cell. Surrounding cells change, and for all the new cells the player subscribes, the same technique as used when joining the game has to be used: some sort of "database dump".

This mechanic of joining/moving in a cell-based MMOG virtual world interests me, and I was wondering if there were tried and tested techniques in this domain.

Thanks!