Time to learn something new. Namely, Ajax, which evokes a relatively new web technology that relies on asynchronous JavaScript connections to a server for updating web pages. You have already been subjected to Ajax if you use GMail or Netflix.

For my online game, it should prove most useful. Ajax is particularly good at updating small pieces of a web page, and obviates the need to re-request an entire web page from a server and then redraw it every time just a little bit of its content needs to change.

For example, my online game has a page showing a lot of data about various units, such as the speed and heading of a task force or a group of planes. If the player wants to change a heading, it's currently necessary to send the entire web page's contents to the server and await a response for all the units on the page.

With Ajax, however, changing just the one number would result in only it being sent to the server, and then only a tiny bit of the web page being redrawn. The player's wait time would be reduced tremendously, server load would fall drastically, and bandwidth would be saved.

Anyway, I've just started in on an introductory book to learn Ajax and am most excited about implementing it in my game, and in web pages at work too.