Reply #24: It depends on the game

[TechBear_Seattle]

Some games (EverQuest) have a lot of small zones; moving from one zone to another requires downloading a very large block of data, which is updated as you move around using very small blocks of data.

Some games (Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft) use a "wandering zone," with packets of a consistent size notifying your computer of changes in images, objects and other characters.

Some games (EverQuest II) use a hybrid of fixed zones and wandering zones, which averages out the advantages and disadvantages of the other two methods.

Over time, the same amount of data is exchanged regardless; the only difference is the size of individual packets. But the actual amount of data is pretty significant.