Why is it that multiplayer games won't work on the gallery? Just how the server is set up?
I believe it is because of applet permissions, although I am not sure
Builderboy2005 is correct, applet permissions only allow contacting the hosting server (greenfoot.org) which makes it impossible to connect to other players' machines.
Well, that's not strictly true. Hypothetically, if Greenfoot could afford the bandwidth and designed a small but generic REST or WSDL type interface. We could all create basic type of multiplayer games, using url connections. However, as I say, this would eat a lot of bandwidth up and require a fair bit of design..
...also, I believe. It's possible to use Flash to get round the security issues. Again, a flash object with such unrestrictiveness would have to be deployed on the same page as the java applet. The applet could then talk to the flash object (via javascript). It's all a little painful, but possible. The draw back here is that you are opening up exposures to people messing around.
There is one other thought here (sorry, my brain is running at 100 mph). Sun introduced a basic http server set of classes into the latest JVM's. It would be possible to create a simple server using that; for which could be run and operated, but behind Greenfoot domain. Again, API's would have to be agreed for people to use. Network traffic would flow through the website load balancers/web servers. Hence, I can see this being too painful too; but would be a way to introduce it. I'm beginning to see a business opportunity here!
I see, applets only let multiplayer happen if there's a middle man. I will see if the Greenfoot persistent storage opens up any windows with this, otherwise I might just make it so you download and run it. Still many options, we'll see what happens ;D.