Multiplayer Online Game

I am working on a RPG right now in VB and DX and im not a great internet programmer. I would like to ask a few questions first. Im trying to get the general gist of how the servers will work. Im thinking something like this...

A = Main Comp
B - C = Comps that hold different game servers for the players to connect to and play
E = Connecting Commputers



E
B <
A < E
C <
E

Or something like that?

So A will be like, when the player first connects thats the comp with the account verification on it and if it passes that then it goes on to a list of Games running on either B or C comps.

Then they choose one to play and they connect to it and those servers on B or C have lots of mini servers running on various ports on those comps that take in the info like player Health, Player Coords, Player Level, Etc...

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Other question is this...For a fairly large game would winsock do or is there something that would work better or should I just splurge and flat out learn Direct Play?