The last CoD game Treyarch had developed was World at War and had a maximum of 18 players online.

Sony has updated their Black Ops page on PlayStation.com that said there would be 24 players this time with Call of Duty: Black Ops. XBox has not updated this information so far so we cannot tell for certain that this is going to happen or not, but most it seems most likely.

Now let's talk about the difference between 18 players (World at War and Modern Warfare 2) and 24 players in an online scrimmage. The difference between 6 added players (3 on each side) is huge! Ever notice the difference between playing Regular Team Match vs. the 18 Player Team Match? That's right, alot more lag and alot more action.

Have Treyarch may have also found a way to keep the lag (latency) down?

Besides the lag, you can guarantee that we are excited to see how Treyarch will make this work with designing maps. Smaller maps have alot of close combat action (grenade fragging) and larger maps seem desolate if not played 12 vs 12. We're just waiting on the multiplayer update!