hi and welcome =)
1) iris is still under active development, it is missing some polish to become really userfriendly for the general public, like some more graphical configuration dialogs, currently things like hotkeys still have to be set by editing text files. Other shortcomings to note are that a bunch of 3d models for specific houses are still missing, and that there are still performance problems in big cities with lots of players and custom houses.
2) it isn't limited to the default osi mapsizes, and can be customized for different sizes, one example for using different mapsizes :
Code:
<table>
<string key="gLoginname"></string>
<boolean key="gPolServer">false</boolean>
<number key="gServerSeed">4294967295</number>
<number key="gLoginServerPort">2593</number>
<string key="gPassword"></string>
<string key="gLoginServerIP">zwischenwelt.org</string>
<table key="gMaps" keytype="string">
<table key="0" keytype="number">
<string key="name">Trammel</string>
<number key="mapwidth">768</number>
<number key="mapheight">512</number>
<string key="skybox">cleansky</string>
<number key="fog_r">228</number>
<number key="fog_g">208</number>
<number key="fog_b">166</number>
<string key="mapfilename">C:/path/to/custom/maps/map0.mul</string>
<string key="staidxfilename">C:/path/to/custom/maps/staidx0.mul</string>
<string key="staticfilename">C:/path/to/custom/maps/statics0.mul</string>
</table>
</table>
</table>
you can use shard-configuration files like that and place them under iris/config/shards/
mapsize can be adjusted with the variables mapwidth and mapheight .
3) iris doesn't require serverside modifications
4) iris does require modern hardware, it isn't fully optimized and uo itself wasn't designed for 3d graphic accellerators and uses lots of small independent objects, so rather highend graphics card and cpu are needed to play iris with an accceptable performance.
There will still be improvements and optimizations in the future to enable acceptable performance on below-high-end modern hardware, but iris uses some graphical techniques and isn't made to be run on really old hardware.
5) broadband is not required as the uo network protocol was designed for small bandwidth and iris doesn't require any changes to the network protocol.