Deadline-Driven Auctions for NPC Host Allocation on P2P MMOGs.

Fan, Lu; Trinder, Phil; Taylor, Hamish

Abstract

We present the design, implementation and evaluation of Deadline-Driven Auctions (DDAs), a novel task-mapping infrastructure for heterogeneous distributed environments. DDA is primarily designed for hosting Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in P2P Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). Experimental and analytical results demonstrate that DDA provides four significant advantages. It is self-organising: the infrastructure is automatically managed. It efficiently allocates computing resources for large numbers (1000s) of real-time NPC tasks. It supports gaming interactivity by minimising communication latency between NPC hosts. Finally, it supports flexible matchmaking policies, and a friendly incentive policy establishes a cooperative economic model to motivate participants to contribute resources.

Citation

Fan, L., Trinder, P., & Taylor, H. (2010). Deadline-Driven Auctions for NPC Host Allocation on P2P MMOGs. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 4, 140-153. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032140

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2010
• Deposit Date: Dec 21, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 31, 2010
• Print ISSN: 1462-4613
• Publisher: Inderscience
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Pages: 140-153
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032140
• Keywords: Deadline-driven auctions; NPC host allocation; P2P; peer-to-peer; MMOG's; massively multiplayer online games; real time; task mapping; heterogenous environments; communication latency; matchmaking; incentive; simulation; non-player characters; self-organising; resource allocation; gaming inter-activity; incentive policy; cooperative economic models
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/3975
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032140