Design Issues for Peer-to-Peer Massively Multiplayer Online Games.

Fan, Lu; Trinder, Phil; Taylor, Hamish

Abstract

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are increasing in both popularity and scale, and while classical Client/Server (C/S) architectures convey some benefits, they suffer from significant technical and commercial drawbacks. This realisation has sparked intensive research interest in adapting MMOGs to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures. This paper articulates a comprehensive set of six design issues to be addressed by P2P MMOGs, namely Interest Management (IM), game event dissemination, Non-Player Character (NPC) host allocation, game state persistency, cheating mitigation and incentive mechanisms. Design alternatives for each issue are systematically compared, and their interrelationships discussed. We further evaluate how well representative P2P MMOG architectures fulfil the design criteria.

Citation

Fan, L., Trinder, P., & Taylor, H. (2010). Design Issues for Peer-to-Peer Massively Multiplayer Online Games. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 4, 108-125. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032138

• 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: 108-125
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032138
• Keywords: P2P; peer-to-peer; MMOGs; massively multiplayer online games; interest management; event dissemination; task distribution; distribution storage; anti-cheating; collaboration incentives; design alternatives; non-player characters; NPC host allocation; game state persistency; cheating mitigation; incentive mechanisms
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/3974
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJAMC.2010.032138