Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A hybrid P2P communications architecture for zonal MMOGs

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Distributed Virtual Environments are becoming more popular in today’s computing and communications among people. Perhaps the most widely used form of such environments is Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), which are in the form of client/server architecture that requires considerable server resources to manage a large number of distributed players. Peer-to-peer communication can achieve scalability at lower cost but may introduce other difficulties. Synchronous communication is a prime concern for multi-user collaborative applications like MMOGs where players need frequently interaction with each other to share their game states. In this article, we present a hybrid MMOG architecture called MM-VISA (Massively Multiuser VIrtual Simulation Architecture). In this architecture, servers and peers are coupled together to take the inherent advantages of the centralized architecture and the scalability of distributed systems. As the virtual world is decomposed into smaller manageable zones, the players’ random movement causes reorganization at the P2P overlay structure. The frequent nature of movements along with unintelligent zone crossing approaches, currently implemented in MMOGs, breaks synchronous communication. To limit such problem, we consider players’ gaming characteristics to intelligently define routing paths. A graph-theoretic framework is incorporated for overlay oriented real-time distributed virtual environments. We shall show that interest-driven zone crossing, dynamic shared region between adjacent zones, and clustering of entities based on their attributes significantly decrease unstable overlay situations. The effectiveness of the presented system is justified through simulation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Fig. 21
Fig. 22
Fig. 23
Fig. 24
Fig. 25
Fig. 26

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/raidarea.html

  2. ShenZhou Online. http://www.ewsoft.com.tw/

References

  1. Ahmed D, Shirmohammadi S, Kazem I (2006) Zone based messaging in collaborative virtual environments. In: IEEE international workshop on haptic audio visual environments and their applications (HAVE), 2006, pp 165–170

  2. Ahmed D, Shirmohammadi S, Oliveira J (2007) Improving gaming experience in zonal mmogs. In: MULTIMEDIA ’07: proceedings of the 15th international conference on multimedia. ACM, New York, pp 581–584

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Assiotis M, Tzanov V (2006) A distributed architecture for mmorpg. In: NetGames ’06: proceedings of 5th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on network and system support for games. ACM, New York, p 4

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Banerjee S, Bhattacharjee B, Kommareddy C (2002) Scalable application layer multicast. In: SIGCOMM ’02: proceedings of the 2002 conference on applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications. ACM, New York, pp 205–217

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Borella M (2000) Source models of network game traffic. Comput Commun 23:403–410

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Chambers C, Feng W-c, Sahu S, Saha D (2005) Measurement-based characterization of a collection of on-line games. In: IMC ’05: proceedings of the 5th ACM SIGCOMM conference on internet measurement. USENIX, Berkeley, p 1

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Chen K-T, Huang P, Huang C-Y, Lei C-L (2005) Game traffic analysis: an mmorpg perspective. In: NOSSDAV ’05: proceedings of the international workshop on network and operating systems support for digital audio and video. ACM, New York, pp 19–24

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Claypool M, Claypool K (2006) Latency and player actions in online games. ACM Commun 49(11):40–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. DFC intelligence (2003) Challenges and opportunities in the online game market. http://www.dfcint.com/wp/?p=156

  10. Diot C, Levine B, Lyles B, Kassem H, Balensiefen D (2000) Deployment issues for the ip multicast service and architecture. IEEE Netw 14(1):78–88. doi:10.1109/65.819174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. El-Sayed A, Roca V, Mathy L (2003) A survey of proposals for an alternative group communication service. IEEE Netw 17(1):47–54 (special issue on multicasting: an enableing technology)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Guizzo E (2008) The game-frame guild. IEEE Spectrum 45(8):44–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hosseini M, Ahmed D, Shirmohammadi S, Georganas N (2007) A survey of application-layer multicast protocols. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 9(3):58–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hu S-Y, Chen J-F, Chen T-H (2006) VON: a scalable peer-to-peer network for virtual environments. IEEE Netw 20(4):22–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. IEEE (1998) Ieee standard for distributed interactive simulation—application protocols. IEEE, Piscataway

    Google Scholar 

  16. Iimura T, Hazeyama H, Kadobayashi Y (2004) Zoned federation of game servers: a peer-to-peer approach to scalable multi-player online games. In: NetGames ’04: proceedings of 3rd ACM SIGCOMM workshop on network and system support for games. ACM, New York, pp 116–120

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Knutsson B, Lu H, Xu W, Hopkins B (2004) Peer-to-peer support for massively multiplayer games. citeseer.ist.psu.edu/knutsson04peertopeer.html

  18. Lang T, Branch P, Armitage G (2004) A synthetic traffic model for quake3. In: ACE ’04: proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI international conference on advances in computer entertainment technology. ACM, New York, pp 233–238

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Lety E, Turletti T, Baccelli F (2004) SCORE: a scalable communication protocol for large-scale virtual environments. IEEE/ACM Trans Netw 12(2):247–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Oliveira J, Georganas N (2003) VELVET: an adaptive hybrid architecture for very large virtual environments. Presence: Teleoper Virtual Environ 12(60):555–580

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Park K, Kenyon R (1999) Effects of network characteristics on human performance in a collaborative virtual environment. In: VR ’99: proceedings of the IEEE virtual reality. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, p 104

    Google Scholar 

  22. Pullen J (1999) Reliable multicast network transport for distributed virtual simulation. In: DIS-RT ’99: proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on distributed interactive simulation and real-time applications. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, p 59

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Shirmohammadi S, Georganas N (2001) An end-to-end communication architecture for collaborative virtual environments. Comput Netw 35(2–3):351–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Smed J, Kaukoranta T, Hakonen H (2001) Aspects of networking in multiplayer computer games. In: International conference on application and development of computer games in the 21st century. pp 74–81

  25. Varvello M, Biersack E, Diot C (2007) Dynamic clustering in delaunay-based p2p networked virtual environments. In: NetGames ’07: proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on network and system support for games. ACM, New York, pp 105–110

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Wu J, Li H (1999) On calculating connected dominating set for efficient routing in ad hoc wireless networks. In: DIALM ’99: proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on discrete algorithms and methods for mobile computing and communications. ACM, New York, pp 7–14

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Yu A, Vuong S (2005) MOPAR: a mobile peer-to-peer overlay rrchitecture for interest management of massively multiplayer online games. In: NOSSDAV ’05: proceedings of the international workshop on network and operating systems support for digital audio and video. ACM, New York, pp 99–104

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Distributed and Collaborative Virtual Environments Research Laboratory, School of Information Technology and Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Dewan Tanvir Ahmed & Shervin Shirmohammadi

  2. ACiMA Laboratory, Computer Science Department, National Laboratory of Scientific Computing, Petrpolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Jauvane C. de Oliveira

Authors
  1. Dewan Tanvir Ahmed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shervin Shirmohammadi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jauvane C. de Oliveira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dewan Tanvir Ahmed.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ahmed, D.T., Shirmohammadi, S. & de Oliveira, J.C. A hybrid P2P communications architecture for zonal MMOGs. Multimed Tools Appl 45, 313–345 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-009-0311-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-009-0311-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation