Redesigning architectre to support massively multiplayer online games

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Redesigning architectre to support massively
multiplayer online games

• Nimesh Subramanian
• CMSC601

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MMOG

• Massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).
• It is estimated that 55 of internet users play
  multiplayer online games.
• The online gaming industry alone is valued at 7
  billion USD.
• The most famous example is World of Warcraft.

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Current Problem

• Each game in the cloud has its own dedicated
  hardware, thus leading to overprovisioning of
  resources.
• Even if the company has multiple games it will
  employ dedicated hardware for each of those
  games.
• A common problem in the online gaming industry is
  the sharded design architecture that is currently
  being employed.
• This sharded principle will worsen the over
  provisioning phenomenon
• Another problem to be considered is Network
  latency must be low enough to have a decent
  gameplay experience.

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Solution

• Using the Spatial-locality property of the
  player.
• Using spatial locality property,three categories
  can be formed
• Area of interest
• Zone of interest
• Realm of interest
• Each of these will have a set of players
  associated with them.
• P2P connections can be formed within each set.
• Propagation of events can be based on priority.

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Dynamic Server Consolidation

• When a particular zone reaches a certain
  threshold value, we can split the zone further to
  maintain the Quality-of-Service (QoS).
• If the zone is sparsely polulated, we can combine
  the zones.
• Reducing the number of players in a zone reduces
  the number of events to be propagated.
• Each zone can be hosted in a separate VM. When
  its time to combine or split the zones meta-data
  can be passed.

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Analysis

• Server consolidation-
• Bin-packing algorithm

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Disadvantages

• Internet connection
• One of the main issue with cloud gaming.
• If connection becomes congested or there is a
  packet loss, frame rate will drop resulting in
  degradation of game play
• Under perfomance
• Your system might be able to give better
  resolution than what your getting from the cloud
  servers

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Advantages

• Click and play
• Constant Upgrades
• Improving a game console is impossible, and
  upgrading your PC is expensive and time
  consuming.
• Reduces the investment needed.
• Reduces the power consumption.

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Related work

• Peer_at_play
• Suselbeck, R. Schiele, G. Becker, C.
  ,Peer-to-peer support for low-latency Massively
  Multiplayer Online Games in the cloud
• Nae, V. Prodan, R. Fahringer, T.
  ,"Cost-efficient hosting and load balancing of
  Massively Multiplayer Online Games
• Yeng-Ting Lee Kuan-Ta Chen, "Is Server
  Consolidation Benecial to MMORPG? A Case Study of
  World of Warcraft"

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Discussion