Abstract
Although Multi-Avatar Distributed Virtual Environments (MAVEs) such as Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games entertain daily hundreds of millions of online players, their current designs do not scale. For example, even popular RTS games such as the StarCraft series support in a single game instance only up to 16 players and only a few hundreds of avatars loosely controlled by these players, which is a consequence of the Event-Based Lockstep Simulation (EBLS) scalability mechanism they employ. Through empirical analysis, we show that a single Area of Interest (AoI), which is a scalability mechanism that is sufficient for single-avatar virtual environments (such as Role-Playing Games), also cannot meet the scalability demands of MAVEs. To enable scalable MAVEs, in this work we propose Area of Simulation (AoS), a new scalability mechanism, which combines and extends the mechanisms of AoI and EBLS. Unlike traditional AoI approaches, which employ only update-based operational models, our AoS mechanism uses both event-based and update-based operational models to manage not single, but multiple areas of interest. Unlike EBLS, which is traditionally used to synchronize the entire virtual world, our AoS mechanism synchronizes only selected areas of the virtual world. We further design an AoS-based architecture, which is able to use both our AoS and traditional AoI mechanisms simultaneously, dynamically trading-off consistency guarantees for scalability. We implement and deploy this architecture and we demonstrate that it can operate with an order of magnitude more avatars and a larger virtual world without exceeding the resource capacity of players' computers.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Supplemental movie, appendix, image and software files for, Area of Simulation: Mechanism and Architecture for Multi-Avatar Virtual Environments
- 0 A. D. team. 2014. A free, open-source game of ancient warfare. http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/.Google Scholar
- D. Ahmed and S. Shirmohammadi. 2009. Zoning issues and area of interest management in massively multiplayer online games. In Handbook of Multimedia for Digital Entertainment and Arts.Google Scholar
- N. E. Baughman and B. N. Levine. 2001. Cheat-proof playout for centralized and distributed online games. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Communications. 104--113.Google Scholar
- Y. W. Bernier. 2001. Latency compensating methods in client/server in-game protocol design and optimization. In Proceedings of the Game Developers Conference.Google Scholar
- A. R. Bharambe, J. R. Douceur, J. R. Lorch, T. Moscibroda, J. Pang, S. Seshan, and X. Zhuang. 2008. Donnybrook: enabling large-scale, high-speed, peer-to-peer games. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Applications, Technologies, Architectures, and Protocols for Computer Communications. 389--400. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J.-S. Boulanger, J. Kienzle, and C. Verbrugge. 2006. Comparing interest management algorithms for massively multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- E. Brewer. 2012. CAP twelve years later: How the “rules” have changed. Computer 45, 2, 23--29. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- M. Buro and D. Churchill. 2012. Real-time strategy game competitions. AI Mag. 33, 3, 106--108.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- T. Chen and C. Verbrugge. 2010. A protocol for distributed collision detection. In Proceedings of the Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- C. Clark, K. Fraser, S. Hand, J. G. Hansen, E. Jul, C. Limpach, I. Pratt, and A.Warfield. 2005. Live migration of virtual machines. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Networked Systems Design & Implementation. 273--286. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- M. Claypool. 2005. The effect of latency on user performance in real-time strategy games. Computer Netw. 49, 1, 52--70. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- E. Cronin, A. R. Kurc, B. Filstrup, and S. Jamin. 2004. An efficient synchronization mechanism for mirrored game architectures. Multimedia Tools Appl. 23, 1, 7--30. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Y. Deng and R. W. H. Lau. 2014. Dynamic load balancing in distributed virtual environments using heat diffusion. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. Appl. 10, 2, 16:1--16:19. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- C. Diot and L. Gautier. 1999. A distributed architecture for multiplayer interactive applications on the Internet. IEEE Network 13, 4, 6--15. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- ESA. 2012. Essential facts about the computer and video game industry: Sales, demographics, and usage data.Google Scholar
- S. Ferretti. 2008. A synchronization protocol for supporting peer-to-peer multiplayer online games in overlay networks. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Distributed Event-Based Systems. 83--94. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- G. Fiedler. 2010. What every programmer needs to know about game networking. http://bit.ly/7jSZl5.Google Scholar
- D. Frey, J. Royan, R. Piegay, A. Kermarrec, F. Le Fessant, and E. Anceaume. 2008. Solipsis: A decentralized architecture for virtual environments. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments. 29--33.Google Scholar
- J. S. Gilmore and H. A. Engelbrecht. 2012. A survey of state persistency in peer-to-peer massively multiplayer online games. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 23, 5, 818--834. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- C. Granberg. 2006. Programming an RTS Game With Direct3d. Charles River Media, Hingham, MA. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J. Gregory. 2009. Game Engine Architecture. A K Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA.Google Scholar
- S.-Y. Hu and K.-T. Chen. 2011. VSO: Self-organizing spatial publish subscribe. In Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems. 21--30. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- C.-Y. Huang, C.-H. Hsu, Y.-C. Chang, and K.-T. Chen. 2013. GamingAnywhere: An open cloud gaming system. In Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference. 36--47. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J. Keller and G. Simon. 2003. Solipsis: A massively multi-participant virtual world. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications. 262--268.Google Scholar
- B. Knutsson, H. Lu, W. Xu, and B. Hopkins. 2004. Peer-to-peer support for massively multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Communications. 96--107.Google Scholar
- L. Krammer, G. Schiele, D. Koch, and C. Becker. 2012. Quality of experience-aware event synchronization for distributed virtual worlds. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems. 604--611. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- D. Lake, M. Bowman, and H. Liu. 2010. Distributed scene graph to enable thousands of interacting users in a virtual environment. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- H. Liu, M. Bowman, and F. Chang. 2012. Survey of state melding in virtual worlds. ACM Comput. Surv. 44, 4, 21:1--21:25. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- F. Lu, S. Parkin, and G. Morgan. 2006. Load balancing for massively multiplayer online games. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J. C. S. Lui and M. F. Chan. 2002. An Efficient Partitioning Algorithm for Distributed Virtual Environment Systems. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 13, 3, 193--211. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- D. Lupei, B. Simion, D. Pinto, M. Misler, M. Burcea, W. Krick, and C. Amza. 2010. Transactional memory support for scalable and transparent parallelization of multiplayer games. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Systems. 41--54. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- M. Mauve, J. Vogel, V. Hilt, and W. Effelsberg. 2004. Local-lag and timewarp: providing consistency for replicated continuous applications. IEEE Trans. Multimedia 6, 1, 47--57. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J. McGee. 2011. The pros and cons of collision detection. http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/10/breakfast-topic-the-pros-and-cons-of-collision-detection/.Google Scholar
- P. Miller. 2011. Professional gamers: A day in the life. PCWorld online article. http://www.pcworld.com/article/221388/professional_gamers_a_day_in_the_life.html.Google Scholar
- P. Morillo, S. Rueda, J. M. Orduña, and J. Duato. 2007. A latency-aware partitioning method for distributed virtual environment systems. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 18, 9, 1215--1226. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- J. Müller, J. H. Metzen, A. Ploss, M. Schellmann, and S. Gorlatch. 2005. Rokkatan: scaling an RTS game design to the massively multiplayer realm. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. 125--132. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- M. T. Najaran, S.-Y. Hu, and N. C. Hutchinson. 2014. SPEX: Scalable spatial publish/subscribe for distributed virtual worlds without borders. In Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference. 127--138. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- RFC3284. 2002. RFC3284: The VCDIFF generic differencing and compression data format. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3284.Google Scholar
- P. Rosedale and C. Ondrejka. 2003. Enabling player-created online worlds with grid computing and streaming. In Gamasutra Resource Guide.Google Scholar
- S. Shen and A. Iosup. 2014. Modeling avatar mobility of networked virtual environments. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- S. Shen, O. Visser, and A. Iosup. 2011. RTSenv: An experimental environment for real-time strategy games. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games. 1--6. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- X. Tang and S. Zhou. 2010. Update scheduling for improving consistency in distributed virtual environments. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 21, 6, 765--777. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- M. Terrano and P. Bettner. 2001. 1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network programming in age of empires and beyond. In Proceedings of the Game Developer Conference.Google Scholar
- J. Waldo. 2008. Scaling in games & virtual worlds. ACM Queue 51, 8, 38--44. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- A. Yahyavi, K. Huguenin, and B. Kemme. 2012. Interest modeling in games: the case of dead reckoning. Multimedia Systems 16, 3, 255--270. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- A. Yahyavi and B. Kemme. 2013. Peer-to-peer architectures for massively multiplayer online games: A survey. ACM Comput. Surv. 44, 4, 21:1--21:25. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- A. Yu and S. T. Vuong. 2005. MOPAR: A mobile peer-to-peer overlay architecture for interest management of massively multiplayer online games. In Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video. 99--104. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- K. Zhang and B. Kemme. 2011. Transaction models for massively multiplayer online games. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems. 31--40. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- L. Zhang and X. Tang. 2011. The client assignment problem for continuous distributed interactive applications. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems. 203--214. Google Scholar
Digital Library
Recommendations
Analysis of Movement Features in Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas
On-line games represent one of the primary instances of virtual environments, in which avatars share a synchronous and persistent virtual world with each other. A careful analysis and a deep understanding of mobility in online games is of paramount ...
GameOD: an internet based game-on-demand framework
VRST '04: Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technologyMultiplayer online 3D games are becoming very popular in recent years. However, existing games require the complete game content to be installed prior to game playing. Since the content is usually large in size, it may be difficult to run these games on ...
ARIVU: Making Networked Mobile Games Green
With the improved processing power, graphic quality and high-speed wireless connection in recent generations of mobile phones, it looks more attractive than ever to introduce networked games on these devices. However, these games consume higher levels ...






Comments