Early Online and Multiplayer Games In this chapter,
Networking and Online Games: Understanding and Engineering Multiplayer Internet Games Multiplayer Games Networked Games Figure 2.1 The sets of multiplayer games and network games are overlapping, but not subsets or supersets of each other 1960s 1958 Tennis for Two Era of early multiplayer 1961 Space War games 1970s and 1980s 1970 Galaxy War Era of arcade multiplayer games 1972 Pong 1990s and beyond 1978 Atari Football Era of on-line, multiplayer games 1993 Doom (a) (b) Figure 2.2 Timeline overview of early online and multiplayer games. (a) Lists approximate game eras. (b) Lists the release of milestone games mentioned in this chapter may have each player working one member of opposing teams. The game field could either be entirely seen by both players or the screen would be physically split into the part of the field viewable by each player. Thus, the area of multiplayer games includes some games that are not network games. On the flip side, some network games are not multiplayer games. A game can use a network to connect the player s machine to a remote server that controls various game- play aspects. The game itself, however, can be entirely a single-player game where there is no direct interaction with other players or their avatars. Early games, in particular, were networked because a player logged into a mainframe server and played the game remotely over a network via a terminal. Even with today s modern computer systems, players can run a game locally on a PC and connect to a server for map content or to interact with Artificial Intelligence (AI) units controlled by a server. Thus, multiplayer and network games overlap, as depicted in Figure 2.1, but neither fully contains the other. This sets the stage for discussing the evolution of computer games, starting with early multiplayer games, early networked games and progressing to early, multiplayer networked games (Figure 2.2) 2.2 Early Multiplayer Games In 1958, William A. Hinginbotham, working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, used an oscilloscope to simulate a virtual game of tennis. This crude creation utilised an overhead view, allowing two players to compete against each other in an attempt to sneak the ball past the paddle of their opponent. Hinginbotham called this game Tennis
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