Clan Web Sites, Online Games and Hosting

Networking and Online Games: Understanding and Engineering Multiplayer Internet Games (IP) networking. We review the concept of best effort service, IP addressing and the role of transport protocols such as TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as they pertain to game developers. When you complete this chapter, you will have an understanding of the differences between routing and forwarding, addresses and domain names. You will learn why Network Address Translation (NAT) exists and how it impacts on network connectivity between game players. Our next chapter, Network Latency, Jitter and Loss , should be of interest to all readers. Here we look in detail at how modern IP networks fail to provide consistent and reliable packet transport service by losing packets or by taking unpredictable time to transmit packets. We discuss how much of this network behaviour is unavoidable and how much can be controlled with suitable network-level technology and knowledge of game traffic characteristics. This leads naturally to Mark Claypool s next chapter, Latency Compensation Techniques , where we look at the various techniques invented by game developers to cope with, and compensate for, the Internet s latency and packet loss characteristics. A fundamental issue faced by multi-player online games is that the latency experienced by each player is rarely equal or constant. And yet, to maintain a fair and realistic immersive experience, games must adapt to, predict and adjust to these varying latencies. We look at client-side techniques such as client prediction and opponent prediction, and server-side techniques such as time warping. Compression of packets over the network is introduced as a means to reduce network-induced latency. Our next chapter, Playability versus network conditions and cheats , takes a different perspective. We look at how two separate issues of network conditions and cheating influence player satisfaction with their game experience. First, we look at the importance of knowing the tolerance your players have of latency for any particular game genre. Such knowledge helps game hosting companies to estimate which area on the planet their satisfied customers will come from (and where to place new servers to cover new markets). We discuss existing research in this area and issues to consider when trying to establish this knowledge yourself. Next we look at communication models, cheats and cheat mitigation. Cheating is prevalent in online games because such games combine competitiveness with a sense of anonymity and the anonymity leads to a lessened sense of responsibility for one s actions. We look at examples of server-side, client-side and network-based cheating that may be attempted against your game, and discuss techniques of detecting and discouraging cheating. In Broadband Access Networks , Philip Branch takes us through a discussion of the various broadband access technologies likely to influence your game player s experiences in the near future. Access networks are typically the congestion point in a modern ISP service; they come in a variety of technologies allowing fixed and wireless connectivity, and have unique latency and loss characteristics. From a high level, we review the architectures of cable modems, Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) links, 802.11 wireless Local Area Networks (LANs), cellular systems and Bluetooth. We then move in an entirely different direction with the chapter Where do players come from and when? . One of the key questions facing game hosting companies is determining where their market exists, who their players are, and where they reside. This has an impact on the time zones over which your help desk needs to operate and the ebb and flow of game-play traffic in and out of your servers. Taking a very practical direction, we first discuss how you can monitor and measure traffic patterns yourself with

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