This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Summary
Networked multiplayer games have a lengthy history. They began as games playable on networks of mainframe computers, such as Empire (1973), which was playable on the PLATO network. Networked games later expanded to text-based multi-user dungeon games. These MUDs later expanded to bulletin board systems which allowed for users to dial in over phone lines.
In the early 1990s, local area network games, led by Doom (1993), took the computer gaming world by storm. These games allowed for players to locally connect multiple computers and play with or against each other. As adoption of the Internet expanded in the late 1990s, online games such as Unreal (1998) became very popular. Online games also started to see adoption on consoles in the early 2000s. One type of online game is the massively multiplayer online game, which supports hundreds if not thousands of players in the same game session at once.
Starsiege: Tribes (1998) implemented a network architecture still relevant to a modern-day action game. It uses a client-server model, so each player in the game is connected to a server that coordinates the game. At the lowest level, the platform packet module abstracts sending packets over the network. Next, the connection manager maintains connections between the players and the server, and provides delivery status notifications. The stream manager takes data from the higher-level managers (including the event, ghost, and move managers), and based on priority, adds this data to outgoing packets. The event manager takes important events, such as “player fired” and ensures that this data is received by the relevant parties. The ghost manager handles sending object updates for the set of objects deemed relevant for a particular player. The move manager sends the most recent movement information for each player.
Age of Empires (1997) implemented a deterministic lockstep model. All computers in the game connect to each other in a peer-to-peer manner. Rather than sending information about each unit over the network, the game instead sends commands to each peer. These commands are then independently evaluated by each peer. In order to ensure the machines stay synchronized, a turn timer is used to save up commands over a period of time before sending them over the network. These commands are not executed until two turns later, which gives enough time for each peer to send and receive turn commands. Additionally, it is important that each peer runs a deterministic simulation, which means, for example, pseudo-random number generators need to be synchronized.