I found this interesting forum thread at gamedev.org regarding Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). It discusses (with some variation) some issues with a serverless MMOG. In the traditional sense, MMOGs depend upon a central server to send and retrieve game data. The central server would coordinate information needed from one client to be passed to another. For example, the central server would have to somehow convey that a player was passing in front of another player's line of sight.
This of course requires a lot of machines and even more bandwidth (which is probably the basis for MMOGs requiring a monthly subscription). However the thread proposes an interesting thought about removing the central server. It raises issues in security and trust, notification, scalability, and network persistence. Who would keep track of information if no one was playing? How can you trust any machine? Etc.
These issues were very reminiscent to those I dealt with in a class I took at RIT. The class was called Research in Ad Hoc Networks. We were given this scenario at the beginning of the class:
Imagine being at a sporting event - thousands of people are there. The winning score at the last second was caught by hundreds of digital cameras... except yours. You missed it. No sweat. You'll just tell your camera to talk to all the cameras in the area and get images from theirs. A network would have had to fire up without a central server. Security and trust would have to be agreed upon. And several other topics regarding this ad hoc network would need to be addressed.
Studying those topics and then reading the forum thread really felt like similar issues. Perhaps some possible solutions for ad hoc networking could be employed in a serverless MMOG. I think the topic is really interesting .. and quite daunting. But if the bulk of the reason a monthly charge exists on MMOG is due to hardware and bandwidth, this could be a possible fix for that model.
4 comments:
It would be interesting if these ADHOC MMOGs were more social than the traditional ones.
More like the Metaverse (ever read SnowCrash?) than World Of Warcraft.
It might work - especially if the individual computers involved were only serving up their own content - ie: their user's "house", and there was some kind of cross-house transport mechanism (a road between houses, for example.)
Of course, what happens when the node serving up the current environment (someone uses their space to make tavern/public house, for example) disappears?
It's a very interesting idea though. ADHOC networks - both creating the routes for TCP/IP to travel down - and the social discovery aspect (something Apple's Rendezvous/Bonjour does really well) are interesting topics.
Coupled with GPS and you might have something interesting...
I don't know that having each player (computer) supply content would be ideal (due to persistance of information when the computer drops), but the concept is really cool.
As for the GPS, I know the military has been into this for a long while, but I don't know any of their applications offhand.
Do you still have that photoshopped picture of me, you, and Rod at that party with Dima photoshopped in? That was great...
Go team Orda!
DEEFEE CHELMIN!
HPB 4 LYFE
Heh I think so. I'll have to look for it now. Maybe I'll get it up here.
Go team Orda!
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