Tonio Triebel

An online gaming testbed for peer-to-peer architectures

In this demo we present a testbed environment for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) game architectures. It is based on Planet PI4, an online multiplayer game whose gameplay provides a standard workload for a set of gaming-specific network interfaces. Its pluggable architecture allows for the evaluation and comparison of existing and new P2P networking approaches. Planet PI4 can run on a real network for prototypical evaluation as well as in a discrete-event simulator providing a reproducible environment.

Performance Evaluation of Peer-to-Peer Gaming Overlays

In this demo we present a performance evaluation testbed for peer-to-peer gaming overlays. It consists of a 3D first person shooter game that is designed to run in a simulated network environment as well as on a real network. Simulation with autonomous players (bots) guarantees scalability, a controlled workload, and reproducible results; a prototype deployment on a real network can then validate the simulation results. The information dissemination overlay pSense is implemented as a first subject for evaluation.

Peer-to-Peer Voice Communication for Massively Multiplayer Online Games

We present an approach for integrating voice communication into massively multiplayer online games (MMOG). The currently available third-party software solutions involve additional fees and are not connected to the game logic. Other approaches use the game servers directly for mixing and transmitting speech. Doing so allows for a tight coupling of speech and in-game events but consumes large amounts of bandwidth and computational power on the servers. Our novel idea is a mix between server-based signaling and peer-to-peer data transmission. While the entire game context resides on the server, audio streams are transmitted in a peer-to-peer fashion and processed at the peer nodes only. This technique splits up the workload among all machines while still allowing to relate speech processing to game events. We further improve the processing performance on the clients by using SOUND, a novel technique for distance based resampling.

Generation of synthetic workloads for multiplayer online gaming benchmarks

We present an approach to the generation of realistic synthetic workloads for use in benchmarking of (massively) multiplayer online gaming infrastructures. Existing techniques are either too simple to be realistic or are too specific to a particular network structure to be used for comparing different networks with each other. Desirable properties of a workload are reproducibility, realism and scalability to any number of players. We achieve this by simulating a gaming session with AI players that are based on behavior trees. The requirements for the AI as well as its parameters are derived from a real gaming session with 16 players. We implemented the evaluation platform including the prototype game Planet PI4. A novel metric is used to measure the similarity between real and synthetic traces with respect to neighborhood characteristics. In our experiments, we compare real trace files, workload generated by two mobility models and two versions of our AI player. We found that our AI players recreate the real workload characteristics more accurately than the mobility models.

Peer-to-peer infrastructures for games

In this demo proposal we present Planet Π4, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) developed to evaluate and compare peer-to-peer-based MMOG systems with scalability in mind. The game requires low network latency and creates frequent game state updates. It has a modular architecture that can be adapted and extended with new functionality. Using this modular design we have developed different peer-to-peer infrastructures. Workshop participants will be able to play the game and compare the versions with each other.

REWARD a Real World Achievement and record database

We propose a system for acquiring, maintaining, and communicating Real-World Achievements. The concept is based on virtual world systems that are in common use in current Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) like World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online. The system design is centered around a global database of achievement definitions and individual progress.

Designing benchmarks for P2P systems

In this paper we discuss requirements for peer-to-peer (P2P). benchmarking, and we present two exemplary approaches to benchmarks for Distributed Hashtables (DHT) and P2P gaming overlays. We point out the characteristics of benchmarks for P2P systems, focusing on the challenges compared to conventional benchmarks. The two benchmarks for very different types of P2P systems are designed applying a common methodology. This includes the definition of the system under test (SUT). and particularly its interfaces, the workloads and metrics. A set of common P2P quality metrics helps to achieve a comprehensive selection of workloads and metrics for each scenario.

Achievement notification in a real-world achievement system

We propose a global system for acquisition, maintenance and communication of achievements in the real-world. The main focus of the proposal lies on a context-aware notification service for achievements. Users of the system can browse the achievement web application and will only get notifications of users within the same context. The definition of context is based on the network infrastructure of the client accessing the system. Our server utilizes information derived from IP-routing traces to build the notification groups.

On synthetic workloads for multiplayer online games: a methodology for generating representative shooter game workloads

We present approaches to the generation of synthetic workloads for benchmarking multiplayer online gaming infrastructures. Existing techniques, such as mobility or traffic models, are often either too simple to be representative for this purpose or too specific for a particular network structure. Desirable properties of a workload are reproducibility, representativeness, and scalability to any number of players. We analyze different mobility models and AI-based workload generators. Real gaming sessions with human players using the prototype game Planet PI4 serve as a reference workload. Novel metrics are used to measure the similarity between real and synthetic traces with respect to neighborhood characteristics. We found that, although more complicated to handle, AI players reproduce real workload characteristics more accurately than mobility models.

Peer-to-Peer overlays for online games

In the past decade, a number of researchers have focused their work on peer-to-peer technologies for networked multi-player games [10, 4, 3, 8, 2, 14]. Since the usage of such a peer-to-peer overlay has a direct impact on the quality of experience of a game, it becomes apparent that performance evaluation and comparison is an important issue. The major challenge results from the fact that each approach is tailored to a different purpose and has to be evaluated with an individual technique in mind that is specific to the overlay. Thus, it is not a trivial task to compare the performance of different solutions. In order to solve this problem, overlays must be separated into different classes of equivalent functionalities. As introduced in Chapters 2 and 3, a class can be defined by a common interface. Systems that implement this interface are comparable. As a concrete example, systems for interest management and game event dissemination are used in this chapter. A common interface, a representative scenario, a workload and metrics are defined, and an exemplary benchmark is implemented and executed, comparing three different overlays.