TCP/IP illustrated (vol. 2): the implementation
TCP/IP illustrated (vol. 2): the implementation
An end-to-end communication architecture for collaborative virtual environments
Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking
How sensitive are online gamers to network quality?
Communications of the ACM - Entertainment networking
Latency and player actions in online games
Communications of the ACM - Entertainment networking
Game traffic analysis: an MMORPG perspective
Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking
The effect of latency on user performance in real-time strategy games
Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking - Special issue: Networking issues in entertainment computing
Latency evaluation of networking mechanisms for game traffic
Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Network and system support for games
The fun of using TCP for an MMORPG
Proceedings of the 2006 international workshop on Network and operating systems support for digital audio and video
Effect of Network Quality on Player Departure Behavior in Online Games
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
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Although MMORPGs are becoming increasingly popular as well as a highly profitable Internet business, there is still a fundamental design question: Which transport protocol should be used--TCP, UDP, or some other protocol? In this paper, we first evaluate whether TCP is suitable for MMORPGs, and then propose some novel transport strategies for this genre of games. Our analysis of a trace collected from a TCP-based MMORPG called ShenZhou Online indicates that TCP is unwieldy and inappropriate for MMORPGs. We find that the degraded network performance problems are due to the following characteristics of MMORPG traffic: 1) tiny packets, 2) a low packet rate, 3) application-limited traffic generation, and 4) bi-directional traffic. Since not all game packets require reliable transmission or in-order delivery, transmitting all packets with a strict delivery guarantee causes high delays and delay jitters. Therefore, our proposed transport strategies assign game packets with appropriate levels of transmission guarantee depending on the requirements of the packets' contents. To compare the performance of our approach with that of existing transport protocols, we conduct network simulations with a real-life game trace from Angel's Love. The results demonstrate that our strategies significantly reduce the end-to-end delay and delay jitter of packet delivery. Finally, we show that our strategies effectively raise satisfaction levels of the game players.