Multiplayer Games:
What is a Multiplayer Game?
Today in this Era, we have millions of games right down the touch of our hand, but this was not the case during the ancient phase of gaming. In the Ancient period, people used to play Chess, and many games together for their entertainment. Those were the games designed according to the fact that various people will be playing the game at the same time, same place, same environment, just the matter of fact will be that the specific game would be a competitive platform for the players to come play with each other and against each other. Now, coming to the definition, any game or game environment we can say, where two or more players can play at the same instance is known as a Multiplayer Game.
Not every multiplayer game is played on the same instance, like for example Civilization a turn-based game, where players will have to wait for their turn to appear in order to make decisions within the game that impact the gameplay. Nowadays, Genres play a vital role in defining a game, however, genres also affect the multiplayer instance.
MMO’s, MOBA, etc., these are the genres, where games support millions of player playing games in one network of game. A major point of note is, though the definition says millions of players playing on one network, doesn’t mean that they are in the same instance or same game environment. Here only the match relative amount of players get into one instance or like share one game environment. Rest of the players do the same, so now the number of players is divided by the number of players supported in a match. Let’s just say I got a million players who play my game, but only 10 players can be in one environment, so in order to serve one million players, I will have to generate 1million/10 = 100 thousand game environments, but that’s the beauty of the technology where I generate one environment and can be replicated multiple time in order to server my fan base.
Lobby is the key to perform all this magic. Implementing a dedicated server and Lobby manager sort of creating an MMO server will help serve millions to play your game.
*Fact 1- You know according to the Steam Charts, CS-Go had 850,485 players playing this game at same time. In June 2018, they had 266,862.2 average amount of players playing the game.
Image 1: CS: GO stats ALL the time.
History of Multiplayer Game.
According to the Guinness world records a game named OXO or Tic-tac-toe, in general, was the first ever video game to be as Multiplayer. It was developed by Alexander Douglas in the USA in 1952 and on EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator.
Game named Empire was the first ever networked multiplayer game. Later to that Combat, Pong etc. made their way on Atari 2600 as a two player game.
It was released on 1972, termed as Turn-based strategy war game.
SGI dogfight was the first game to get Multicast IP assignment in the year of 1989. Doom one of the very well-known game in the year of 1993 was popular that it lead to cause network issues, and all that fun in that game was Deathmatch, and FPS gameplay.
Image 2: SGI Dogfight
In 1995, two most insane games were released, Command and Conquer, and Warcraft 2. Warcraft was the world’s leading RTS game during that period.
Image 3: Command and Conquer
Image 4: Warcraft 2
The quake was the first to have integrated FPS and multiplayer in one instead of a DLC or any add-on. Diablo is one if the game that set the record of 2.5 million sales this all happened in the Year of 1996.
Image 5: Quake multiplayer
Image 6: Diablo
In 2000, Counter Strike made its way into the market but as a third party developed game, but thanks to the player support valve had enough acquisitions in order to acquire the developers and releasing it as a part of steam.
Image 7: Counter Strike
Later to that games like HALO, SIMS online, Second Life, Call of Duty and many more made their way into multiplayer gaming market developing for the all available platforms like PC, XBOX, PS, etc.
Image 8: HALO
Image 9: Sims Online
Image 10: Second Life
Image 11: Call of Duty
Network in Multiplayer Games:
Network In games means no different that the regular one we have with our computer. It is the very same and it is the only network we use in Games. Now, as Normal computing network we have same types but different effects on the gameplay. Majorly two types of networks are considered in the gaming industry one is P2P i.e. Peer to Peer (client to client) connection and Dedicated servers i.e. Client-server connection.
Image 12: P2P
Image 13: Dedicated servers
Image 14: Ubisoft
Every network has its effect for best we can take an example and speak. We will speak about a very well-known game of Ubisoft, For Honor.
Image 15: For Honor
Previously when For Honor was released it was based on Peer to Peer connection. Which had its pros and cons, but cons the most that fans hated. Hiving P2P was a cheaper option for a game, as it did not have any maintenance for some emulated servers and all. Just one server that will connect you all through one point, in the terms of programming it is known as Node. Cons like Host migration, the most annoying problem faced by a game is Host Migration. Host migration means when a host from your group leaves the session and then the server is going to find a new host within the lobby itself this leads to tremendous data consumption on a network, no stability in gameplay, rubber banding, etc. Another major con is Rewards, rewards never used to get validated and led to no reason in playing the game and thus, the cons led to a loss of the player and the certainly failed until it made its comeback. It is now on dedicated servers. Dedicated servers means Client server communication. Here in if you join a session you probably are playing on servers on. This means no Host Migration, not reward error etc. Dedicated severs are expensive to maintain, but to ensure proper gameplay and fluent network usage we need dedicated servers. As if now this technology is available, until anything new and way more efficient comes in.
Image 16: For Honor Marching Fire Dedicated servers
Fact Citation:-
Fact 1: https://steamcharts.com/app/730 [19-07-18, 12:23PM].
Image Citation:-
OXO - http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-multiplayer-video-game [19-07-18, 12:31PM]
SGi dogfight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Dogfight#/media/File:SGI_Dogfight_Cockpit.png [19-07-18, 12:55PM
Command and Conquer : https://www.oldpcgaming.net/command-and-conquer-1995-review/ [19-07-18, 12:58PM]
Warcraft 2: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/warcraft-ii-beyond-the-dark-portal-4a5 [19-07-18, 1:00PM]
Quake multiplayer: http://www.mobygames.com/images/promo/original/1504447683-452628288.gif [19-07-18, 10:02PM]
Sims Online: https://www.dvsgaming.org/is-the-death-of-single-player-games-on-the-horizon/ [19-07-18,1:10PM]
Second Life: https://s3.amazonaws.com/skinner-production/stories/featured_images/000/020/876/large/second-life.jpg?1515710328 [19-07-18,1:13PM]
Call of Duty : https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/callofduty/images/5/5b/Normandy_CoD2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140604062529 [19-07-18,1:14PM]
Dedicated servers: https://d2tinsms4add52.cloudfront.net/blog/2017.01.15/ServerArchitectureDiagram.png [19-07-18, 1:32PM]
Ubisoft: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/a/a0/Ubisoft_2017.svg/revision/latest?cb=20170622035823 [19-07-18,1:35PM]
For Honor: https://www.n3rdabl3.com/wp-content/images/uploads/2017/06/ForHonor_og_1200x630.jpg [19-07-18, 1:39PM]
For Honor Marching Fire: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/for-honor/images/1/14/Fh-marching-fire-feature-image.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180622224803 [19-07-18,1:50PM]
References:-
History of Multiplayer Games: http://in.pcmag.com/pc-games/42732/news/infographic-a-massive-history-of-multiplayer-online-gaming [19-07-18, 12:32PM]
What is a Multiplayer Game?
Today in this Era, we have millions of games right down the touch of our hand, but this was not the case during the ancient phase of gaming. In the Ancient period, people used to play Chess, and many games together for their entertainment. Those were the games designed according to the fact that various people will be playing the game at the same time, same place, same environment, just the matter of fact will be that the specific game would be a competitive platform for the players to come play with each other and against each other. Now, coming to the definition, any game or game environment we can say, where two or more players can play at the same instance is known as a Multiplayer Game.
Not every multiplayer game is played on the same instance, like for example Civilization a turn-based game, where players will have to wait for their turn to appear in order to make decisions within the game that impact the gameplay. Nowadays, Genres play a vital role in defining a game, however, genres also affect the multiplayer instance.
MMO’s, MOBA, etc., these are the genres, where games support millions of player playing games in one network of game. A major point of note is, though the definition says millions of players playing on one network, doesn’t mean that they are in the same instance or same game environment. Here only the match relative amount of players get into one instance or like share one game environment. Rest of the players do the same, so now the number of players is divided by the number of players supported in a match. Let’s just say I got a million players who play my game, but only 10 players can be in one environment, so in order to serve one million players, I will have to generate 1million/10 = 100 thousand game environments, but that’s the beauty of the technology where I generate one environment and can be replicated multiple time in order to server my fan base.
Lobby is the key to perform all this magic. Implementing a dedicated server and Lobby manager sort of creating an MMO server will help serve millions to play your game.
*Fact 1- You know according to the Steam Charts, CS-Go had 850,485 players playing this game at same time. In June 2018, they had 266,862.2 average amount of players playing the game.
Image 1: CS: GO stats ALL the time.
History of Multiplayer Game.
According to the Guinness world records a game named OXO or Tic-tac-toe, in general, was the first ever video game to be as Multiplayer. It was developed by Alexander Douglas in the USA in 1952 and on EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator. Game named Empire was the first ever networked multiplayer game. Later to that Combat, Pong etc. made their way on Atari 2600 as a two player game. It was released on 1972, termed as Turn-based strategy war game. SGI dogfight was the first game to get Multicast IP assignment in the year of 1989. Doom one of the very well-known game in the year of 1993 was popular that it lead to cause network issues, and all that fun in that game was Deathmatch, and FPS gameplay. Image 2: SGI Dogfight
In 1995, two most insane games were released, Command and Conquer, and Warcraft 2. Warcraft was the world’s leading RTS game during that period.
Image 3: Command and Conquer
Image 4: Warcraft 2
The quake was the first to have integrated FPS and multiplayer in one instead of a DLC or any add-on. Diablo is one if the game that set the record of 2.5 million sales this all happened in the Year of 1996.
Image 5: Quake multiplayer
Image 6: Diablo
In 2000, Counter Strike made its way into the market but as a third party developed game, but thanks to the player support valve had enough acquisitions in order to acquire the developers and releasing it as a part of steam.
Image 7: Counter Strike
Later to that games like HALO, SIMS online, Second Life, Call of Duty and many more made their way into multiplayer gaming market developing for the all available platforms like PC, XBOX, PS, etc.
Image 8: HALO
Image 9: Sims Online
Image 10: Second Life
Image 11: Call of Duty
Network in Multiplayer Games:
Network In games means no different that the regular one we have with our computer. It is the very same and it is the only network we use in Games. Now, as Normal computing network we have same types but different effects on the gameplay. Majorly two types of networks are considered in the gaming industry one is P2P i.e. Peer to Peer (client to client) connection and Dedicated servers i.e. Client-server connection. Image 12: P2P
Image 13: Dedicated servers
Image 14: Ubisoft
Every network has its effect for best we can take an example and speak. We will speak about a very well-known game of Ubisoft, For Honor.
Image 15: For Honor
Previously when For Honor was released it was based on Peer to Peer connection. Which had its pros and cons, but cons the most that fans hated. Hiving P2P was a cheaper option for a game, as it did not have any maintenance for some emulated servers and all. Just one server that will connect you all through one point, in the terms of programming it is known as Node. Cons like Host migration, the most annoying problem faced by a game is Host Migration. Host migration means when a host from your group leaves the session and then the server is going to find a new host within the lobby itself this leads to tremendous data consumption on a network, no stability in gameplay, rubber banding, etc. Another major con is Rewards, rewards never used to get validated and led to no reason in playing the game and thus, the cons led to a loss of the player and the certainly failed until it made its comeback. It is now on dedicated servers. Dedicated servers means Client server communication. Here in if you join a session you probably are playing on servers on. This means no Host Migration, not reward error etc. Dedicated severs are expensive to maintain, but to ensure proper gameplay and fluent network usage we need dedicated servers. As if now this technology is available, until anything new and way more efficient comes in.
Image 16: For Honor Marching Fire Dedicated servers
Fact Citation:-
Fact 1: https://steamcharts.com/app/730 [19-07-18, 12:23PM].
Image Citation:-
OXO - http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-multiplayer-video-game [19-07-18, 12:31PM]
SGi dogfight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Dogfight#/media/File:SGI_Dogfight_Cockpit.png [19-07-18, 12:55PM
Command and Conquer : https://www.oldpcgaming.net/command-and-conquer-1995-review/ [19-07-18, 12:58PM]
Warcraft 2: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/warcraft-ii-beyond-the-dark-portal-4a5 [19-07-18, 1:00PM]
Quake multiplayer: http://www.mobygames.com/images/promo/original/1504447683-452628288.gif [19-07-18, 10:02PM]
Sims Online: https://www.dvsgaming.org/is-the-death-of-single-player-games-on-the-horizon/ [19-07-18,1:10PM]
Second Life: https://s3.amazonaws.com/skinner-production/stories/featured_images/000/020/876/large/second-life.jpg?1515710328 [19-07-18,1:13PM]
Call of Duty : https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/callofduty/images/5/5b/Normandy_CoD2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140604062529 [19-07-18,1:14PM]
Dedicated servers: https://d2tinsms4add52.cloudfront.net/blog/2017.01.15/ServerArchitectureDiagram.png [19-07-18, 1:32PM]
Ubisoft: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/a/a0/Ubisoft_2017.svg/revision/latest?cb=20170622035823 [19-07-18,1:35PM]
For Honor: https://www.n3rdabl3.com/wp-content/images/uploads/2017/06/ForHonor_og_1200x630.jpg [19-07-18, 1:39PM]
For Honor Marching Fire: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/for-honor/images/1/14/Fh-marching-fire-feature-image.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180622224803 [19-07-18,1:50PM]
References:-
History of Multiplayer Games: http://in.pcmag.com/pc-games/42732/news/infographic-a-massive-history-of-multiplayer-online-gaming [19-07-18, 12:32PM]
