Modelling for a federated peer-to-peer MMOG architecture

In this paper we propose a methodology, in which analytical models are presented so as to abstract the characteristics of massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs). By using these models, the system performance can be evaluated in terms of two performance metrics: (i) the cost of resources consumed by a targeted game system during its game-play; (ii) the system delay and consistency loss rate. Specifically, we can investigate the impact of various factors, such as game types, the number of players, the intensity of players or NPCs interaction, the number of regions in a game-world, avatar region-transition rate and network configuration, on the system performance. In this study, a number of resource-cost functions are also defined, which map the system resource consumed to the cost during a game-play. In addition, an approach for evaluating the system delay and consistency loss is proposed. We choose the federated peer-to-peer architecture as a target for this study, because it is a typical and potential architecture proposed recently and attracting more attention. Finally, we demonstrate numerical examples for the system performance evaluation.