Client-server assignment in massively multiplayer online games

Abstract

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) may use peer-to-peer, client-server, or mirrored-server environments. Since there exist multiple server options in mirrored server environments, a problem arises when deciding to which server each player should connect. We propose three distinct heuristics that assign players within Quality of Service (QoS) as each player joins and leaves, taking into consideration whether a player already in QoS can be moved to place a newly joining player in QoS without sacrificing QoS for the moved player. Our results show that for certain numbers of servers and values of QoS, our heuristics increase the total number of players in QoS over an assignment method that does not move players when others join and leave. Our heuristics bear adapting to a wider variety of environments.