From the abstract: "n the last decade the
popularity of MMOGs has exploded.
Unfortunately, the demand
has far outweighed the resources
commercial game providers can
provide. Many MMOGs are suffering from scalability issues,
resulting in game world partitioni
ng, service down time and server
crashes. The centralized server architecture of most modern day
MMOGs is unable to cope with
this increase in the number of
participating players. Hence, there is a need for a scalable network
architecture which can support these large number of players
without affecting the overall gaming experience for each player.
In this paper, we provide a review on the existing networking
infrastructure solutions for MMOGs. This includes description
and comparison of different im
plementation techniques for the
deployment of massive multiplayer on-line games, which work as
a client/server and peer-to-peer paradigms. "
"By demonstrating that communities
formed in massively multiplayer online games are true communities,
examining communication and behaviour within MMOG communities, and
discussing the benefits and negative aspects of MMOG communities this
paper will show that the communities of massively multiplayer online
games are better than offline communities."
Abstract: "HCI scholars have been among those attracted to the study
of online, computer-supported gaming. "Big Data"
approaches, which analyze electronic traces left by game
play, are an increasingly popular way to study it. This
paper identifies basic epistemological problems in some
such approaches, focusing on those that implicitly depend
on the assumption that game play is fundamentally the
same as other social activity. The paper explains why this
and related assumptions are questionable, and why these
Big Data approaches cannot establish their validity on their
own. The paper then reports some results of a preliminary
ethnographic study of Massive Multiplayer Online Games
(MMOGs), in order to illustrate a way that ethnography can
provide an initial purchase on how the underlying
similarity/dissimilarity issue can be studied. It concludes by
explaining how methodological triangulation, involving a
dialectical discourse between ethnography, on the one hand,
and Big Data and similar approaches, on the other, may be
able to place Game Studies on a firmer epistemological
foundation. It is the attempt to achieve such significant
objectives, in particular to justify a foundational critique of
a major new development in Game Studies, and to do so in
a single paper, that justify inclusion of the paper in alt.chi. "