MMO servers 2013

Game Server Cluster

Intro

Create a multiplayer game that can be turned to a MMO server has always been and will continue to be rather expensive, considering the costs of maintaining the servers and the infrastructures involved. [See Wikipedia first]

If we take a look to the present, there are some examples of games that close their servers after some years working: FIFA's, NBA's, Madden NFL, The Sims, Everybody's Gold World Tour, Monster Hunter Tri, ... including World of Warcraft (in Korea), etc...You may ask why, perhaps you are already conscious of the expenses of having a game server always online, 24/7,...and you will know that even depending on the number of users ,it is hard to see clearly whether the benefits of a game will be enough to keep them up and running. 

We are here to discuss this, because one of the rules of gamification is to include other players in the game, a logical consequence is to know how to maintain the servers that connect our players to the worlds. And this is one of the things I love more about gaming.

Subscriptions fall for MMORPG

The present game servers

In order to give a historical perspective of a server technology and its costs, first we need to know what are the associated maintenance tasks. And this depends on the operators that keep it running everyday of its life.

LoL: login queue

Maintaining an online server today 

Some of the administrators tasks are:

The old days' servers 

The first ones

We can find Quake I servers online and running even today, they are not dependent of nothing more than a small machine that does host a repository of names and IP's of the nodes that host online matches, and even that main node is not necesary because you can provide the IP of the server and connect to the match.

Quake 1 Online

It's easy to understand why these are not closed, the cost of this kind of servers is practically zero, it can be mounted by yourself with an Apache and MySQL. 

I myself have mounted several servers for games such as for Ludum Dare Jams or games produced and that are currently working, using Glassfish, Apache or Google App Engine, which I maintain and I would like to keep them alive forever, ...well, they are not consuming so much so it can be done. 

ID software knew how to do the things right, a first glimpse of the perfect balance.

What are the differences with the present servers?

So, the big difference between an expensive present server and another old is not only determined by the gameplay logic included or not in it, but in the connection too. Look at today's QuakeLive servers (Quake 3), you need to be a Pro user (for a fee of about $40 or prepare to get banned) to create a dedicated server on your machine, here we have a hybrid strategy, now we will discuss this strategy as a solution to the problem of the closure of servers in this evolution of online game servers.

Pros and cons of including the game logic in the server

Technology:

Including a game logic in a server is already complex and expensive,but users must not see the implications of this in the gameplay. I have recently been playing several online multiplayer games on PS3 and PC, for example, in Lord of the Rings: Guardians of Middle-Earth, the ping is quite good and usually it have people to play with, however when it appeared the new LOTR: War in the North, users got bored of the old and moved to this new one. Funny thing is that people on this game forums calling for their char items and statuses (the game save itself) when stored online, because if you played at a friend's house with your account but with lower level, your data is not saved online...Well, this is a protective mechanism? or a mess for users? some of you probably recognize this problem and this is one more reason of my favorite enjoyment of talks and discussions...

So technology is a pro or contra depending on how you design the deployment strategy and the actual logic on the server, perhaps the best is to use a hybrid strategy, i.e., a minimal part of the game logic to check that the data sent by the users are correct, this implies having machines that are hosts,but at a relatively low cost and with low maintenance... which drives us to next pro-or-cons.

Hacking

Sometimes it is difficult to check such things as the use of special devices, such as CoD: MW3 hacked pads which can automatically target - duck - shoot once it "sees" an enemy, which is solved by placing a reporting service that other players can use when they detect the cheaters.


This is a contra, because, have a cutting edge technology does not relieve us of possible attacks, just take a look to the daily EVE online hack attemps ...
The use of hacks/cheats/bugs to be above the other players are breaking the balance of the game ,so there is a tendency to "spy" on the players, storing the messages, VoIP conversations about the game, etc.., to analyze the behavior of its participants and to ban, punish or warn those who do not follow the rules, for example by insulting, threatening, etc. 

Or maybe it is something that is on the agenda. The cost is high if we consider that we must review thousands of reported conversations or conversations that have detected the improper use of language, or a derogatory / threatening (cyber-bullying) against other players, cheaters, and so on. 

Another contra of hacking is that although the game logic is included in the server part, the messages can be analyzed and replicated, this is the case of rogue/private servers of World of Warcraft, Guild of Wars, etc.., which are still in operation right now a punch for the designers..., think of the investment , not only in technology but in qualified personnel to support the service (forums, game managers, beta testers, etc.) costs...

User Experience

Not everything could be bad, the experience provided by an online server with game logic can be better for management and gameplay improvement. 


Being able to change the game from the server side and turn it into something else, just adds to the social gaming a whole new experience, always from the point of view of the player. And since you can keep it alive longer thanks to the players, these will be attracting new players too, this allow to pay the server bills.

The future servers

Your own server

There are new server offers for enterprises and independent developers, now, is it time to find free servers for your game?, well, let me say that this is a magical moment,...Are you realising that such a thing like a connection with someone is something that increase the value of your game? Have you considered including game logic on your server? 

The future for companies and indies

It is difficult to predict the future, but with the data that we have now -from the evolution of game servers- and, seeing the growth in sales of mobile devices, this is supporting the resurgence of hiring servers that deliver content to these devices to consume (cannibalize?).

This new situation has been allowed to flourish a bestial number of new online games for mobile platforms, I believe that this will be an expansive boom due to the price reduction for multiplayer servers and technology.

Still, we must review the cost of the server based on regular income from the game to do  a good use it. Using a hybrid deployment with server online game logic part of the same and is easily replaceable / scalable is not so trivial.

Let's talk about prices ,we have services from 100 concurrent users on a cloud server (maintained by others) which is approximately $90 per year, a very little amount considering the laborious task that entails (it includes APIs to endorse so easily the game logic).

Although the game's success depends above all, in the original online gameplay more that in the server ,for non-indie companies with greater purchasing power, prices are different, $2k a year for a cloud game server 1k concurrent users, made the calculations for million (or just multiplicate for the number of realms).

I think that the choice made by large companies with no trust in third parties, will be that some of the software resides in their own machines as it is cheaper,and they would benefit from these cloud servers to accommodate updates and other online services that can safely rely on third parties enterprises, for example, the downloads of new versions to avoid having to wait for the review of a game by the markets revisions and that is easier to maintain, or connections for little games/servers...

In fact, big companies like Sony, Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple, have set up their own online games generic servers, which store information as achievements, scores tables, etc.., they also have several types of game logics:
 - online with turns: works especially well in mobile gaming
 - online real-time play: like Respawnables, it is complicated with 3G ,because you can have 2 seconds pings and constant connection losses,

...this is why that users tend to prefer games with turns and notices, to play whenever they wants, and also without depending on a live connection... There are games that have proliferated like Rizzle, Letterpress, Apalabrados (Angry Words), etc.,  and as it happens in other games, the hacks are inevitable to occur as the number of users grow, -human nature has not changed and we still want to be "better than others"-.

The present and future of video game companies is linked to the online servers: current game download services, scores, connection to social networks, and so on.

Something that players are always asking for is to buy once and play with any platform online, but, since each network (PSN, XBOX Live, Steam,  etc.) looks like not interested in sharing game connections, it would be nice to have this feature..., but it has another implications like gameplay and other thins that we are not going to discuss right now...well,maybe in the future you could play from your PS4 with players from PC.  

So, are we ready for the cloud?

In principle it seems that cloud computing is what will ultimately be implemented at large scale, because the costs are lower if we do not have the infrastructure to provide these services.

Some examples of massive cloud computing not only for games are the use of processing data sent from mobile, like: patterns recognition, voice recognition, processing of big volumes of social data, etc..

But we have seen that game users have been able to replicate the behavior of a server that needs a supercomputer on a basic web hosting, the future is uncertain, but knowing this, we also can say that this is the future and that things will not change unless there is a radical change today, right now!.

So we are back in the present , where we live with lag servers because of more income and that is not a trivial issue.

Lag warriors