Authority Distribution in a Proxy-Based Massively Multiplayer Game Architecture

This thesis presents a new architecture for improving the interactivity and responsiveness of massively multiplayer on-line games. In order to aide in the quick delivery of game updates generated by a game client, this thesis presents a stateless game communications proxy. This communications proxy allows for quick routing of updates from the game clients to the server and quick routing of updates from client to client. This communications proxy maintains very little game-state information, it only stores a list of all clients' physical location and of entities within the area of interest of all connected clients. The communications proxy is not specific to any game and can be used to improve communications on any type of online multiplayer game. In addition to the communications proxy, this thesis presents new methods for distributing authority to propagate game-state updates between the client and server in order to create a more responsive game. This distribution of authority away from the game server can reduce the propagation delay of game updates and reduce the computing load on the server if used in conjunction with the communications proxy. Some of the methods for authority distribution described in this paper have been implemented in a multiplayer game called RPGQuest to illustrate their advantages and disadvantages.