Integrating centralized and peer-to-peer architectures to support interest management in massively multiplayer on-line games

摘要

A fundamental problem for the development of peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed virtual environments, likernmassively multiplayer on-line games, is the definition of an overlay supporting interest management, thatrnis, determining all the entities of the virtual world that are relevant for a given player. To this end, thisrnpaper proposes a gossip-based approach that considers the coverage of the area of interest of peers as thernguiding principle for the definition of the P2P overlay and its maintenance. The resulting overlay providesrna support for a best-effort resolution of interest management, mostly supported through communicationsrnon the P2P overlay, with minimal intervention of a centralized entity. The paper presents a set of extensivernsimulations based on realistic mobility traces. The experimental results show the effectiveness of gossipingrnfor the construction and maintenance of a best-effort overlay for interest management.