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1
Carlsson, Robert. "The Illusion That Is Multiplayer Games : Position disparities in Client-serverstructured multiplayer games." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för naturvetenskap, miljö och teknik, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-27556.
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The goal of this study is to research the disparities in character positions between clients and server when playing an online game. The data needed was gathered by letting three players play a game made by me against each other, using extrapolation methods like the Kalman Filter on the characters’. During the play-through each client saved all characters positions together with the input made by the players. The clients logged the information every network update, in synch with the server. When the time came, all clients sent their information to the server, where it was collected, analyzed and compared with the information the server had registered. By calculating the difference in position of the server and clients characters, a disparity value could be extracted. This value is what was used to calculate a disparity value between the server characters and all clients’ counterparts. The same value is also what was used to answer the questions on how much impact the different extrapolation methods have on a game, as well as how big of an impact input made have on the delay of the game. An important part of the study was to make sure that the information gathered was collected at the same time on the clients and the server, as well as to be able to enable and disable parts of the methods. Therefore the whole game used in this dissertation was built focused on this study. All extrapolation methods are toggle-able and the information gathered is synched using time.windows.com.
2
Suetsugu, Koki. "Multiplayer Games as Extension of Misère Games." Kyoto University, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/242740.
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Kyoto University (京都大学)<br>0048<br>新制・課程博士<br>博士(人間・環境学)<br>甲第21863号<br>人博第892号<br>新制||人||213(附属図書館)<br>2018||人博||892(吉田南総合図書館)<br>京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生人間学専攻<br>(主査)教授 立木 秀樹, 教授 日置 尋久, 准教授 櫻川 貴司, 特定講師 DE BRECHT Matthew<br>学位規則第4条第1項該当
3
Hardy, Robert Stafford. "Cheating in Multiplayer Video Games." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/31881.
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Cheating in video games has been prevalent ever since the days of Pong. Games have evolved much since then and the ways in which people play together have changed as well. Older systems required people to play together in the same room, but with the advent of the internet, gaming consoles allow us to play games together with people located all over the globe. Cheating has evolved as well, since gamers no longer have the luxury of monitoring the person sitting next to them; anti-cheating mechanisms are built into most online systems and suspicious behavior is monitored by gaming companies.
Most of the current research has surrounded ways in which players cheat and their reasoning for doing so. This is only half of the equation however, what happens after a gamer is caught cheating? What are the repercussions for being caught cheating and how does being caught influence future decisions to cheat? By putting gamers in a situation where they are caught cheating, three different responses were revealed: those who are determined to cheat no matter what, those who scale back their cheating in the hopes of remaining undetected, and those who stopped cheating altogether.<br>Master of Science
4
Helin, Henry. "Rewarding the Multiplayer : How rewards and objectives influence Multiplayer games." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för speldesign, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-226791.
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In this thesis I analyse the reward systems of cooperative and competitive Multiplayer games – the games I have chosen were built for a Single-player campaign with Multiplayer as additional content. My main focus is on the Multiplayer and the reward systems of that game mode. The reward systems are important to consider when designing a game for fans of Multiplayer games, as a faulty reward system might hinder the aspect which makes Multiplayer games special – to be playing together and go for the same goals with other people whether it is of a competitive or cooperative nature.The games I research are as recent as they were first released in 2012. These games are Kid Icarus: Uprising and Resident Evil: Revelations – the latter receiving a port to the HD consoles in 2013. The games were primary made for a single-player experience and therefore may not be fully implemented to support social needs of a Multiplayer game.To do my research I have played and tested the reward systems of the games myself and analysed how they may influence player behaviour and what effects that may have on the Multiplayer experience.
5
Liu, Tanya X. "TaleBlazer multiplayer : expanding multiplayer functionality for meaningful location-based AR games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/91839.
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Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2014.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (page 69).<br>TaleBlazer is a location-based, augmented reality game platform. Its web-based editor provides game designers with a method to create games regardless of programming experience. Users play these games while walking in the real world, using the mobile application as a gateway for interactions with the virtual world. This thesis extends previous work done on the TaleBlazer multiplayer game platform. It details the implementation of new multiplayer functionalities that allow meaningful interactions between players in multiplayer games<br>by Tanya X. Liu.<br>M. Eng.
6
Hawker, Michael. "Subgames in massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, McGill University, 2008. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21992.
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With the launch of World of Warcraft in 2004, Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) really came into their own as millions of people started playing worldwide. Providing scalability to such a large audience while maintaining a consistent gameplay experience is a diffcult task which many companies face in an industry where only few succeed. This thesis focuses on the issues of how a MMOG can be scaled to support more concurrent players and how consistency can be maintained in a Distributed Multi-Server Environment (DMSE). As a basis for investigation the notion of "Subgames" (i.e. games within games) was introduced. As smaller, more flexible game units, subgames reduce scalability problems but raise consistency concerns by requiring modular game actions in a distributed environment to function. This is addressed through a new transactional protocol and action framework which abstracts and solves consistency issues while creating an infrastructure which allows for scalability. A complete solution is illustrated using these techniques through the design of general game mechanics and subgames. The approach here further enables scalability of MMOGs in a DMSE and provides a general framework for the further investigation of MMOG consistency and scalability through subgame instances.<br>La popularité des jeux massivement multi-joueurs en ligne ( MMOGs ) a grandement augmenté avec l'arrivée du jeu World of Warcraft, qui est joué par des millions de personnes à travers le monde. Cependant, ce type d'application nécessite des infrastructures extensibles pour accommoder des milliers de joueurs, tout en offrant une expérience de jeu consistante. Ceci représente un grand obstacle que plusieurs compagnies doivent affronter, mais qui est surmonté par peu. Cette thèse aborde les problèmes reliés à la croissance du nombre de joueurs simultanés, tout en discutant comment maintenir un environnement distribué multi- serveurs ( DMSE ) consistant. La notion de sous-jeux ( un jeu qui se déroule l'intérieur d'un autre jeu ) a été utilisée pour mieux étudier le problème. En tant qu'unités de jeu plus petits et flexibles, les sous-jeux facilitent la croissance, mais augmentent les problèmes de concurrence puisque leur bon fonctionnement nécessite des actions modulaires dans un environnement distribué. Ces défis sont adressés par un nouveau protocole transactionnel et un cadre d'applications d'actions qui font abstraction et règlent les problèmes de consistance, tout en offrant une infrastructure qui permet une certaine croissance. Une solution, où les mécanismes de jeux et de sous-jeux sont adaptés en conséquence, illustre les techniques proposées dans cette thèse. Ces techniques permettent une plus grande croissance pour les jeux MMOGs dans un DMSE, tout en fournissant des outils de sous-jeux qui permettent l'étude des défis de consistance et de croissance.
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Boulanger, Jean-Sebastien. "Interest management for massively multiplayer games." Thesis, McGill University, 2007. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=18280.
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The popularity of massively multiplayer games has increased in recent years and game providers are facing scalability problems to accomodate growing populations of users. Broadcasting all state changes to every player is not a viable solution to maintain a consistent game state in a massively multiplayer game. To successfully overcome the challenge of scale, massively multiplayer games have to employ sophisticated interest management techniques that only send relevant state changes to each player. In this thesis we develop a space partitioning technique based on triangulation that adapts to the world’s obstacles. We introduce obstacle-aware interest management algorithms that use the triangular partitioning to determine the relevance of objects based on the occlusion created by obstacles. We compare the performance of both obstacle-aware and state-of-the-art interest management algorithms based on measurements obtained in a real massively multiplayer game using human and computer-generated player actions. We show that obstacle-aware interest management algorithms can reduce the number of update messages between players and that algorithms based on our triangle-based partitioning can scale to a larger number of objects. The experiments also show that measurements obtained with computer-controlled players performing random actions can approximate measurements of games played by real humans, provided that the traces of the random players are designed adequately. As the size of the world and the number of players of massively multiplayer games increases, adaptive interest management techniques such as the ones studied in this thesis will become increasingly important.<br>La popularité des jeux massivement multijoueurs a augmenté de façon phénoménale au cours des dernières années. Les fournisseurs de jeux rencontrent de plus en plus de problèmes d’extensibilité pour supporter des populations croissantes de joueurs. La diffusion à tous les joueurs des changements réalisés dans le monde virtuel n’est pas une solution viable pour maintenir une vision cohérente du monde dans un jeu massivement multijoueurs. Pour surmonter ce défi d’extensibilité, les jeux massivement multijoueurs doivent utiliser des techniques de gestion d’intérêt sophistiquées qui relaient seulement l’information pertinente vers chaque joueur. Dans cette thèse nous développons une technique de partition de l’espace qui s’adapte aux obstacles du monde virtuel en utilisant une triangulation. Nous présentons des algorithmes sensible-aux-obstacles de gestion d’intérêt qui emploient les partitions triangulaires pour déterminer la pertinence des objets pour chaque joueur, selon l’occlusion créée par les obstacles. Nous comparons l’efficacité des algorithmes sensible-aux-obstacles et d’autres algorithmes modernes de gestion d’intérêt à l’aide de données obtenues d’un vrai jeu massivement multijoueurs. À cet effet, nous utilisons à la fois des actions de vrais joueurs et des actions de joueurs générées par ordinateur. Nous démontrons que les algorithmes sensible-aux-obstacles de gestion d’intérêt peuvent réduirent le nombre de messages relayés entre les joueurs. Nous démontrons également que les algorithmes utilisant notre partition triangulaire peuvent s’adapter à un plus grand nombre d’objets tout en conservant de bonnes performances. Nos expériences suggèrent également que les résultats obtenus à partir de joueurs contrôlés par ordinateur se déplaçant aléatoirement ce rapprochent des résultats obtenus avec de vrais joueurs, dans la mesure où les actions aléatoires des joueurs son
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MACHADO, LUCAS EUZEBIO. "DISTRIBUTED TECHNIQUES FOR MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER GAMES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2005. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=7692@1.
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COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR<br>Essa dissertação apresenta diversas técnicas e tecnologias
úteis na criação de ambientes virtuais distribuídos com
milhares de jogadores conectados. Explicações sobre o uso
adequado de TCP e UDP são fornecidas. São mostradas
algumas técnicas de aceleração no uso de sockets. São
explicadas tecnologias que permitem tratar de muitos
sockets ao mesmo tempo como a poll e a kqueue do Unix e o
IO Completion Ports do Windows. Técnicas específicas de
ambientes virtuais distribuídos são mostradas. Uma
ferramenta que faz uso de várias das técnicas apresentadas
é proposta.<br>This dissertation presents several techniques and
technologies that are
helpfull in the creation of distributed virtual
environments with thousands
of connected players. Explanations about the proper use of
TCP and UDP
are given. Some optimization techniques in the use of
sockets are also given.
Technologies that allow many sockets to be handled at once
are explained,
such as poll and kqueue from Unix and IO Completion Ports
from Windows.
Specific techniques for distributed virtual environments
are presented. A
tool that uses many of these techniques is proposed.
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Badar, Mian, and Nikhil Thakrar. "Development Guidelines for Mobile Multiplayer Games." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för datavetenskap och kommunikation (CSC), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-134824.
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In the past decade the advances in mobile technology have produced new powerful genera-tions of mobile devices that come with ever-increasing computing powers and high-speed wireless connection technologies. It is more attractive than ever to develop mobile multiplayer games and many developers are straining to bring more and more multiplayer games into the market. However, there are not many concrete guidelines or helping-tools for developers programming and designing them. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relevant infrastructures of mobile multiplayer games and with the obtained results produce some development guidelines for the developers. Before the commencement of the investigation, the authors reviewed existing literatures using a structured review process. A search for relevant articles was conducted and the references used in the selected articles were searched in order to find additional relevant references for the investigation. There are many different factors and technical aspects to consider when developing mobile multiplayer games. For example different game genres have different prerequisites and it also governs the degree of complexity of the game design. It is important to also consider the dif-ferent mobile networks and the technical capabilities they encompass so that the developed game does not consume more bandwidth than is supported by the different mobile networks. The biggest hurdle to overcome when developing mobile multiplayer games is the issues re-garding network latency. There exist different approaches for handling this and they are brought up in the thesis. In the end of the thesis, guidelines are presented for facilitating the development of mobile multiplayer games.<br>Under det senaste decenniet har stora tekniska framsteg skett inom mobil teknologi som har producerat nya kraftfulla generationer av mobiltelefoner. Det är mer attraktivt än någonsin att utveckla mobila multiplayer spel och många utvecklare kämpar med att få fler och fler mul-tiplayer spel på marknaden. Tyvärr så finns det inte många konkreta riktlinjer eller hjälpverk-tyg för utvecklare som programmerar och designar dem. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka de relevanta infrastrukturerna för mobila mul-tiplayer spel och med de erhållna resultaten producera utvecklingsriktlinjer för utvecklare. Innan påbörjandet av undersökningen utförde författarna en sökning efter relevanta artiklar och de referenser som användes i de valda artiklarna söktes för att finna ytterligare relevanta referenser för undersökningen. Det finns många olika faktorer och tekniska aspekter att beakta när man utvecklar mobila multiplayer spel. Till exempel har olika spelgenrer olika förutsättningar och den valda genren har en inverkan på graden av komplexitet vid speldesignen. Det är viktigt att också beakta de olika mobilnät och de tekniska möjligheter som de besitter så att det utvecklade spelet inte förbrukar mer bandbredd än vad som stöds av de olika mobilnäten. Det största hindret att övervinna när man utvecklar mobila multiplayer spel är problem rörande nät latens. Det finns olika metoder för att hantera detta som tas upp i uppsatsen. I slutet av uppsatsen presenteras utvecklingsriktlinjer som är till för att förenkla utvecklingen av mobila multiplayer spel.
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Andersson, Anders. "Multiplayer Game Server for Turn-Based Mobile Games in Erlang." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informationsteknologi, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-205361.
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This master's thesis presents the analysis, design and implementation of a game server. The server is specialized for handling traffic for turn-based games, with additional focus on handling traffic over mobile networks. The content of the analysis includes defining requirements, the theory behind the network stack and choices in concurrency model construction. The design part focuses on creating valuable design documents that work as blueprints for the server implementation. The documentation for two prototype implementations are also included, one with basic functionality and one that can be used in the real world to some extent. The thesis is motivated by a growing need for a simple and easy-to-use game network solution. The independent game development scene is growing rapidly since the introduction of the modern smart phone, which comes with great gaming capabilities. Independent game developers are often small studios that might not have demands for big, complex and expensive systems. This product aims to solve that problem by providing a simpler and more user friendly solution. The thesis concludes that the construction of a working game server solution is possible to achieve on a small budget. It also concludes that a game server does not necessarily need advanced features to be functional.
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Ashton, Martin. "Measuring cooperative behavior in contemporary multiplayer games." Thesis, McGill University, 2012. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=110546.
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Social aspects of multiplayer games are well known as contributors to game success, with online friendships and socialization expected to expand and strengthen a player-base. Understanding the nature of social behavior and determining the impact of cooperation on gameplay is thus important to game design. In this work, we make use of data exposed through in-game and web-based API's of two contemporary multiplayer games, World of Warcraft and Halo: Reach. We use this data to investigate the extent of cooperation among players and the effect on individual player behavior. We moreover show how the quantitative assessment of cooperative behavior can be used to isolate potential problem areas in games which may require additional balancing. We first monitor group health and position to measure the pacing of a cooperative scenario in World of Warcraft. We measure a scenario's pacing as the temporal progression of its difficulty, which directly reflects the required level of cohesion and coordination among the players in a group. Our results verify the informal perception that statically designed content becomes increasingly trivial as players obtain stronger stats, thus reducing the need for cohesion. Direct quantification of this behavior, as enabled by designs such as ours, allows for online, adaptive pacing that should better foster player community by consistently emphasizing the need for communication.The benefits of actual group behavior also has a reverse impact on game design. In our experiment involving Halo: Reach, our results demonstrate that players who enter as a group into the multiplayer matchmaking system have, on average, a significantly higher win-to-loss ratio than players who enter the matchmaking system alone. This gives them an advantage over less social players, and thus attests to the potential for refinement in group matchmaking techniques. In addition, our exploratory principal component analysis of individual player performances reveals a set of novel player types adapted to the multiplayer context and quite distinct from player types found in other game genres.From a general standpoint, the data collection techniques outlined in this thesis reveal the use of publically-accessible game APIs as a relatively unexplored yet promising source of insight into real-world gameplay behavior. Our results serve as evidence for two widely-assumed notions of multiplayer game design; the first, that static game content adversely affects a game's replayability and ultimately lessens the need for communication and cohesion among players. The second, that coordination among players provides a significant advantage over those who choose to play independently in a team-based setting.<br>Les interactions sociales entre les utilisateurs de jeux vidéo multijoueurs contemporains contribuent largement à la propagation et à la longévité de ces derniers. La compréhension des facteurs qui se lient à la promotion d'interactions sociales au sein de ces environnements est donc importante à leur développement. Dans cette thèse, nous recueillons des données à partir d'interfaces de programmation de deux jeux multijoueurs contemporains: World of Warcraft et Halo: Reach. Nous analysons ces données afin d'évaluer l'effet global du comportement coopératif, ainsi que son effet sur le comportement d'individus. De plus, nous démontrons que la mesure quantitative de comportements coopératifs peut aider à l'identification de fautes systémiques d'un jeux.En premier lieu, nous mesurons les points de vie et la position des membres d'un groupe de joueurs pour évaluer le débit d'un scénario coopératif de World of Warcraft. Nous définissons ce débit en fonction de la difficulté du scénario par rapport au temps. L'achèvement d'un scénario à débit intense impose ainsi un niveau de communication plus élevé entre les membres du groupe. Nos résultats appuient d'ailleurs la perception informelle que les jeux conçus avec des environnements et des ennemis non-adaptifs perdent l'intérêt des joueurs lorsque ceux-ci deviennent trop puissants. De plus, cet accroissement en puissance réduit le nombre d'interactions sociales en diminuant l'exigence de la communication entre les joueurs. En deuxième lieu, nous observons les conséquences de la coopération entre les joueurs de Halo: Reach. Les données recueillies dans ce contexte suggèrent que les joueurs qui entrent en groupe d'amis dans le système d'établissement de parties ont de plus fortes chances d'obtenir une victoire que ceux qui s'y introduisent individuellement. Nous découvrons ainsi une faute potentielle de ce système d'établissement de parties qui favorise les joueurs plus sociaux au détriment des joueurs plus solitaires. De plus, nous appliquons une analyse des composantes principales (PCA) sur les résultats moyens de chaque joueur, ce qui révèle un ensemble de descripteurs adaptés au contexte multijoueur, très distinct des descripteurs attribués aux joueurs d'autres types de jeux.D'un point de vue global, quoique les interfaces de programmation de jeux soient relativement inexplorées, notre méthodologie démontre que celles-ci offrent une panoplie d'informations liées aux comportement de joueurs. Nos résultats supportent d'autant plus deux notions informelles enracinées dans le design de jeux multijoueurs -- la première dicte que les environnements statiques agissent contre la rejouabilité d'un jeu, et que ceux-ci réduisent ultimement les besoins de communication et de cohésion entre joueurs. Dans un contexte d'affrontements d'équipes, la deuxième notion soutenue par nos données suggère que les joueurs coordonnés en groupe ont un avantage inné par rapport aux joueurs plutôt indépendants.
12
White, Dustin. "Role recognition in massively multiplayer online games." Winston-Salem, NC : Wake Forest University, 2009. http://dspace.zsr.wfu.edu/jspui/handle/10339/43154.
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Thesis (M.S.)--Wake Forest University. Dept. of Computer Science, 2009.<br>Title from electronic thesis title page. Thesis advisor: William H. Turkett Jr. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-62).
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KOZOVITS, LAURO EDUARDO. "MESSAGE OPTIMIZATION AND BALANCING OF MULTIPLAYER GAMES." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2004. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=4720@1.
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CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO<br>A tecnologia de jogos multi-jogador é uma especialização
dentro da área de ambientes virtuais distribuídos. Com a
crescente popularidade de jogos pela Internet, torna-se
interessante analisar os seus principais problemas e
encontrar soluções de arquiteturas destes ambientes, a fim
de adaptá-las para as necessidades específicas destes
jogos. Uma arquitetura híbrida usando as abordagens cliente-
servidor e peer-to-peer é proposta e implementada neste
trabalho, visando atender uma certa classe de jogos multi-
jogador. Com o objetivo de permitir uma eficiente
transmissão de objetos criados entre os jogadores durante
uma sessão, é proposta uma alteração em sua forma de
representação geométrica. É mostrado que técnicas de
modelagem de mais alto nível como CSG ou Metaball podem ser
usadas para permitir esta transmissão eficiente sob certas
circunstâncias. É também proposta uma técnica eficiente de
representação e transmissão de coordenadas do ambiente
virtual usando campos de bits.<br>Multiplayer game technology is a specialized field in
networked virtual environments (Net-VE). With the
increasing popularity of Internet games, the analysis of
their main problems and the search for an architecture for
these environments has become interesting in order to adapt
them to the specific needs of these games. A hybrid
architecture using both client-server and peer-to-peer
approach is proposed and implemented in this work for a
certain class of multiplayer games. In order to provide an
efficient transmission of user created objects among
players during a session, a change in its geometrical
representation is proposed. It is showed that the use of
higher level object representation such as CSG or Metaball
modeling techniques can be used to provide this efficient
transmission under certain circumstances. It is also
proposed the use of bitfields as a efficient way to both
represent and transmit coordinates of the virtual world.
14
Vargas, David Anthony. "Multiplayer collaboration in educational virtual reality games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119701.
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Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2018.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (page 59).<br>Recent innovations in Virtual Reality technology has made it more affordable and accessible to consumers and classrooms. This research works toward investigating the impact of VR in a collaborative learning environment as part of a larger cross- platform system. We have explored three primary research objectives: 1) how do we engage players in a cross platform education game 2) is it possible for VR to be one of these platforms effectively and 3) how do we design the game so that the players have to collaborate? For all of these tasks, I helped develop the collaborative aspect of a project called CLEVR, which is a multiplayer game that places one user inside of a biological cell through a VR headset while connecting another on a touch screen tablet. After discussing the progress made on the project and the contribu- tions I made, we discuss the results of various play test opportunities through our design-based iterative research and the conclusions drawn from them. Our results show promise for the impact of VR on education and the effect it could have on the engagement of students as part of a multiplayer cross-platform system.<br>by David Anthony Vargas.<br>M. Eng.
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Goeminne, Aline. "Equilibria in Multiplayer Games Played on Graphs." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2021. https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/322079/4/contents.pdf.
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Today, as computer systems are ubiquitous in our everyday life, there is no need to argue that their correctness is of capital importance. In order to prove (in a mathematical sense) that a given system satisfies a given property, formal methods have been introduced. They include concepts such as model checking and synthesis. Roughly speaking, when considering synthesis, we aim at building a model of the system which is correct by construction. In order to do so, models are mainly borrowed from game theory. During the last decades, there has been a shift from two-player qualitative zero-sum games (used to model antagonistic interactions between a system and its environment) to multiplayer quantitative games (used to model complex systems composed of several agents whose objectives are not necessarily antagonistic). In the latter setting, the solution concepts of interest include numerous equilibria, such as Nash equilibrium (NE) and subgame perfect equilibrium (SPE). While the existence of equilibria is widely studied, it is also well known that several equilibria may coexist in the same game. Nevertheless, some equilibria are more relevant than others. For example, if we consider a game in which each player aims at satisfying a given qualitative objective, it is possible to have both an equilibrium in which no player satisfies his objective and another one in which each player satisfies it. In this case one prefers the latter equilibrium which is more relevant.In this thesis, we focus on multiplayer turn-based games played on graphs either with qualitative or quantitative objectives. Our contributions are twofold: (i) we provide equilibria characterizations and (ii) we use these characterizations to solve decision problems related to the existence of relevant equilibria; and characterize their complexities. Firstly, we provide a characterization of a weaker notion of SPE (weak SPE) in multiplayer games with omega-regular objectives based on the payoff profiles which are realizable by a weak SPE. We then adopt another point of view by characterizing the outcomes of equilibria instead of their payoff profiles. In particular we focus on weak SPE outcome characterization. As for some kinds of games (e.g. multiplayer quantitative Reachability games), weak SPEs and SPEs are equivalent, this characterization is useful in order to study SPEs in these games.Secondly, we use those different equilibrium characterizations to provide the exact complexity classes of different decision problems related to the existence of relevant equilibria. We mainly focus on the constrained existence problem: if each player aims at maximizing his gain, this problem asks whether there exists an equilibrium such that each resulting player’s gain is greater than a threshold (one per player). We also consider variants of relevant equilibria based on the social welfare and the Pareto optimality of the players’ payoff. In this way, we prove the exact complexity classes for (i) the weak SPE constrained existence problem in multiplayer games with classical qualitative objectives such as Büchi, co-Büchi and Safety and (ii) the NE and SPE constrained existence problems (and variants) for qualitative and quantitative reachability games. In the latter case, the upper bounds on the required memory for such relevant equilibria are studied and proved to be finite. Studying memory requirements of strategies is important since with the synthesis process those strategies have to be implemented.Finally, we consider multiplayer, non zero-sum, turn-based timed games with qualitative Reachability objectives together with the concept of SPE. We prove that the SPE constrained existence problem is EXPTIME-complete for qualitative Reachability timed games. In order to obtain an EXPTIME algorithm, we proceed in different steps. In the first step, we prove that the game variant of the classical region graph is a good abstraction for the SPE constrained existence problem. In fact, we identify conditions on bisimulations under which the study of SPE in a given game can be reduced to the study of its quotient.<br>Doctorat en Sciences<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished
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Veron, Maxime Pierre Andre. "Scalable services for massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, Paris 6, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA066212/document.
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Les jeux massivement multi-joueurs en ligne (jeux MMOGs) visent à rassembler un nombre infini de joueurs dans le même univers virtuel. Pourtant, tous les MMOG existants reposent sur des architectures client / serveur centralisé qui imposent une limite sur le nombre maximum de joueurs (avatars) et sur les ressources qui peuvent coexister dans un univers virtuel donné. Cette thèse vise à proposer des solutions pour améliorer l'évolutivité de MMOG. Cette thèse explore deux services qui sont essentiels à toutes les variantes de MMOG: jumelage et détection de triche. Ces deux services sont les goulots d'étranglement connus, et pourtant les implémentations actuelles restent centralisées. Cette thèse montre également qu'il est possible de concevoir un service d'arbitrage au-dessus d'un système de réputation. Le service résultant reste très efficace sur une grande échelle, à la fois en termes de performance et en termes de prévention de la fraude. Comme l'arbitrage est un problème similaire à la détection de fautes, cette thèse étend l'approche proposée pour surveiller les défaillances<br>Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMOGs) aim at gathering an infinite number of players within the same virtual universe. Yet all existing MMOGs rely on centralized client/server architectures which impose a limit on the maximum number of players (avatars) and resources that can coexist in any given virtual universe. This thesis aims at proposing solutions to improve the scalability of MMOGs. To address the wide variety of their concerns, MMOGs rely on independent services such as virtual world hosting, avatar storage, matchmaking, cheat detection, and game design. This thesis explores two services that are crucial to all MMOG variants: matchmaking and cheat detection. Both services are known bottlenecks, and yet current implementations remain centralized. This thesis also shows that it is possible to design a peer to peer refereeing service on top of a reputation system. The resulting service remains highly efficient on a large scale, both in terms of performance and in terms of cheat prevention. Since refereeing is somewhat similar to failure detection, this thesis extends the proposed approach to monitor failures. The resulting failure detection service scales with the number of monitored nodes and tolerates jitter
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Miller, Mitchell. "Bootstrapping Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games." DigitalCommons@CalPoly, 2020. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/2191.
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Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) are a prominent genre in today's video game industry with the most popular MMORPGs generating billions of dollars in revenue and attracting millions of players. As they have grown, they have become a major target for both technological research and sociological research. In such research, it is nearly impossible to reach the same player scale from any self-made technology or sociological experiments. This greatly limits the amount of control and topics that can be explored. In an effort to make up a lacking or non-existent player-base for custom-made MMORPG research scenarios A.I. agents, impersonating human players, can be used to "bootstrap" the research scenario to reach the necessary massive number of players that define the game genre.
This thesis presents a system that makes its human players and A.I. players indistinguishable while preserving the basic characteristics of a typical MMORPG. To better achieve identical perception of human and A.I. players, our system centers around the collection, sharing, and exchange of information while limiting the means of expression and actions of players. A gameplay scenario built on the Panoptyk engine was constructed to imitate gameplay experienced in major MMORPGs. We conducted a user-study where subjects play through the scenario with a varying number of A.I. players unknown to them. Three versions of the scenario were created to assess how indistinguishable human and A.I. players were and vice versa.
We found, across 24 participants, there were 32% correct identifications, 30% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of "I don't know". This was broken down into 20% correct identifications, 42% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of "I don't know" for bot characters and 46% correct identifications, 16% incorrect identifications, and 38% answers of ``I don't know'' for human characters.
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Hughes, Chelsea M. "A MEASURE OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN TEAM-BASED, MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES: THE SOCIALITY IN MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES SCALE (SMOG)." VCU Scholars Compass, 2015. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3884.
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Video games have become a new platform for social interaction. I review the sociality of video games and the relationship between virtual- and real-world behaviors. I review and address the pros and cons of methods of measuring social behavior. Finally, I present two studies drawn from internet populations. In Study 1 (N = 250), I develop a scale, The Sociality in Multiplayer Online Games Scale (SMOG), which measures the frequency of social gaming behaviors in team-based, multiplayer online games. I hypothesized these to align on dominance and affiliation dimensions of social interaction (Kiesler, 1982). In Study 2 (N = 104), I conduct a confirmatory factor analysis, which supports a two-factor structure—Destructive and Constructive social behavior, resulting in the SMOG-6. I examine construct validity using measures of dominance and affiliation. Controlling for age, gender, and frequency of game-play, both factors predict dominance. SMOG-Destructive negatively, and SMOG-Constructive positively, predicted affiliation.
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Kubo, Mario Massakuni. "FMMG: um framework para jogos multiplayer móveis." Universidade de São Paulo, 2006. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/3/3141/tde-08122006-163240/.
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A área de jogos para dispositivos móveis vem despertando o interesse cada vez maior de diversas pessoas, seja na área acadêmica ou de empresas comerciais, principalmente quando o desafio é desenvolver jogos multiusuário. No entanto, apesar do crescimento no número de frameworks e engines, e da ampliação das pesquisas nessa área, não existe ainda uma arquitetura padrão para o desenvolvimento de jogos para dispositivos móveis, devido principalmente à complexidade do problema, à grande diversidade de tipos de dispositivos móveis disponíveis no mercado e aos requisitos que diferem para cada tipo de jogo. O trabalho de pesquisa e desenvolvimento consistiu em, a partir de um estudo sobre o estado da arte e as necessidades de usuários e desenvolvedores, se desenvolver um framework para Jogos Multiplayer Móveis, denominado FMMG (Framework Mobile Multiplayer Games). Como resultado a Tese apresenta uma descrição detalhada da arquitetura do framework FMMG e dos módulos propostos, mostrando a integração entre eles, bem como as principais inovações que foram produzidas. A arquitetura do FMMG se baseia no padrão MVC (Model View Controller) e em uma estrutura de estado do jogo de acordo com os módulos preestabelecidos de gerenciamento, básico e rede. O framework resultante desta Tese visa dessa forma disponibilizar um conjunto de componentes que auxiliem na implementação de Jogos Multiplayer Móveis. Por fim, é apresentado um estudo de caso para a validação do framework desenvolvido, o qual demonstra o funcionamento dos principais recursos oferecidos.<br>The branch of mobile device games has drawn increasing interest of both universities and industries, specially when it comes to the development of multiplayer games. However, despite the growing number of frameworks and engines, as well of researches in this field, no standard architecture for the development of mobile device games has been established. Such situation can be explained by the complexity of the problem, the vast diversity of mobile devices currently in the market, and the different requirements of each type of game. The research and the elaboration of this project consisted of the development of a framework for Mobile Multiplayer Games called FMMG, based on both a study of the state of art and the needs of users and developers. As a result, the thesis presents a detailed description of both the FMMG framework architecture and of the modules proposed, showing the integration between them, as well as the main innovations produced during the development of this project. The FMMG architecture is based on the MVC (Model View Controller) standard and on a state-of-game structure in accordance with the pre-established management modules: basic and network. The goal of the resulting framework presented hereby is thus to offer a set of components that assists the implementation of Mobile Multiplayer Games. Finally a case is presented to validate the framework under consideration, demonstrating the functioning of the main features available.
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Chan, Pauline B. "Narrative participation within game environments: role-playing in massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/37126.
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Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) present fantastic, persistent worlds and narratives for a community of players to experience through pre-defined rules, roles, and environments. To be able to offer the opportunity for every player to try the same experiences, many game developers have opted to create elaborate virtual theme parks: scripted experiences within static worlds that cannot be affected or changed through player actions.
Within these games, some players have turned to role-playing to establish meaningful connections to these worlds by expanding upon and subverting the game's expectations to assume a limited sense of agency within the world. The interaction between role-players and the locations they occupy within these worlds is a notable marker of this narrative layering; specific locations inform social codes of conduct, designed by developers, and then repurposed by players for their characters and stories. Through a qualitative case study in World of Warcraft on public role-playing events, this thesis considers how the design of in-game locations inform their use for role-playing, and how locations are altered through storytelling as a result.
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Ummels, Michael [Verfasser]. "Stochastic multiplayer games : theory and algorithms / Michael Ummels." Aachen : Hochschulbibliothek der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Technischen Hochschule Aachen, 2011. http://d-nb.info/1018227938/34.
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Bahramshahry, Armin. "MCCA : a communication architecture for online multiplayer games." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/12537.
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Over the last decade the ability of the Internet infrastructure to carry traffic has not improved at the same rate as the desktop technology. This imbalance has increased the perceived difference in the quality of service (QoS) offered by online multiplayer games compared to single player games.
This thesis introduces MCCA, a communication architecture for online multiplayer games to improve the observed QoS and to lower the development complexity. MCCA takes advantage of online game’s relaxed state consistency and predictable workload. MCCA enables a game to label its traffic as belonging to different classes, each with different priorities and requirements. Such labelling, in turn, enables differentiated traffic management, efficient use of available network resources, and ultimately, improved perceived QoS. In addition, MCCA enables a game to adapt to network conditions, through distributed quality aggregation, for each of the game’s generated network traffic. Consequently, MCCA supports a set of generic group communication and quality estimation techniques, and yet it enables a game to define customized methods.
This thesis presents the MCCA architecture and its simulation-based evaluation using Quake III, Voice-Over-IP (VoIP), and file transfers. Experiments demonstrate that workload classification, prioritization, and class targeted QoS improve user experience and lower the generated network traffic, while quality aggregation and reporting enable game adaptation to network conditions.
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Zhang, Kaiwen. "Persistent transaction models for massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, McGill University, 2010. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=95121.
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Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) can be treated as a database application. Players request actions concurrently to alter the state of objects in the game. Since the world state is the most valuable asset of MMOGs, it is extremely important to ensure its consistency. On the other hand, the defining feature of such games is their capacity to support thousands of clients playing simultaneously, thus requiring scalability. This thesis proposes a solution which leverages typical game semantics and architectures to design scalable transaction models for action handling while maintaining the required levels of consistency. These models vary in their levels of isolation and atomicity and offer different consistency guarantees that are suitable for actions of varying importance and complexity. Action handling protocols are then designed according to those models and optimized for scalability and efficiency. We also present a persistence architecture which is integrated with the transaction models mentioned above. We show how the different consistency guarantees of each transaction model can be maintained by the persistence structure. Concrete actions are then implemented and designed using various transaction models with persistence support. We then evaluate and compare the performance of the various implementations and discuss the trade-off between performance and consistency.<br>Les jeux en ligne massivement multijoueur (MMOGs) peuvent être considérés comme des applications base de données. Les joueurs initient des actions de façon concurrentielle pour modifier l'état du jeu. Puisque l'état du monde est le plus grand atout des MMOGs, il est extrêmement important d'assurer sa consistance. D'un autre côté, la caractéristique essentielle de ces jeux est leur capacité de supporter plusieurs milliers de clients simultanément, et donc l'habileté de gérer une charge grandissante. Cette thèse propose une solution qui est fondée sur des sémantiques et architectures typiques aux jeux pour concevoir des modèles de transaction extensibles à la charge pour la gestion des actions tout en maintenant les niveaux requis de consistance. Ces modèles varient dans leurs niveaux d'isolation et d'atomicité et offrent donc des garanties de consistance variées qui sont adaptées à des actions d'importance et de complexité différente. Des protocoles de gestion des actions optimisés sont alors conçus selon ces modèles. Nous présentons aussi une architecture pour la gestion de persistance des données qui est intégrée aux modèles de transaction mentionnés ci-dessus. Nous montrons comment les garanties de consistance de chaque modèle sont maintenues par la structure persistante. Des actions concrètes sont alors mises en oeuvre et conçues selon les divers modèles de transaction avec persistance. Nous évaluons et comparons la performance de chacune des implémentations et discutons du compromis entre la performance et la consistance.
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Chen, Bei Di 1978. "Cheat controlled synchronization schemes for online multiplayer games." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=81270.
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One of the key issues with online multiplayer games is game play fairness. In both centralized and decentralized architectures the ordering of command messages from clients for execution is an important issue that impacts fairness and response time of game play. Recently, a fair-ordered message exchange protocol (FMEP), based on "reaction" times was proposed to order command messages for a client-server model. This thesis presents a cheat controlled protocol (CCP) that can be used to control cheating in the FMEP. We examined the performance of the CCP by emulating wide-area game play scenarios on the Planet-Lab. The results from the experiments indicate that the CCP is able to dramatically reduce the cheating opportunities that exist for clients. On the other hand, for the decentralized (distributed) model, one approach is to follow a "lock step" scheme that prevents any client from acting upon a message until that message is received by all clients. In this thesis, we present a fair synchronization protocol (FSP) that enforces fairness and is more efficient than the lock-step scheme. The basic FSP is susceptible to cheating. Therefore, we added a cheat prevention mechanism as an enhancement. We implemented the enhanced protocol, the Cheat Proof Protocol (CPP), on the Planet-Lab and studied the performance under the same game play scenarios used for the CCP. The results indicate that the CPP is effective in enforcing fairness and cheat prevention.
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Abdulazeez, S. "Dynamic load balancing for massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University, 2018. http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/7864/.
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In recent years, there has been an important growth of online gaming. Today’s Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) can contain millions of synchronous players scattered across the world and participating with each other within a single shared game. Traditional Client/Server architectures of MMOGs exhibit different problems in scalability, reliability, and latency, as well as the cost of adding new servers when demand is too high. P2P architecture provides considerable support for scalability of MMOGs. It also achieves good response times by supporting direct connections between players. This thesis proposes a novel hybrid Peer-to-Peer architecture for MMOGs and a new dynamic load balancing for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) based this hybrid Peer-to-Peer architecture. We have divided the game world space into several regions. Each region in the game world space is controlled and managed by using both a super-peer and a clone-super-peer. The region's super-peer is responsible for distributing the game update among the players inside the region, as well as managing the game communications between the players. However, the clone-super-peer is responsible for controlling the players' migration from one region to another, in addition to be the super-peer of the region when the super-peer leaves the game. In this thesis, we have designed and simulated a static and dynamic Area of Interest Management (AoIM) for MMOGs based on both architectures hybrid P2P and client-server with the possibility of players to move from one region to another. In this thesis also, we have designed and evaluated the static and dynamic load balancing for MMOGs based on hybrid P2P architecture. We have used OPNET Modeler 18.0 to simulate and evaluate the proposed system, especially standard applications, custom applications, TDMA and RX Group. Our dynamic load balancer is responsible for distributing the load among the regions in the game world space. The position of the load balancer is located between the game server and the regions. The results, following extensive experiments, show that low delay and higher traffic communication can be achieved using both of hybrid P2P architecture, static and dynamic AoIM, dynamic load balancing for MMOGs based on hybrid P2P system.
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Strong, S. A. "Gamer-generated language and the localisation of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2018. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10046921/.
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Video game localisation has received increased academic attention over the past few years. Despite the call for user-oriented research, few researchers have chosen to focus on issues that are central to end-user experience and its relation to the localised text. With the increased connectivity of gaming in general, and certain game genres in particular, gamers’ language use has become an integral aspect of the game experience. As a result, gamers have become innovative, creating and re-appropriating language, often using non-standard forms to coordinate their gameplay. This innovative and non-standard language, that I call gamer-speak, is the object of my research. In particular, the focus is on the gamer-speak generated by French gamers during group play of two localised Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs): World of Warcraft and WildStar. The main aim is to investigate the phenomenon of gamer-speak in MMORPGs and examine its significance for MMORPG localisation. I achieve this through a linguistic analysis and comparison of gamer conversations, analyses of localised texts and its original counterparts, and from survey data collected from active MMORPG gamers regarding their language use. In this thesis I devise an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework for the study of gamer-speak and its influence on MMORPGs which draws principally from Translation Studies and Games Studies. This framework is used to describe the salient features of gamer-speak generated by French gamers when playing the two MMORPGs chosen in the context of Polysystem Theory and Descriptive Translation Studies. The familiarity with and knowledge of French MMORPG players of gamer-speak is determined through surveys. I also examine localised MMORPG text, translated from English into French, paying attention to the role of gamer-speak. Finally, I address the social and cultural implications that gamer-speak has for the target audience of localised MMORPGs. This work adds to our understanding of gamer culture and has implications for game localisation and translation studies.
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Cai, Yang Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The complexity of Nash equilibria in multiplayer zero-sum games and coordination games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62458.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-48).<br>We prove a generalization of von Neumann's minmax theorem to the class of separable multiplayer zero-sum games, introduced in [Bregman and Fokin 1998]. These games are polymatrix-that is, graphical games in which every edge is a two-player game between its endpoints-in which every outcome has zero total sum of players' payoffs. Our generalization of the minmax theorem implies convexity of equilibria, polynomial-time tractability, and convergence of no-regret learning algorithms to Nash equilibria. Given that three player zero-sum games are already PPAD-complete, this class of games, i.e. with pairwise separable utility functions, defines essentially the broadest class of multi-player constants sum games to which we can hope to push tractability results. Our result is obtained by establishing a certain game-class collapse, showing that separable constant-sum games are payoff equivalent to pairwise constant-sum polymatrix games-polymatrix games in which all edges are constant-sum games, and invoking a recent result of [Daskalakis, Papadimitriou 2009] for these games. We also explore generalizations to classes of non- constant-sum multi-player games. A natural candidate is polymatrix games with strictly competitive games on their edges. In the two player setting, such games are minmax solvable and recent work has shown that they are merely affine transformations of zero-sum games [Adler, Daskalakis, Papadimitriou 2009]. Surprisingly we show that a polymatrix game comprising of strictly competitive games on its edges is PPAD-complete to solve, proving a striking difference in the complexity of networks of zero-sum and strictly competitive games. Finally, we look at the role of coordination in networked interactions, studying the complexity of polymatrix games with a mixture of coordination and zero-sum games. We show that finding a pure Nash equilibrium in coordination-only polymatrix games is PLS-complete; hence, computing a mixed Nash equilibrium is in PLS n PPAD, but it remains open whether the problem is in P. If, on the other hand, coordination and zero-sum games are combined, we show that the problem becomes PPAD-complete, establishing that coordination and zero-sum games achieve the full generality of PPAD. This work is done in collaboration with Costis Daskalakis.<br>by Yang Cai.<br>S.M.
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Kinert, Jenny. "Increase long-term retention by adding social features in mobile multiplayer games." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för tillämpad fysik och elektronik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-156725.
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This paper investigates if the social aspects of playing with friends and participate in clans can increase long-term retention for mobile games. Specifically for the game Edge of Combat developed by the company Level Eight. To gain knowledge about how the players and industry perceive these features, a background study was conducted. The study reveals that playing with friends increases long-term retention in mobile games. It also indicates that participating in clans increases long-term retention but the evidence is not that strong. The next phase of the project indicates that playing with friends also increases long-term retention in Edge of Combat. Finally, participating in clans were investigated more thoroughly. The industry is very positive towards clans but that does not seem to reflect the player’s opinions about clans. Because of this the research question ”Can clan participation increase long-term retention in mobile games?” can not be confirmed. That clan participation could increase long-term retention in Edge of Combat could not be confirmed either. However, to be certain of this more research is needed on clans in mobile games taking into account the demographics of the participants in the project.
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Westerlund, Anton. "Using Video Communication in Online Multiplayer Games : The effects of adding a video chat overlay on the game experience in online multiplayer video games - a quasi-experimental design." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för datavetenskap och medieteknik (DM), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-105928.
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The focus of this thesis is to investigate whether adding video communication inonline multiplayer video games will affect the game experience. The work uses usercentered design and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Literaturereview, pre-study questionnaire and semi-structured interviews are used to create aprototype of a video chat overlay that can be used in games. The prototype is thenused in a quasi-experiment to test if adding a video chat will result in better gameexperience. Participants in the experiment play the same online multiplayer videogame without and with video chat overlay and fill out a game experiencequestionnaire after each condition. The GEQ scores after the two conditions arecompared using a Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. Results showed that adding videochat did not improve the game experience significantly. If a video chat would becreated for use in video games, it is important to keep it simple and easy to use.Regarding the effect of video chat on game experience, with the prototype designedfor this work, the null hypothesis could not be rejected since there was no significantdifference in the game experience.
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Ørbekk, Kjetil. "Distributed Shared Objects for Mobile Multiplayer Games and Applications." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for datateknikk og informasjonsvitenskap, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-18890.
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Mobile gaming for smartphones has gained huge popularity in recent yearsand has become a big industry. In 2011 Google Play passed 10 billiondownloads. The game Angry Birds alone has been installed on devices morethan 50 million times.Increased performance of mobile devices means that new developmenttechniques can be used to make more advanced games. This projectpresents a new technique to develop multiplayer games using adistributed system.Multiplayer games often use a client-server architecture in order tocommunicate. Many games present a shared game universe to theplayers. Updates to the game state must be performedconsistently, otherwise discrepancies in the game state mayappear to the players.Mobile devices are unreliable servers for several reasons. First, theyuse a Wi-Fi connection that may not be reliable. Second, the deviceshave limited amounts of resources. The operating system may need toterminate the server, e.g., to recover memory for important servicessuch as receiving phone calls. Lastly, if the person with the serverchooses to stop playing, the game cannot proceed.A distributed system can prevent unreliable devices from causingfailures. When a device becomes unavailable, all its responsibilitiesshould be transfered to other devices in the system.This project presents the distributed system Same for sharingstate in mobile multiplayer games. Same is a peer-to-peer systemwith a master device that automatically recovers from failure. When amaster fails, the system may enter an inconsistent state. Recovery isperformed by electing a new master that restores consistency bycomparing the state of all the clients in the system. The system ispresented as a general model for sharing state and implemented for theAndroid operating system.Same is evaluated using benchmarks and an example application.Updates are performed consistently and distributed to all the connecteddevices. Same is shown to be a viable alternative to a standardclient-server architecture.
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Khan, Nadeem. "A distributed server architecture for massively multiplayer online games /." Thesis, McGill University, 2006. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=101150.
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There has been a tremendous growth in the popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (or MMOGs) with millions of players interacting in their virtual game space at the same time. However, 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 thesis we propose a scalable distributed server architecture which divides the virtual game space in smaller sub spaces and assigns them across a cluster of server nodes thereby reducing the overall load per server. It is based on a distributed publish/subscribe architecture which takes care of client-server as well as server-server communication. We discuss the implementation of this architecture in a real MMOG and experimentally prove that it shows better scalability than the centralized server architecture.
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Grimm, Henrik. "Distributed database support for networked real-time multiplayer games." Thesis, University of Skövde, Department of Computer Science, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-734.
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<p>The focus of this dissertation is on large-scale and long-running networked real-time multiplayer games. In this type of games, each player controls one or many entities, which interact in a shared virtual environment. Three attributes - scalability, security, and fault tolerance - are considered essential for this type of games. The normal approaches for building this type of games, using a client/server or peer-to-peer architecture, fail in achieving all three attributes. We propose a server-network architecture that supports these attributes. In this architecture, a cluster of servers collectively manage the game state and each server manages a separate region of the virtual environment. We discuss how the architecture can be extended using proxies, and we compare it to other similar architectures. Further, we investigate how a distributed database management system can support the proposed architecture. Since efficiency is very important in this type of games, some properties of traditional database systems must be relaxed. We also show how methods for increasing scalability, such as interest management and dead reckoning, can be implemented in a database system. Finally, we suggest how the proposed architecture can be validated using a simulation of a large-scale game.</p>
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Roy, Daniel S. M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Mastery and the mobile future of massively multiplayer games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39150.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2007.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 64-66).<br>What game design opportunities do we create when we extend massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to cell phones? MMOs allow us to create representations of our own increasing mastery, and mobile gives us better access to this mastery and allows us to integrate it more fully into the ways we see ourselves. MMOs motivate mastery by making that mastery personally and socially relevant, and visibly showing it increase. Virtual worlds that make players feel physically and socially present increase motivation to achieve mastery. MMOs that convince players their avatars represent some aspect of their personalities increase motivation to invest in and experiment with different constructions of self. I apply these principles to an analysis of two games: Labyrinth, a game I helped create, and World of Warcraft, the current leading MMO. With Labyrinth, I explain the design decisions we made and their impact. With World of Warcraft, I described how altering the design could accommodate mobile play and better motivate increasing mastery.<br>by Daniel Roy.<br>S.M.
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Medlock-Walton, Michael Paul. "TaleBlazer : a platform for creating multiplayer location based games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77448.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-71).<br>TaleBlazer is a platform that allows users to create location-based games for their mobile device. Using a block-based programming language, game designers can control the behavior of agents that interact with the game players as they walk around in the world with their GPS enabled device. This thesis describes the design decisions and implementation of the repository server which holds stores the games, the mobile client used to play TaleBlazer games, the blocks programming language used to control the agents and players in the game, and the multiplayer server that allows players to interact within the same game world. The experience teaching a workshop with students who used TaleBlazer is described in addition to areas for future development of the project.<br>by Michael Paul Medlock-Walton.<br>M.Eng.
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Meredith, A. D. "The presentation of self in Massively Multiplayer Online games." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2014. http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/240/.
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This thesis examined the presentation of self in Massively Multiplayer Online games, to investigate how players create and maintain versions of self in these environments. Key research questions concerned the motivation for engaging in these behaviours, the impact of such activities on their offline lives and for those that did not engage in the active presentation of self, why they did not do this. There were three studies in the thesis, employing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The first study consisted of interviews (n=29), analysed using Grounded theory, and the second an online focus group (n=13 participants) explored using thematic analysis. These results were combined to create a theoretical model for the presentation of self in MMOs. Based on these concept statements a third study (n=408) was created, using an online questionnaire design. Results indicated that a five factor model was the most satisfactory means of explaining the presentation of self in MMOs – with Presentation of the Existing Self, Social Interaction, Gaming Aesthetics, Presenting Different Sides of the Self, and Emotional Impact as the salient factors. Virtual environments are rapidly emerging as a core element of human socialising, as evidenced by the growth of the games industry and the expansion of social networking sites in the last ten years. MMOs represent just one type of virtual environment but also some of the most exciting, since they allow the presentation of multiple versions of self in a fantastical social environment. The thesis adds to the literature through its examination of the presentation of self, in illustrating how and why playe3rs experience and represent their offline self in MMOs. This has not been achieved in any other previously published work and is an original contribution to the literature.
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Chen, Xu. "Performance Analysis of Wireless Multiplayer Games on Terraplay Systems." Thesis, KTH, Mikroelektronik och Informationsteknik, IMIT, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-92263.
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This thesis project was sponsored by Terraplay System AB. Terraplay System is a wireless online multiplayer game service provider in Europe. The purpose of this project was to provide a convenient and free latency test tool named Terraplay Test Toolkit (TTK) for game developers who utilize the Terraplay platform. Since wireless multiplayer games are latency sensitive, it’s necessary for game developers to estimate the real-time game latency before their development. TTK is based on Java Mobile Edition (J2me) technology, it can performs a real-time Round Trip Time (RTT) latency test. This project explored the application of the mobile development. Mobile development is a brand new field and becoming more and more popular. The design process and source code can be used as reference for mobile developers. Based on the Terraplay Test Toolkit, a series of experiments were conducted to test the ability of TTK. These experiments focused on end-to-end latency effects of wireless multiplayer games under different situations such as different packet size, different sending rates, high speed movement, and so on. Although TTK is not a professional test tool, it still reflects the latency variance under different conditions correctly. From these experiments, it was found that for the Terraplay enabled wireless multiplayer games, large average packet size (300 bytes) is NOT a factor with regard to the latency on the Terraplay System; the packet rate can affect the game latency. In a high speed-moving environment, game latency doesn’t obvious increase. Using HTTP can cause three times higher latency than simply using TCP. These conclusions are based on experimental results. These conclusions should guide wireless multiplayer game developers and game players.<br>Denna avhandling är sponsrad av Terraplay System AB. Terraplay System är en trådlös multiplayer-spelservice i Sverige. Syftet med detta projekt var att ge ett lättillgängligt och gratis testverktyg för fördröjning kallat Terraplay Test Toolkit (TTK) till spelutvecklare som använder Terraplays plattform. Eftersom trådlösa multispel är känsliga för fördröjning, är det nödvändigt för spelutvecklare att innan de börjar göra en uppskattning av denna. TTK är baserat på Java Mobile Edition-teknologi (J2me), och kan utföra ett fördröjningstest i realtid, kallat Round Trip Time (RTT). Detta projekt undersökte tillämpningen av den mobila utvecklingen. Mobil utveckling är ett helt nytt fält och blir mer och mer populärt. Designprocessen och källkoden kan användas som referenser för mobila utvecklare. Baserat på Terraplay Test Toolkit gjordes en serie experiment för att testa TTK:s förmåga. Dessa experiment fokuserade på fördröjda effekter av trådlösa multiplayerspel under olika situationer så som olika paketstorlek, olika leveranshastigheter, höghastighetsrörelser och så vidare. Även fast TTK inte är ett professionellt testverktyg, och inte kan användas för exakta fördröjningsanalyser, återger det ändå fördröjningens variationer under olika villkor. Dessa experiment visade att trådlösa multiplayerspel anpassade till Terraplay, med genomsnittlig paketstorlek (300 bite) INTE är en faktor med avseende på fördröjningen till Terraplay System; paketets hastighet kan påverka paketets fördröjning. I en miljö med hög rörelsehastighet, ökar inte påtagligt spelets fördröjning. Användandet av HTTP kan orsaka en tre gånger så lång fördröjning, jämfört med att bara använda TCP. Slutsatserna är baserade på experimentresultaten. Dessa slutsatser kan hjälpa utvecklare av trådlösa multiplayerspel[.]
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Bawa, Papia. "Game On| Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) as Tools to Augment Teaching and Learning." Thesis, Purdue University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10681049.
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<p> The study investigated the use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) in English and Business classrooms in Higher Education from the context of learners’ performance outcomes, as well as stakeholders’ (learners, administrators, and faculty) perceptions pertaining to their experiences when using an MMOG based curriculum. The findings strongly suggest that MMOGs helped enhance learner performances in statistically significant ways, and provided valuable insights into elements of interest and concerns of stakeholders about MMOG usage in classrooms. Based on these insights, I designed a practitioners’ guide to assist future scholars interested in this curricular approach. This guide provides innovative tips on show how faculty, administrators and institutions may imbibe this cutting-edge technology in easy and affordable ways within classrooms, while dealing with several concerns such stakeholders may have regarding the use of such games. Given the rise in popularity of game based technology and the existing literature on the value of game based education, coupled with a paucity of studies examining applicability and implementation issues in the context of using MMOGs, I hope that this submission will be a valuable contribution to the literature.</p><p>
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Bozcan, Selcuk. "A Tool For Network Simulation Of Massively Multiplayer Online Games." Master's thesis, METU, 2008. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609985/index.pdf.
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Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) have become highly popular in the last decade and now attract millions of users from all over the world to play in an evolving virtual world concurrently over the Internet. The high popularity of
MMOGs created a rapidly growing market and this highly dynamic market has forced the game developers to step up competitively. However, MMOG development is a challenging and expensive process. In this study, we have developed a network simulation tool which can be used to model and simulate typical MMOGs that have client-server architectures. The main objective is to provide a simulation environment to MMOG developers that could be used to test, analyze and verify various aspects of the MMOG network architecture. We have also implemented a graphical user interface which allows constructing the simulation model visually. We have demonstrated the use of simulation tool by experimental simulations.
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McFarlane, Roger D. P. "Network software architectures for real-time massively multiplayer online games." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=18200.
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A real-time massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) is a networked computer or video game in which tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of consumers may interact with one another in real-time in a shared environment, even though these users may be separated by vast geographic distances. Game industry analysis highlights trends indicating that online game usage and market penetration will grow significantly over the next five to ten years. As such, game developers and entertainment companies seek to offer subscription based mass-market online games. However, the risks, costs and complexity involved in the successful development and operation of a scalable online game service are high, in part due to lack of well established and understood models for the network software architecture of such a product. This thesis explores the literature and research regarding distributed military simulation, academic networked virtual environments, and commercial online gaming in search of patterns for network software architectures which are applicable to massively multiplayer online games. It is the hope of the author to contribute to this cross pollination of ideas by providing a thorough review of the techniques and approaches for the design and implementation of large scale distributed systems having properties similar to those found in a massively multiplayer online game system. In this way, perhaps the cost, complexity, and risk involved in building a massively multiplayer online game service can be reduced.<br>Un jeu en ligne massivement multi joueurs en temps réel est un jeu vidéo ou d'ordinateur géré en réseau dans lequel des dizaines à des centaines de milliers de consommateurs peuvent interagir entre eux en temps réel dans un environnement partagé, et ce même s’ils sont répartis dans des régions géographiques très distantes. Les analyses de l’industrie du jeu démontrent que l'utilisation et la pénétration de marché du jeu en ligne se développeront de manière significative au cours des cinq à dix prochaines années. Ceci explique que les développeurs de jeu et les compagnies de divertissement cherchent à offrir à un marché grand public des jeux en ligne basés sur un abonnement. Cependant, les risques, les coûts et la complexité impliqués dans le développement et l'opération d’un service de jeu en ligne sont élevés, dû en partie au manque de modèles bien établis et compris pour l'architecture de logiciels de réseau de tels produits. Cette thèse explore la littérature et la recherche concernant la simulation militaire distribuée, les environnements académiques virtuels gérés en réseau, et le jeu en ligne commercial à la recherche de modèles pour les architectures de logiciels de réseau qui sont applicables aux jeux en ligne massivement multi joueurs. C'est l'espoir de l'auteur de contribuer à cette pollinisation d’idées en fournissant un examen complet des techniques et des approches utilisés dans la conception et l'implémentation de systèmes répartis à grande échelle ayant des propriétés semblables à celles que l’on retrouve dans les systèmes de jeu en ligne massivement multi joueurs. De cette façon, peut-être, le coût, la complexité et le risque impliqués dans la réalisation d’un service de jeu en ligne massivement multi joueur pourront être réduits. fr
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GauthierDickey, Christopher Jay. "Cheat-proof event ordering for large-scale distributed multiplayer games /." view abstract or download file of text, 2007. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1324389301&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=11238&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007.<br>Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-139). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.
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Grimes, Sara M. "Online multiplayer games: a virtual space for intellectual property debates? /." Burnaby B.C. : Simon Fraser University, 2005. http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/2163.
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Vowles, Amy. "The psychology of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG's)." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6875/.
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This paper reviews the literature on the psychological predictors of the problematic use of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Nineteen studies were included in the review and results are discussed in terms of seven broad areas; Play time, Demographic differences, Psychological wellbeing and mental health, Personality, Cognitive factors, Physiological factors and Gamer experience and motivations. As a new area of research, the literature at present shows some limitations and inconsistencies across studies. Often factors have been considered in only one published paper, or findings are variable. The most consistent evidence suggests that increased play time is a significant risk factor for problematic use, along with mental health problems and poor psychological wellbeing. The strongest and most consistent predictor of problematic use identified so far appears to be the immersive use of MMORPGs in escaping from real life. Further research should replicate these results and continue to investigate alternative possible risk factors. Longitudinal studies are imperative to differentiate confidently between risk factors and outcomes of problematic gaming, and group comparison studies should include problematic gamers, non-problematic gamers and a non-gaming control group to establish factors associated with problematic gaming specifically as oppose to gaming in general. Studies should consider the impact of age and location of the target population so that results are generalisable to the MMORPG population as a whole. Implication for prevention and intervention of problematic gaming are discussed along with the implications of research in this area on the gaming industry.
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Wong, Christopher M. Eng Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Kid's Survey Network : teaching data literacy with multiplayer online games." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53130.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 66).<br>Current advancements in technology have permeated modern society, especially among the younger generations of computer users. Today's youth have grown up accustomed to video games and online social networking as standard elements of life. In contrast, many people of all ages today do not have a good grasp of data literacy. Many people simply do not understand statistics, charts, graphs and other survey data, which are all very commonly used in all aspects of everyday life. Kids' Survey Network is a large project that aims to focus the comfort and proficiency that middle school students have with web technology into an effective education tool to teach data literacy. This thesis project entails the creation of a suite of multiplayer learning games that reinforce the various other components of Kids' Survey Network.<br>by Christopher Wong.<br>M.Eng.
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Ng, Matthew M. Eng Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "UbiqGames : casual, educational, multiplayer games for mobile and desktop platforms." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61295.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 90).<br>The mission of the UbiqGames project is to develop a suite of casual, educational, multiplayer games that are playable across a wide variety of operating systems and devices. To accomplish this goal, we plan on making use of the expanding availability of wireless networks and the increasing capabilities of mobile browsers to build engaging and dynamic web-based games. This paper will document the progression of the UbiqGames project and take a deeper technical look at the first two games built under its heading: Virus and Weatherlings. Initial questions we wanted to answer were whether mobile browsers could handle complex web applications and whether the small screen size would significantly hinder game play. Results from multiple play tests have demonstrated that these games can be executed successfully, and user feedback has shown that players are receptive of the educational aspects of the game and enjoy the overall experience.<br>by Matthew Ng.<br>M.Eng.
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Munir, Sundas, and Mirza Sanam Iqbal Baig. "Challenges and Security Aspects of Blockchain Based Online Multiplayer Games." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för informationsteknologi, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-38771.
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Video gaming has always been a blooming industry. With the emergence of online multi- player video games , this industry’s worth have sky rocketed. Online multiplayer video games store data of player’s credentials, in-game progress, in-game virtual assets and payment details etc. Which mean security threats to these systems are nothing new and securing these games have always meant to protect player’s data from unauthorized breach. Integration of Blockchain technology in online multiplayer video games apart from other amazing features, provides a way to prove digital ownership of virtual assets with their verifiable scarcity. Trade of these in-game virtual assets have always been a goal for online multiplayer gaming companies, but there was none enough trust-able infrastructure available which can be relied on. Blockchain just solved that problem. It provided a platform for these asset’s secure and transparent transaction between players. Topic for our research not only consider the security challenges in online games but specifi- cally blockchain based online multiplayer games. This adaptation is still new and there is need of consideration of new security challenges. In this dissertation we try to bring out some important challenges related to security of blockchain based online multiplayer video games. There are currently no studies around security concerns and challenges of the integration of the online multiplayer video games in the emerging blockchain systems. In order to fill in the gap, this dissertation discusses and identifies two main security concerning questions related to this domain. Also this dissertation provides basic steps for expanding future research and application in this joint domain.
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Mansikkamäki, E. (Eetu). "Meaningful real-life relationships in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games." Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2014. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201412022038.
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Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games are extremely popular with millions and millions of players spending large portions of their free time in these virtual environments. Still the social value and the meaningfulness of the relationships formed within them are questioned by most non-gamers and even some gamers. In the past even academia was mainly concentrating on the negative aspects of gaming but lately the value and meaningfulness of these relatively new social environments have been getting more and more attention.
This thesis presents a phenomenographic study on how the participants experience meaningful real-life relationships in MMORPGs and how they perceive the effect of the game as the channel for those relationships.
The gathered data revealed four qualitatively distinct ways the participants experienced meaningful real-life relationships in MMORPGs: in-game friendships, beyond the game friendships, comparable to real-life friendships and romantic relationships. These levels have a hierarchical relation in the sense that the previous level has the potential to develop to the next.
Likewise, four distinct ways to perceive the effects of MMORPGs as the channel for relationships were identified in the data. The participants expressed views spanning from one end of the spectrum to the other, ranging from highly positive to potentially negative. MMORPGs could be seen to have a highly positive effect by making different aspects of the relationships easier. In other cases MMORPGs could be seen as just another place to meet people, just a means to an end same as any other medium. MMORPGs could also be considered to be limited when compared to the physical world as a channel and as a result the connections were perceived to be less real in purely online setting. Additionally, MMORPGs were noted to have the potential to become harmful to relationships.
The main contribution of this study are the categories; the levels of relationships and the categories of the effects of MMORPGs as a channel. They can provide a fresh approach into the topic for academia. As for practice, they validate the MMORPG developers’ efforts of encouraging formation of social relationships.
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Terblanche, Marcel. "COLAB: social context and user experience in collaborative multiplayer games." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27308.
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Recent studies have shown that the social context in which people play digital multiplayer games has an effect on their experience. Whether co-players are in the same location ("co-located") or in different locations ("mediated") changes how they interact with the game and with one another. We set out to explore how these complex psychological dynamics played out in a collaborative multiplayer game, since most of the research to date has been focused on competitive gameplay scenarios. To this end, we designed a two-player puzzle-based gaming apparatus called COLAB, implementing specific features that have been proven to foster collaboration and preclude competition between players. The independent variable was player location; the dependent variable was game experience, as measured by the Social Presence in Gaming Questionnaire and the Game Experience Questionnaire, two comprehensive self-report instruments. We found a significant difference in the game experiences of players collaborating in the same location versus players collaborating in different locations. Specifically, co-located players of the collaborative game experienced significantly higher scores for negative experience than mediated players did, while mediated players experienced significantly higher levels of three key game-experience measures: positive affect, immersion, and flow.
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Bluemink, J. (Johanna). "Virtually face to face: enriching collaborative learning through multiplayer games." Doctoral thesis, Oulun yliopisto, 2011. http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:9789514294235.
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Abstract This study focused on enriching collaborative learning through pedagogically scripted multiplayer games. Collaborative learning was examined in the synchronous discussions of small group problem-solving activities in face-to-face and virtual game settings. The theoretical approach is socio-cognitive and builds on the contextual and situated nature of learning. Interaction between group members in social situations is a key mechanism fostering students’ collaborative learning. In the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning the underlying aim is to stimulate and structure socially shared construction of knowledge and development of shared understanding among the collaborators. This thesis consisted of three empirical studies. The first study focused on analysing the macro-level elements of teacher education students’ face-to-face discussions in a context of an international web-based course. The focus of the second and third empirical studies was on how distributed collaboration can be enriched by scripting multiplayer game environments. The game environments were developed and tailored as part of the empirical studies. The main aim was to analyse small-group micro-level interactions and activities taking place during the game. Moreover, the particulars of a 3D voice-enhanced multiplayer game context for small-group shared collaborative activities were investigated. The focus of the last empirical study was on aspects of collaborative game activity and shared problem solving described from the perspective of individual players. The results indicated that the synchronous small-group discussions, on the macro-level, consisted of explaining, sharing knowledge, providing critiques, reflection, and joint engagement. The micro-level elements of the players’ discussions during the game were questions, content statements, social statements, suggestions, instructions or orders, encouragements, and responses. Both macro and micro level elements varied in random order during the discussion, forming a base for small-group discussion and joint problem-solving efforts. Not all problem-solving situations in the game data were shared, indicating that if shared collaborative activity was pursued, the scripting of the game tasks must require equal participation and teamwork during the game. The 3D game environment created a strong shared context for the distributed groups by engaging the players and reinforcing individual participation through the avatar activity. The findings of this thesis contribute to the future development of serious games and highlight the potential of multiplayer games as tools for supporting the social aspects of distributed teamwork<br>Tiivistelmä Väitöstutkimus tarkastelee yhteisöllisen oppimisen rikastamista pedagogisesti vaiheistettujen virtuaalipeliympäristöjen avulla. Tutkimuksessa on analysoitu pienryhmien sosiaalista vuorovaikutusta luokkahuonekeskusteluissa ja puhevälitteisissä peliympäristöissä. Teoreettisesti tutkimus pohjautuu sosiokognitiiviseen käsitykseen oppimisesta, jonka mukaan sosiaaliset tilanteet voivat käynnistää yksilöissä oppimisen kannalta keskeisiä mekanismeja, kuten esimerkiksi selittämistä ja tiedon jakamista. Yhteisöllisen oppimisen ytimeksi katsotaan jaetun ymmärryksen rakentaminen sosiaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa, mitä tietokoneavusteisen yhteisöllisen oppimisen tutkimuslinjassa pyritään tukemaan vaiheistamalla oppimisympäristöjä. Tutkimus koostuu kolmesta eri osatutkimuksesta, joista ensimmäisessä analysoitiin korkeakouluopiskelijoiden pienryhmäkeskustelua luokkahuonetilanteessa. Lähitapaamiset toimivat kurssilla hajautetun kansainvälisen verkkotyöskentelyn tukena. Toisessa osatutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin, voiko hajautettua yhteisöllistä oppimista rikastaa puhevälitteisen monenpelaajan peliympäristön avulla. Pelin tehtävät suunniteltiin ja vaiheistettiin yhteisöllistä toimintaa vaativiksi sekä jaetun ymmärryksen rakentamista tukeviksi. Analyysi keskittyi korkeakouluopiskelijoiden pelinaikaisen keskustelun ja ongelmanratkaisutilanteiden tarkasteluun. Kolmannen osatutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tutkia, mitä osatekijöitä työelämäkontekstista tulleet osallistujat joutuivat hallitsemaan puhevälitteisessä monenpelaajan pelissä. Tutkimusten video- ja haastatteluaineistot analysoitiin laadullisen sisällönanalyysin menetelmin. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että pienryhmän vuorovaikutus koostuu makrotasolla mm. selittämisestä, tiedon jakamisesta ja reflektoinnista. Mikrotasolla mm. kysymykset, toteamukset, auttaminen ja ehdottaminen vaihtelivat puheenvuoroittain ja muodostivat yhteisen toiminnan pohjan pienryhmän pelaamisessa. Kaikki ongelmanratkaisutilanteet pelin aikana eivät kuitenkaan olleet jaettuja. Tulokset osoittavat, että kun tavoitellaan aidosti yhteisöllisiä tilanteita, pelin tehtävät täytyy vaiheistaa niin, että ne vaativat kaikkien osallistumista ja pitävät ryhmää virtuaalisesti yhdessä. Tässä tutkimuksessa käytetyt peliympäristöt muodostivat hajautetuille ryhmille vahvan jaetun tilan ja virtuaalisten ihmishahmojen eli avatarien kautta osallistuminen vahvisti yksilöiden toimijuutta pienryhmän osana. Tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää hajautetun tiimityön kontekstissa sekä käyttää tukena tulevaisuuden virtuaalisten tiimipelien suunnittelussa
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Wolfe, Amanda. "Massively Multiplayer Online Gamers: Motivations and Risks." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2012. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cps_diss/74.
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Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are a popular type of online video game. While these games and their players have been studied previously, there is gap in the literature that examines the relationship between one’s motivation to play MMOGs and loneliness, depression, and problematic use. For this study, 440 players of World of Warcraft (WoW), a popular MMOG, completed a demographics questionnaire and four measures, including Williams, Yee, & Caplan’s (2008) motivation measure, Peter’s & Malesky’s (2008) World of Warcraft-specific Problematic Usage-Engagement Questionnaire, UCLA’s Loneliness scale, and The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Results from quantitative analyses suggest that MMO players who are motivated to play for reasons of achievement and immersion are more likely to experience problematic use than those persons who play for social motivations. Loneliness and depression were only positively related with immersion motivated players, and there exists a significant negative relationship between social motivation and depression. These results suggest that gamers who play WoW for immersive reasons are the most at-risk in comparison to their peers. Implications for counseling, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
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Malm, Tobias, and Johan Lindström. "Development of a real-time multiplayer gamefor the computer tablet." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Interaktiva och kognitiva system, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-84557.
Full textAbstract:
This master’s thesis discusses game development on the computer tablet, with Apple’s iPadas the target platform. Its main focus is development of non-trivial components such asonline multiplayer and touch(screen) controls for a real-time action game, using frameworksand APIs that are mainly free and open source. For each non-trivial component problems arepointed out and possible solutions are presented, the resulting game, Battle Angels, isevaluated along with the game design and development. Battle Angels is a 2D real-timemultiplayer action game, the development of it lead to the conclusions and results in thisthesis.The abstract nature of the subject of this thesis makes it impossible to present a set of numerical values that can be compared to existing research. The result is therefore presented byshowing images from the actual game with a discussion. It could be concluded that designing and implementing a fast paced multiplayer game on a computer tablet system is a majorchallenge. It typically requires developers to incorporate a variety of different technologiesinto their implementation in order to succeed. It could also be concluded that each technology in its isolation were not a major issue, however combining them and allowing them toco-exist were.