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Party at U-M Dearborn lets computer gamers get in some side-by-side play
July 9, 2003 BY HEATHER NEWMAN

FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

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The Apache helicopter circled over the metal-roofed hut, the whub-whub-whub of the blades clearly audible in Vladi Gergov's headphones. His eyes remained fixed on the door, where he knew his opponent was waiting. Five times before, he'd sent missiles hurtling into the flimsy building, turning it into a fireball. But this time, a lone figure ERIC SEALS/DFP darted out, hid behind a nearby Computer gamer Keith Current, 33, of Warren played all weekend at the party on the University of Michigantank and fired one perfectly Dearborn campus. targeted blast from a rocket launcher. A group of men nearby hooted with glee as Gergov found himself tumbling through the air, a victim of his own game -- a specially modified version of a computer game called "Battlefield 1942." Welcome to a LAN party, where you can die a hundred deaths from dark until dawn and still have a roaring good time. Every weekend around Michigan, thousands of people pack up their computers, their monitors, their keyboards and headphones and mice, then head out to a local basement, meeting hall or college campus to join other players in a binge of video games. Named after the computer connections that JOIN THE PARTY hook them all together, a local area network (LAN), the parties are a chance for gamers to
DESIREE C is a link to b DREW SHA says should MATT HELM fixes will hav TOM WALS bolster build RiverWalk More colum
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/lan9_20030709.htm

12/16/2003

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hang out and chat, meet people in person that they play online, grab some food and listen to some music.
"They're fun," said Nick Czechowski, 22, of Oakland Township, a senior at Oakland Generally, you have to bring University. "There's no computer lag. It's nice your own PC or console, and to just be able to say, 'Watch your right!' " there's a modest fee of $10$25. Some gaming parties Gergov, 22, and Czechowski were at one of are open only to those over the biggest, called MPCon, at the University age 18. of Michigan-Dearborn. Up to 150 people lug in their PCs for MPCon four times a year. But Here are some Web sites to there are other LAN events that draw 15 check for events near you: players and more. Grim's Place, Some have tournaments, some don't. Some www.grimsplace.com specify the games people will play. Others, like MPCon, make arrangements to support a LANParty.com, few great titles, but let people bring and play www.lanparty.com anything they like, rolling with the crowd's choices. Blue's News (click on LAN Party List in the links on the At an MPCon party last month, Gergov and left side). Flavio Cerrone, also 22, sat amid a sea of souped-up computers lined up on tables in a www.bluesnews.com campus recreation hall. Around the room, gamers were fighting with and against each HeadShot Entertainment, other on screen, sucking down cans of www.headshotent.com Mountain Dew Live Wire and Amp between bites of pizza and pulls on industrial-sized The LAN Party Coalition, Pixie Stix sugar tubes, listening to trance and www.lanpartycoalition.com electronica spun by a DJ and swapping stories and game news with the people MPCon, www.mpcon.org sitting around them. Outside, a small crowd leaned casually against the wall in the night air, chatting. They wore the unofficial uniform of the event -- collared shirts, long shorts, hair trimmed short -- and didn't pause in their conversations to acknowledge the shouts of victory and moans of defeat that poured from the doors. In the parking circle in front of them, another man prepared to join in the fray, carefully unloading the tall tower of his PC from his red Ford Escort onto a large rolling cart. After midnight, when just about everyone who was coming for the night had shown up and set up, the lights were turned down. A rumble of approval rose from the gamers, the music picked up and the play got serious. The tables where gamers sat, row after row, were illuminated by the eerie glow of the computers themselves, many of which had sides cut away to display neon tubes of light and other custom modifications behind glass. Some computers spouted water-cooling tubes that made them look like aliens. Others had neon components lit by black lights. LAN parties typically start on a Friday and last the weekend, wrapping up as

Gaming parties for PCs and consoles (like PlayStation 2 or Xbox) are held nearly every weekend.

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people break down their PCs and pack them back in the car on Sunday morning. Events that allow players under 18 (as MPCon did until recently) often have gamers crashing in the aisles in sleeping bags before getting up to play again. Most of the adults pop back to their houses, grab a shower, a meal and an hour or two of sleep, then return. Jeff Lundberg, a 24-year-old who looks so young that he says he gets carded for R-rated movies, has been running MPCon since he helped found it four years ago. Getting 140 gamers in the same room every three months is not just a social feat. It's also an engineering nightmare. The group brings its own circuit breaker panel and miles of heavy-duty orange extension cords and network cables to connect all the PCs. Five beefy servers with multiple processor-chip brains inside host the group games, and specialized computer boxes handle the connections to the Internet. The gatherings started in Lundberg's basement. When they grew to the point where people wouldn't fit -- and he started blowing multiple circuits every time they got together -- he knew he had to look for a bigger place to play. Lundberg, a student at U-M Dearborn, is president of the Association for Computing Machinery, the student group that MPCon raises money for -- not that it often does more than break even. So it was a small step to reserve the hall space, even though he and his friends initially thought maybe 20 people would show up. Now the $25 events usually sell out within six hours of opening registration online. At the last gathering, many people, like Gergov and Cerrone, were playing the modified version of "Battlefield 1942" called "Desert Combat." It updates the highly regarded military PC game with Desert Storm-style weaponry and scenery. But there were also other shoot-'em-ups, like "Counter Strike" and "Unreal Tournament," and strategy games like "Warcraft III" and "Command & Conquer Generals." Some players brought games specifically to go head to head with friends they knew would attend. One man was playing "Dungeon Siege" against his younger brother at home over the Internet. Everyone was playing against someone else, but the mood was friendly and welcoming. Even the shouted dialog between players who didn't use onscreen chat was cheerful. "Hey, get this over here, Jeremy," called one player to another. "Get this gun. OK, try shooting me now." That's not to say things don't get intense. People gang up on each other if they think someone's winning too often -- it was four on one against Gergov at one point -- and they celebrate their victories loudly. "I've been gaming since I was 19, and I've broken keyboards and mice at people's houses" at smaller parties, said Keith Current, a 33-year-old in

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information technology at DaimlerChrysler. "I'm too old now," he adds, chuckling, his casual attitude belied by the cold case of Live Wire sitting next to his monitor. Larry Douglas, a 22-year-old Oakland University student and IT manager from Rochester Hills, remembers the days when he ruled the local gaming universe playing one particular title that's no longer on the circuit. "I was never down during those two years because I could sign on and go" -he slaps one hand against the other, palm side, back side, palm side -- "and go home." But he still comes, and says he has a great time. "As long as you're a gamer, it doesn't matter how old or young you are," he says. He described one man in his 40s who came recently, complete with executive chair and 21-inch flat-panel plasma monitor. The group cheerfully accepted him. That's the kind of LAN party animal that Douglas aspires to be. "I'm going to keep coming," he says, "until arthritis stops me." Contact HEATHER NEWMAN at 313-223-3336 or newman@freepress.com. Find her gaming online as Gbits.
Copyright 2003 Detroit Free Press Inc. All rights reserved.

SOCOM: Bringing a Console Game Online
Presented By: Seth Luisi Sr. Producer Sony Computer Entertainment America Glen Van Datta Director of Online Technology Sony Computer Entertainment America Dr. Bob Gutmann Software Engineer Zipper Interactive, Inc.
Why should we listen to you?
SOCOM has sold thru over 1 million units in North America alone since its release on August 28th, 2002. There are over 300,000 active SOCOM players that have played online in the last 30 days. 50,000 to 60,000 people play SOCOM everyday. On the weekends, players log over 170,000 hours of game time for a very high average of 3 hours per person.
No really, why should we listen to you?
In the last 7 days, consumers have logged 1,038,134 hours on SOCOM. During peak hours (3-7pm PST), there are 11,000 to 12,000 simultaneous people playing SOCOM. On an average day, SOCOM has more simultaneous players than all but one of the competing online PC Games; including Battlefield 1942, UT2003, Medal of Honor, Americas Army or Quake3. The only reason why we are here is because we want to see many more successful, online console games.
Design Goals for SOCOM Online
1. Create 2 separate, full games
A full online game and a full single player game
This equals double the work/resources
2. Provide the player with a full online game experience

16 players

Required client/server, which is $$$
Voice Chat Built in community support
Clans and ladder rankings
Design Goals for SOCOM Online (continued)
Make it easy for console players
UI Screens need to be very well designed
Quick and easy to navigate Use familiar interface conventions Persistent appearance Psychological grouping
Focus the online gameplay
Dont try to do everything; try to do one thing really, really well and build upon that
You have to ship before the console hardware changes
Enable the community to police itself
Password protected games Easy to vote out players

Major Production Hurdles

Everything was brand new, everything.

A dependency nightmare

Testing, testing, testing. NAT and Firewall Devices
Be sure to perform a real Public Beta test
AKA A peer to peer nightmare
Post game release server deployment

You mean were not done?

Localization
Japanese and Korean text input
We need to display 5,000+ Kanji and 2350 Hangul???
Advice for Creating an Online Console Game
Look at online PC games for guidance Dont look at online PC games for guidance Enable player to player communication
No communication = no community

Add community features

Ladders, clans, stat tracking, etc
Bring console production values to online gaming
Advice for Creating an Online Console Game (continued)
Try to anticipate the worst
Because the reality will be much worse than what you can anticipate
Cheating Exploits Rude behavior Spamming
SCE-RT Networking SDK Architecture
Glen Van Datta Director of Online Technology Sony Computer Entertainment America
SCE-RT SDK/Infrastructure
SCE-RT PS2 Online Titles SCE-RT Medius SDK SCE-RT DME SDK SCE-RT Client Simulations SCE-RT Server Monitoring tools

SCE-RT PS2 Online Titles

Currently integrated into 28 1st party titles world wide Growing by 2-3 per month Good PS2 Title sells millions
Expect > 20,000 simultaneous online
Easily > 200,000 simultaneous World Wide soon Over 500,000 Network Adapter units sold in U.S (Projected for 3/2003)
Network Adapter sales give accurate online user base XBox Live kits similar information Unlike PC
Internet Game Soon Required for competitive edge

SCE-RT Medius SDK

The SCE-RT Medius SDK is the player matching service for the online experience. Infrastructure
Medius Universe Manager Medius Lobby Server Medius Authentication Server Medius Proxy Server Medius Database Caching Server Medius Universe Information Server
Client Side Coding Requirement
Medius Client Medius Game Communication Library (MGCL)

SCE-RT Medius SDK (Continued)
Client/Server architecture
Composes all backend services for online gaming User authentication and security engine Player matching and game list management Create a game, join a game, play the game Persistent player statistic tracking Lobby and in-game chat Buddy Lists and Instant Messaging Clan and Ladder support Client platform: PlayStation 2, Linux, Windows Server platforms: PlayStation 2, Linux, Windows

SCE-RT DME SDK

The RTIME Distributed Memory Engine (DME) SDK is a central part of the game application. The DME SDK is packaged into 3 components, DME client, DME Session Master and DME Server
Native object interface Broadcast scheduling Client-side & server-side filtering Global timebase Reliable & latency critical communications Security Peer to peer client connections Integrated Server Client platform: PlayStation 2, Linux, Windows Server platforms: PlayStation 2, Linux, Windows
DME Client/Session Master/Server

Session

Session Master(s)

Master

DME Server

Client Simulations

Linux Based Runs on Production or Development machines 1000 clients on production, 500 client on development Represents identical Medius capability Mimics Game Traffic rates Loosely based on User behavior

85-92 percent in game

Creating games Joining games Playing games
4% in lobby 5% in lobby/game transition 1-6%% chatting

Server Monitoring tools

Backend Monitoring (Server Executables)
System Health Monitoring CPU, Memory, IO, Frame times, Connections User Monitoring
Application Counts Chat User IP addresses Hours played Logins

User data very valuable

What features/games users like most Where users are coming from and what times Sine wave usage graphs
Server Monitoring tools (Continued)

2000 Series1 Series2

2 weeks after Launch

0 Series1 Series2

10 weeks after Launch
SOCOM In-Game Multiplayer
Bob Gutmann Software Engineer Zipper Interactive, Inc. bobg@zipperint.com
Game Based on SCE-RT DME Architecture
Client-Server network Two modes of data transmission
Objects Sent on a schedule Messages Sent on demand

DME takes care of network interface One player is the Session Master Voice chat not based on SCE-RT code

SOCOM Online Game Flow

Medius Handoff Connect to DME, Join Game Pick Weapons, Character, etc. Load Database End of Game Play a ROUND

DME Network Objects

Basically a C-struct Each field is registered with the DME
Data type (size) Associate with a schedule

Define callbacks

Create When a new object is born Update When any field is updated Destroy When the object is removed

SOCOM Network Objects

Persona Created as you join Game Created by the SM SEAL Created at end of DB load Grenade Created on demand FootBomb Created at end of DB load for demolition games

SEAL Object Example

Contains avatar information (position, velocity, health, and so on) Position data (floats) @ 2.0 units, 100 ms Velocity data (8 bits) @ 0.0 units, 100 ms Horizontal velocity applied to position between updates Smooth position changes when update comes in

DME Network Messages

For relatively rare updates Also C-struct based Register message & callback (handler) Register each field Can be variable length

Housekeeping Messages

New client connects Client disconnects Client joins Client leaves possibly a new SM assigned

SOCOM Join Logic

Line 2

Line 3

Line 4

Line 5

S M S ta rt S ta rt N e w C lie n t J o in s C a llb a c k C onnect
O th e r P la y e r s ? Yes W a it
Fo rm Gam e S ig n a l M essage Yes
T im e Out ? No No G am e S ig n a l ? Yes P ro ce e d A s L a t e J o in e r No OK to J o in ?

Yes J o in

Voice Chat Overview
Developed by Secret Level Inc. Public domain G.723 CODEC (3KB/sec) UDP protocol (point-to-point) Walkie-talkie type with one talker per channel at a time (256 channels) Channel arbitration required UDP/NAT problem
How to Stay Out of MP Trouble
Get out of single player mindset (player actions) Limit animations that move (important) stuff Establish interfaces with other code segments Understand what causes data transmissions Test as many ways as possible (Squiggle, etc.)

What Went Wrong

SCE-RT Issues
Developing code as we were Changing the API as we go Documentation Server scalability
Too Much Logic in UI Scripts Test Tools - ? Voice chat integration

What Went Right

Very responsive to reported bugs DME Code finally stabilized
Reasonably Good I/F With Other Code Good I/F Between BEI-Medius and Zipper

Thank you!

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