Proposal for setting up Network Game
Center (NGC)
By Lam, Nam Fiona 8th February 2002
Draft Version: 1.1
Motivations
As broadband network becomes more and more popular in the Internet, network games and on-line games now play an important role in game industry especially in Japan, Taiwan and Korea. High quality network game or on-line game development needs multi-discipline expertise, such as computer graphic, user interface, artificial intelligence, knowledge base acquisition, high performance computing, network engineering and software engineering. It is desirable to set up a Network Game Center in CUHK to gather necessary resources for high quality network game or on-line game developments and manage these game developments cost-effectively. This network game center is supposed to be a playground to nurture world-class game authors and developers.
Objectives
• To provide an effective and user-friendly environment for faculty and students to analyze successful network games and on-line games.
• To provide an effective and user-friendly environment for faculty and students to develop sophisticated and high quality network games and on-line games. • Call for network game development projects by lining up required resources. • To maintain game development and substantiate its continuity through formal
project management.
• To let faculty and students have hands-on experiences in project management during game development
• To organize activities or events to promote game developments in Hong Kong such as game seminars, training workshops or game competitions among
Setup phases
Phase I: Study and Research
• Setup a private network to install some successful network games, such as LF2, AOE and Heaven.
• To evaluate and asset these network games Phase II: Hands-on practice in network game coding
• Install open source network games, such as Quake and Doom, in the private network for evaluation.
• Hack these open source network games for some further enchantments Phase III: Call for network game projects
• Line up team members and resources for network game development • It may collaborate with some FYP projects in departments
Phase IV: Network game project development life cycle. • Design and task break down
• Prototyping and implementation • Testing, rectifying and fine-tuning Phase V: Competition
• Organize game competitions
• Set up network environment for such competitions
Operation and Approach:
The network game center will set up a private network to study and develop network games. This private network will be used as a playground and test bed for network game developments. These game developments are led and guided by formal software
engineering and project management life cycle that include specification, design, implementation, scheduling, task allocation and detail task break down.
Collaboration with Other Departments
As network game or on-line game development requires resources and expertise from different areas, we may need to collaborate with other departments so as to reduce the development life cycle and minimize the required resources during game developments. For examples, CSE department can help to develop the AI, UI and graphic parts of the games; IE department can help to develop the back-end servers and network protocols of the games. Other departments such as BA and ART can help to conduct the game
knowledge base acquisition.
Network game or on-line game can be used as a vehicle to conduct research in the Internet. For example, a sociologist may figure out some social behaviors of game users by analyzing these game users responses. Economists may find out people investment preference by some finance investment games.
Research Areas in Network Game Center
• Building 3D game development kit such that the development of 3D game engines becomes more effective.
• Optimization of network protocol in on-line and network games such that the network traffic in these games can be more effective, says handling over thousands of connections at the same time.
• High Performance Computing (HPC). Developing server clusters such that the back end game servers can handle thousands of requests and updating in real time. • Developing methodologies for knowledge base acquisition such that the AI game
engines can be more precise and realistic.
• Data Mining. From the data of response and feedback of network game users, we can analyze their behaviors and habits in certain aspects.
Insight from on-line game “heaven”
The popular on-line game “heaven” allows thousands of users to attack a city at the same time. The current backend computing resource of this game is very demanding. Its backend server is RISC6000 supercomputer and the network connection to this game site
Insight from network game “Little Fighter (LF2)”
(http://www.littlefighter.com/)
This game is developed by a group of CSE students since September 1999. The game development is still active today. The LF2 version 1.6 was just released on 18th January 2002. Although LF2 is developed as shareware, this game is so popular that many of its pirate copies are sold in underground market. It shows that our students are capable of developing high quality network game. Our Network Game Center can help to nurture these game developers. Through formal software engineering and project management, game developments can be maintained effectively and can be continued by their successors even when some of their key developers have left their game development projects.
Budget
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References:
• Little Fighter II , developed by two CUHK CSE students
http://www.littlefighter.com/
• Quake 2 source code is now available for download, licensed under the GPL
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake2.zip
• ID Software source archives
http://www.idsoftware.com/archives/sourcearc.html
• Games Source code
http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/software/sources/index.htm#games
• Game Design Web Sites
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~dalamb/Games/design/gameDesignSites.html
• Game Source Code
http://www.ziron.com/links/srccode.htm
• Network Game Programming
http://flipcode.com/network/
• Gamedev
http://gamedev.net/
• Google Gamming Networks
http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Computer_Platforms/Mult
iplayer/Gaming_Networks/
• Google game on Linux platform
http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Computer_Platforms/Linu x/
• HK Yahoo on-line games
http://hk.yahoo.com/Recreation_and_Life/Games/Computer_Games/Internet_Ga mes/_Web_Games/
• Newsgroup: Abstract algorithms for games
• Newsgroup: General info on programming games
news:comp.games.development.programming.misc
