User behaviour based modeling of network traffic for multiplayer role playing games

Transcription

1 User behaviour based modeling of network traffic for multiplayer role playing games Mirko Suznjevic University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing Unska 3, Zagreb, Croatia 2 nd TMA PhD school Napoli, June 2011

2 Outline Introduction Problem Proposed approach Classification of the virtual world state Traffic modeling Player behaviour modeling Implementation Conclusion Napoli, June /15

3 Introduction - MMORPGs Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPGs): Persistent virtual worlds Players represented through avatars Many possible interactions Popularity of MMORPGs is increasing Players motivation? Game developers and publishers 317 published and 83 in development Use case World of Warcraft Napoli, June /15

4 Introduction - MMORPGs Number of active MMORPG subscriptions (taken from Napoli, June /15

5 Bandwidth [PB per month] Introduction - MMORPGs Fixed Mobile Time [years] Cisco Visual Networking Index:Forecast and Methodology, Global Consumer Internet Gaming Traffic Growth Napoli, June /15

6 Problem I Highly variable bandwidth usage Same application! Napoli, June /15

7 Problem II Server traffic patterns M. Kihl, A. Aurelius, and C. Lagerstedt, Analysis of World of Warcraft traffic patterns and user behavior, in International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops, 2010, pp Napoli, June /15

8 Proposed approach Classification of the virtual world state Defined 5 player action classes Independent of a specific game Validation of established classes Network traffic measurement and analysis Traffic modeling for every class Implementation of models in D-ITG Player behaviour modeling Markov chain for a single player Poisson process for session arrivals Implementation and validation Napoli, June /15

9 Classification of the virtual world state M. Suznjevic, O. Dobrijevic, and M. Matijasevic, MMORPG player actions: Network performance, session patterns and latency requirements analysis. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 45(1-3): , Napoli, June /15

10 Number of packets (pps) Bandwidth usage (kbps) Validating established player action classes Questing Trading PvP combat Raiding Dungeons 0 0 Packet rate Bandwidth usage Napoli, June /15

11 Traffic modeling Traffic highly erratically distributed - modeled by composition of several distributions Client APDU sizes: Modeled as discrete values (14B and 35B are the most common) Client IATs Discrete values 0 and 500ms + Weibull distribution Server APDU sizes: Lognormal distribution or split consisting of two Weibull distributions Server IATs Several discrete values (44ms, 200ms, 218ms, 328ms) + Lognormal or Weibull Napoli, June /15

12 Behaviour modeling Measurements passive measurement by using a software game add-on, deployed on players' computers Detailed information, but low player count (104) Session consists out of several action specific segments Hour specific modeling of segment duration (Weibull, Smallest Extreme, Largest Extreme) Switching between segments modeled by a hour specific Markov chains Arrival and departure processes extracted from existing dataset (Y.-T. Lee, K.-T. Chen, Y.-M. Cheng, and C.-L. Lei, World of Warcraft avatar history dataset, in Proceedings of the second annual ACM conference on Multimedia systems, 2011, pp ) Napoli, June /15

13 Behaviour - traffic relationship Napoli, June /15

14 Implementation Work in progress Simulator of player behaviour Simulation of the traffic load on a single WoW server Linux Container which runs D-ITG as represents a single user Napoli, June /15

15 Conclusion Established player action classes Explained the relationship between the traffic patterns and player behaviour Modeled the player behaviour Modeled the MMORPG traffic per action class Future work: Investigation of transformational schemes for modeling the traffic Validation of behaviour patterns based on other available player behaviour logs Napoli, June /15