Summaries Week 9
The Effect of Latency and Network Limitations on MMORPGs
In the paper authors describe a study to evaluate the effect of latency and network limitations on MMORPGs. They use Everquest2 as the base to conduct these tests. Authors start with giving brief information of how massive virtual environments are handled on the server side. They then go on to explain the background of Everquest2.
The tests focused on three aspects of the game. Two expert players were picked up for the tests and then given the similar systems and equipment. They were put in different sub-nets in order to be able to influence the subnets individually. The three aspects that were tested were:
1) Movement and Combat: Both the players were assigned the same task of slaying a monster and then running. The task were tested at various latencies starting from 250ms to 5000ms. The expected break point was 500ms but it turned out to be 1250ms. They found out that the time required to complete the tasks was directly proportional to the latency.
2) Group Combat: The task was one that required a group for the battle. The base was to test the coordination between the players. Similar to the first test they expected the co-ordination to breakdown at 500ms but it was found that the coordination still worked out at 1000ms after which it was off.
3) Movement / Environment: This time they test by having different latencies for the players. One player was induced with a latency of 1500ms. It was found out that the one with the higher latency lagged in terms of movement as well as positioning in the environment.
One drawback though of the tests was that they were conducted only on two players whereas in genral they would have a much larger number of players at one time
Alice: Lessons Learned from Building 3D System for Novices:
In the papers authors describe Alice a 3D System that allows novice users with nearly no knowledge of 3D graphics or programming to animate. The goal of the authors was to create an authoring tool to make 3D graphics available to a wider range of audience. They further proceed to explain the workflow of Alice. Alice works in 2 Phases , creating a scene and scripting. Alice allows people to import models of popular formats. Scene creation is aided by the use of drop down menus, overloading and animation of commands. This allows user to perform the desired tasks in various ways possible and also realizing on screen the effects of hi work. Python was used as a scripting language with minor modifications. One of them being making it case insensitive. Later in the paper authors describe their findings when the system was tested by 100 users. The users were paired up and left to figure out the system without any help from the developers. Major findings were using the sense of direction in place of XYZ co-ordinate system, self-animation of commands, allowing the user to select the frame of reference ( allowing objects to have their frame of reference), overloading of commands etc. really made the working more enjoyable and less of painful.
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