MMO Computer Gaming Solution

Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) computer games require large volume of movement and combat packets which must be broadcast within a certain field of vision. MMO cloud gaming servers produce massive amount of communication packets when many gamers play simultaneously. The access layers of MMO game servers require high connectivity and high network throughput built on a robust architecture.

Recommended Solution Architecture

Solution description

  1. 1. Global Service Primary/Secondary Disaster Recovery
  2. By service scope, game server services can generally be classified into regional services (e.g. chat services) and global services (e.g. gateway services). If a global service encounters a fault, this will affect all players of the game. Therefore, the high-availability of global services must be ensured. This can be accomplished by building primary/secondary dual-activity nodes on the ECS instance.
  3. 2. Layered Architecture
  4. MMO games adopt a typical three-layer architecture (access layer, logic layer, and data layer). The access layer is primarily responsible for game account login authentication, communication packet decryption and client connection management. The logic layer implements the game's primary service logic, such as regional game services, chatting, and rankings. The data layer provides data persistence storage and shared cache. RDS is used to ensure disaster recovery for primary and secondary databases, read/write splitting, distributed databases, etc. At the logic layer, the core scenario servers can flexible extend the service based on the scenario, helping increase the maximum number of simultaneous players for a single zone.
  5. 3. Cross-Region Elastic Deployment
  6. Customers can deploy different game servers in Alibaba Cloud data centers in different regions. Combined with Alibaba Cloud auto scaling, the ESS enables developers to conveniently build an automatic server activation system and provides users nearby access, increasing the network access quality.
  7. 4. Dedicated Data Cache
  8. To serve a high number of simultaneous players in individual zones, MMO games use ApsaraDB for Redis and ApsaraDB for Memcache to construct a cache layer in order to accelerate the reading/writing of player's game data. This can also decrease back-end database read/write pressure. Data in the cache is taken in regular batches for persistence storage.
  9. 5. Game Update Package Downloads
  10. Built on Alibaba Cloud CDN and Object Storage Service, the game update package download system can efficiently and conveniently deliver frequent MMO game client update packages.

Solution Driven

As the computer game market has become have gradually become more intensive, growing numbers of RPGs have been released. Among RPGs, MMORPGs is one of the most popular sub-categories. As a result designers and developers are facing the new challenge of creating a mobile background architecture that provides MMO gamers the same smooth experience enjoyed by traditional PC gamers.
Alibaba Cloud has a powerful and highly reliable cloud computing platform to address the needs and challenges faced by MMO games. This solution provides the following advantages:
Large Bandwidth and High Package Volume
High Network Throughput Capacity
MMO games generally wish to provide the largest field of view possible and movement and combat are amongst the core gameplay aspects and require mutual real-time visibility between gamers on the same screen. A large volume of movement and combat packets must be broadcast within a certain field of vision. In this case, MMO game servers produce a massive amount of communication packets when many gamers are playing simultaneously. Therefore, the access layers of MMO game servers require ample network bandwidth and high network packet throughput.
Alibaba Cloud has ample bandwidth resources and Server Load Balancer provides access support through clustering. ECS, at it's highest performance, can support a PPS of several hundreds of thousands and provide Gbps-level network throughput capacity.
Elastic Resource Scalability
Elastic Resource Scalability
MMO games are characterized by 'light games' and 'time fragmentation'. As a result, the industry requires maximum conservation and utilization of game server resources in order to efficiently achieve zone and server combination for MMO game servers.
Alibaba Cloud's multiple services, including ECS and ApsaraDB for RDS, all support vertical configuration upgrade and horizontal extension. Combined with the ESS to enable automatic horizontal scaling based on service load conditions, this solution meets the needs of dynamic resource adjustment at different business stages.
High Computing Power
High Computing Power
For MMO web games, game planners hope to use strong interaction between players to attract new gamers. Therefore, they must increase the concurrent player base in individual zones as much as possible. The maximum number of gamers required to be playing simultaneously in a single zone is, generally, in the thousands. Therefore MMO web games require strong interaction and validation as well as a high game server computing power.
Alibaba Cloud ECS servers use the latest multi-core high clock speed CPUs and a flexible multi-scenario model to provide single-zone computing power through clustering. This can provide the computing power required for servers where thousands of players are playing online simultaneously in a single zone.
Nearby Access
Stable Game Access Experience
MMO web games generally adopt nearby deployment models based on zones and servers and using multiple centers across regions. This gives gamers nearby access to the game server, ensuring smooth gameplay and enhancing the gaming experience.
By taking full advantage of Alibaba Cloud's multi-regional BGP data centers and high-speed transmission network resources, developers can achieve geographically distributed deployment for each zone, giving gamers nearby access to the game and decreasing the possibility of disconnections and other glitches.
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