QuON: a quad-tree-based overlay protocol for distributed virtual worlds

Abstract

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and Virtual Worlds are among the most popular applications on the internet. As player numbers increase, the limits of the currently dominant client/server architecture are becoming obvious. In this paper, we propose a new distributed event dissemination protocol for Virtual Worlds and MMOGs. This protocol is based on the idea of mutual notification: all players send their game event messages directly to all neighbouring players inside their Area of Interest (AOI). The connectedness of the system is ensured by binding neighbours. They are selected using quad-trees. We show by simulation that the proposed system achieves practical performance for Virtual Worlds and MMOGs.