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Online Gaming
Kevin Curran, Paul Canning, Martin Laughlin, Ciarán McGowan and
Rory Carlin Internet Technologies Research Group University of
Ulster, Magee Campus, Northland Road, Northern Ireland, UK
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of the ARPANET and the development
of TELNEX (1971), e-mail gaming became popular.
The use of e-mail to play games over the network was
borrowed from ‘playing-by-post’ which was popular
before the advent of widespread internet usage [1].
The engine that was developed and used was the MUD’s
(Multi-User Dungeon). This was the use of a server
program that users logged into to play the game based
on a maze or rooms. Clients ran with telnet or other text
programs to connect. MUD’s are still alive on the
internet although they were developed before the
advent of the World Wide Web [2]. Online games have
advanced and evolved from these text based systems,
into graphical displays and, finally, persistent online
worlds in which customers are citizens and make a
difference just as they do in the real world. Lately there
have been a lot of moves to give more people
opportunities to play online than before. The console
has been a popular way to play off line for a large
number of years and console manufacturers have taken
note how people have been using the internet to play.
This, combined with the uptake of broadband by large
percentage of home users has led to a growth in console
owners buying newer versions that support online
gaming opportunities.
Towards the end of the nineties, online games began to
catch on and reach greater heights with the introduction
of First Person Shooter (FPS) games, such as
‘Counterstrike’ and ‘Quake III Arena’ to the
online
market. In these games players could roam freely about
levels/arenas in real-time either mindlessly killing (or
as it later became known as ‘fragging’) each other or,
form teams and play tactical war games such as
‘capture the flag’. Along with the arrival of this format
online facilities, such as ‘MPlayer’ were created so
that
players could set up online accounts and run their own
competitions with the rest of the world in a giant freefor-
all, or lock the entrances to the areas in which they
play as simply play amongst a selected group of people.
Online accounts like MPlayer also adapted their
formats to suit other forms of online gaming which
were now becoming popular. One of their most
innovative changes came with the arrival of the PC’s
intergalactic squad based piloting game, ‘Freespace’.
It
was similar to the older versions in the way players
could set up, open and lock their games from other
users but now they could do much more. Facilities were
created for players (pilots) that had no teams so that
they could speak and get to know other teams or teamless
pilots on the network, prove themselves to them
and test others forming new and bigger teams. They
also set up areas for experienced pilots, whose team
may not have been playing at the time, so that they
could hire themselves out as mercenaries to the team
who would bid the highest number of points for their
services, allowing the mercenary pilot to play any time
without his/her team and gain valuable experience
points
One of the latest exciting genres to emerge from the
depths of online gaming is online ‘Role Playing Games’
(RPG). In games such as Sega’s ‘Phantasy Star
Online’, vast worlds were created for thousands of
Dreamcast users to interact with each other, fight side
by side and follow well laid out storylines. Sega’s
Dreamcast was the first games console to attempt
online gaming but did so long before its time and
subsequently failed, as the technology was not there to
support smooth game play and maintain its high quality
graphics through a regular 56k modem. The world was
not yet ready for the introduction of online console
gaming. Sega may have failed at their attempt but the
genre flourished in the PC market with such titles as
‘Everquest’ and ‘Star Wars: Galaxies’. These
RPG
titles attracted massive amounts of players to the online
games market and soon became known as ‘Massively
Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games’ (MMORPG)
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