Bringing new HOPE to networked games: Using optimistic execution to improve quality of service

Abstract

As more games of a wider variety of genres move online to provide multiplayer experiences to their players, there is an increasing need to improve the quality of service delivered to the players of these games. Players tend to have the same performance and consistency expectations of their online multiplayer games as they do of their single player games, without realizing the issues and problems introduced by networking their games together. This results in a tremendous challenge for developers of networked games, because issues such as latency work strongly against meeting the needs of players. In this paper, we discuss the concept of optimistic execution to help game developers mask or hide the effects of latency in their networked games. We introduce the notion of optimistic execution, present our work in this area, dubbed New HOPE, and comment on its ability to assist game developers in this important area. © 2005 Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA.