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Modelling of Network Traffic for Multiplayer Role Playing Games Based on User Behaviour UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING Mirko Sužnjević MODELLING OF NETWORK TRAFFIC FOR MULTIPLAYER ROLE PLAYING GAMES BASED ON USER BEHAVIOUR DOCTORAL THESIS Zagreb, 2012. Mirko Sužnjević MODELIRANJE MREŽNOG PROMETA VIŠEKORISNIČKIH IGARA S PREUZIMANJEM ULOGA TEMELJENO NA KORISNIKOVOM PONAŠANJU DOKTORSKI RAD Zagreb, 2012. The doctoral thesis was completed at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Department of Telecommu- nications. Mentor: Professor Maja Matijaševic,´ Ph.D. University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing The thesis has 194 pages. Thesis number: i The dissertation evaluation and defence committee: 1. Professor Igor Pandžic,´ Ph.D. University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Com- puting 2. Professor Mladen Kos, Ph.D. University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Com- puting 3. Professor Saša Dešic,´ Ph.D. Ericsson Nikola Tesla Zagreb 4. Asst. Professor Fabio Ricciato, Ph.D. Universita del Salento, Lecce Italy 5. Asst. Professor Lea Skorin-Kapov, Ph.D. University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Com- puting Date of dissertation defence: 11th May 2012 ii For Antigona and Vukasil... iii Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my mentor prof. Maja Matijaševic,´ for all the help, guidance, and understanding she has given me during this work. Also, I want to thank her for giving me an opportunity to combine my passion about networked games with my work which made working on this thesis much more enjoyable. I want to thank all of my colleagues from the Department of Telecommunications that I have collaborated with over the years. I want to give special mention to Ogi for all the help provided especially in the start of my research, Lea for the corrections, Valter for the great assistance regarding Linux and Free BSD, Tomo, Ana, and Vedran for all the advices, young folks Iva, Darijan, Marija and Kruno for all the fun and discussions, Saška for the long teaching cooperation, Marin and Krešo for the witting tips, and also former co-workers Agata, Ana, Jura, Matko, and Puh. This work would not be possible without the assistance of my “virtual friends” who were constantly bugged by my research requests. Kuba, Daud, Dada, Neb, Zmaj, Divljak, and Ivek: you are the proof that while game worlds may be virtual, they create true friends. Special thanks to my best friend and love Tanja as she wholeheartedly helped me during all steps of my research, not just by participation, but also with unending support, understanding, and love. I have had the honour of guiding some really talented and smart students from who I want to specially thank Ivana and Borna who were actively involved in the creation of this thesis. Finally, nothing of this would be possible without the love, support, and encouragement of my family who are everything to me, sister Milena, and parents Jelena and Nikola. Also, a thank to all of my broader family, and especially aunt Nada. iv Abstract While network traffic characteristics of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) are known to be very variable and somehow linked to game dynamics and user behaviour, the actual relationships have, thus far, not been described in a comprehensive and unified way, which could sucessfully be applied for synthetic traffic generation. This thesis aims to fill this gap by proposing a novel source based MMORPG traffic model, which explains and captures observed variations of traffic characteristics. The proposed model takes user behaviour at the application level as a starting point. As networked virtual worlds of MMORPGs are very complex, there is a wide variety of in-game situations based on “what users do” in the virtual world, which reflect onto network traffic in different ways. The model focuses on capturing, recognizing, understanding, and describing the relationships between user actions and network traffic. A classification proposed in this thesis distinguishes between the following user action categories: Trading, Questing, Player versus player combat, Dungeons, and Raiding. For each action category, a traffic model capturing the statistical characteristics of network traffic has been developed and validated through net- work traffic measurements. Client and server application protocol data unit size and interrarival time have been modeled by a combination of several distributions, including Weibull, Normal, Lognormal, Largest Extreme Value, and Deterministic. Next, the player behaviour over a sin- gle gaming session has been studied and modelled based on the defined action categories by using a first order Markov chain. Finally, the aggregate behaviour of all active users on a sin- gle MMORPG server has been described. The arrival of new players and departure of leaving players are modeled as a Homogeneous Poisson Process (HPP). Based on the proposed model, a functional architecture of a MMORPG traffic generator based on player behaviour, called UrBBaN-Gen, has been developed and implemented by using Java, Python and bash scripts, v Abstract together with the open source software traffic generator – Distributed Internet Traffic Genera- tor (D-ITG). Synthetic traffic generated by UrBBaN-Gen has been compared with independent empirical traces, and it has been demonstrated that the characteristics of the generated traffic closely follow the real traffic. Also, the model has been compared with the models found in literature, and its advantages over the existing models have been shown. The contribution of this thesis may be summarized as follows: • Classification of user actions in the virtual world of MMORPGs, and characterization of associated network traffic; • User behaviour model based on categories of user actions, motivational parameters, and identified behavioural patterns on application level; and • Architecture and implementation of traffic generator based on the model and verification of the model through comparison of synthetic and real traffic. Keywords Network traffic modelling, source network traffic model, communication network, Internet, user behaviour modelling, networked virtual environment, network traffic generation, online game, MMORPG vi Sažetak Karakteristike mrežnog prometa koji generiraju višekorisnickeˇ igre s preuzimanjem uloga su vrlo promjenjive. Varijacije u mrežnom opterecenju´ mogu dostizati i razliku od deset puta izmedu¯ najniže i najviše vrijednosti. Treba uzeti u obzir da je rijecˇ o prosjecnimˇ vrijednostima u vremenskim periodima na razini minuta, pa cakˇ i sati. U ovoj disertaciji predložen je izvorišni model mrežnog prometa. Izvorišni modeli mrežnog prometa temelje se na ponašanju aplikacija koje se nalaze na krajnjim tockamaˇ mreže. Pred- loženi model objašnjava i obuhvaca´ uoceneˇ varijacije karakteristika mrežnog prometa. Model se temelji na ponašanju korisnika unutar višekorisnickihˇ igara s preuzimanjem uloga. Kao studijski slucajˇ koristi se umrežena igra World of Warcraft proizvoda¯ caˇ Activision Blizzard. Kako su virtualni svjetovi ovih igara vrlo složeni, a broj interakcija i situacija u kojem se ko- risnik može naci´ velik, za potrebe modeliranja predložena je klasifikacija korisnickihˇ akcija. Predložene kategorije korisnickihˇ akcija su: trgovanje, traganje ili izvršavanje zadataka, borba izmedu¯ igraca,ˇ napadanje tamnica i masovno napadanje tamnica. Razlicitostˇ identificiranih kat- egorija ponašanja potvrdena¯ je kroz mjerenje i usporedbu karakteristika mrežnog prometa po- jedinacneˇ kategorije. Za svaku kategoriju kreiran je matematickiˇ model mrežnog prometa koji se sastoji od kompleksnih statistickihˇ distribucija koje opisuju velicinuˇ jedinica podataka koji se šalju na razini aplikacije (ne na razini, primjerice, datagrama protokola IP), te medudolazna¯ vremena izmedu¯ dva uzastopna slanja jedinica podataka. Na temelju identificiranih kategorija provedena su mjerenja ponašanja korisnika pomocu´ kojih je kreiran model ponašanja korisnika. Kreirani model opisuje ponašanje pojedinacnogˇ korisnika, ali i zbirno ponašanje svih korisnika na razini usluge. Takoder,¯ proucenˇ je odnos izmedu¯ psihološke motivacije korisnika i njihovog ponašanja na razini aplikacije. Razvijeni modeli ponašanja korisnika i njihov utjecaj na mrežne karakteristike prometa ob- vii Sažetak jedinjeni su kroz funkcijsku arhitekturu programskog generatora mrežnog prometa utemeljenog na ponašanju korisnika (engl. User Behaviour Based Network Traffic Generator - UrBBaN- Gen.). UrBBaN-Gen cineˇ tri programska modula: 1) simulator korisnickogˇ ponašanja, 2) sus- tav za kontrolu distribuiranog generiranja prometa te 3) generator mrežnog prometa. Simulator korisnickogˇ ponašanja razvijen je primjenom programskog jezika Java, a sustav za kontrolu dis- tribuiranog generiranja prometa primjenom Jave te Python i Bash skripti. Generator mrežnog prometa temelji se na softveru otvorenog koda Distribuirani internetski mrežni generator (engl. Distributed Internet Traffic Generator – D-ITG), koji je modificiran kako bi se u njega ugradili modeli prometa predloženih kategorija korisnickihˇ akcija. Razvijeni model mrežnog prometa je usporeden¯ s modelima za istu uslugu poznatima u literaturi te su pokazane njegove prednosti. Takoder,¯ model je verificiran kroz usporedbu sin- tetickog,ˇ racunalnoˇ generiranog prometa sa stvarnim prometom, te je pokazano da karakteristike generiranog prometa zadovoljavajuce´ sliceˇ karakteristikama stvarnog prometa. Znanstveni doprinos disertacije je sljedeci:´ • Klasifikacija tipova korisnickihˇ akcija
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