Efficient Robust Networking
Speaker: Ben Garney (Founder, PushButton Labs)
Date/Time: Wednesday (September 17, 2008) 3:00pm — 4:00pm
Location (room): Room 4
Track: Online Games - Technology and Services
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: Advanced

Session Description
Good networked games are hard to develop, be they FPS, RTS, or MMO. Bandwidth costs money, and networks are never entirely reliable, introducing delays and losing packets. Cheaters and hackers are ready to take advantage of any flaw in your protocols. Learn battle-tested techniques for maximizing your game's networking code. Both architecture and implementation details are discussed, drawing from experience with the Torque Networking Library (www.opentnl.org), based on the award winning networking in Tribes and Tribes 2.

Idea Takeaway
Attendees leave understanding TNL's architecture and why it can deal well with adverse network situations. Anyone writing networked gameplay will leave with specific techniques, battle tested in shipping games, that they can use to minimize bandwidth, simplify debugging, increase scalability, and resist hackers and cheaters.

Intended Audience
Network programmers and engine designers who want to develop games that thrive in network play. MMO developers who want to maximize the number of players they can support on each server.