Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The login
A login may be as simple as the client logging into the game server. It opens a
network connection to the server to send the username and password. The server
then verifies the username and password, and allows or denies the client to log
in. This may be true during the development of the game, but when the game is
deployed publicly and when a large number of people are on the game cluster, the
login process soon gets complicated during a public deployment.
The client first contacts the balancer, which keeps track of all the load statistics of
all the processes within the game cluster. The balancer first determines if the client
is the latest release that is compatible with the server. If so, then the login process
continues further.
The balancer then determines the least loaded session server. The determination
of least load is a combination of the number of client connections the server is
maintaining and the CPU usage of the machine.
The balancer then sends the session server's IP and port to the client for it to connect.
The client then proceeds to connect to the assigned session server, which then must
authenticate the username and password. There are two common schemes during
the login process that the authentication could be implemented.
