The Anet Game Server

The Anet game server is a place where people playing over the Net can find opponents, chat, and launch games. It is accessed directly by the game, and sometimes also by a Web browser. It consists of a program which we distribute free of charge to Internet Service Providers and other interested parties. An up to date list of all servers is maintained by a master server, and is downloaded by the Anet library when users connect to any game server.

The server executable is part of the Linux version of the Anet SDK. The intrepid game programmer may run his or her own game server and/or score server during development; contact Dan Kegel for more info.

The current version of the server acts mostly as a player-matching service; Anet games use Anet Game Servers as gathering places for people starting or joining games. In addition, the following features were being worked on in 1998-1999, and are in various stages of completion:

• Robustness: a load test application (not yet included!?) can simulate hundreds of typical users, can be used to verify that the game servers can give good service to users even when being pounded by a large number of users.
• Authentication: users will log in to the server when they first access it; this generates marketing data, lets the server notify people when their buddies log in, and gives the server a username to tally player scores under.
• Score reporting: when players kill opponants or achieve mission objectives during play, these events are reported to the server, which relays them to a central database. Players are then ranked by score at the game vendor's web site. (The notion of score can be defined differently for each game, at the game designer's discretion.)

Current Anet Game Servers

Some info about individual servers is available from the servers themselves, usually at the url http://servername/anet2.