Albion Online is a cross-platform sandbox MMO RPG game. This talk takes you behind the (technical) scenes. We will take a look at the structure of the server farm and its inner workings, the databases, the threading and message processing model and many other interesting implementation aspects. On the client side, Albion uses the well-known Unity game engine. The second part of the talk will describe how we use Unity (and which features we do not use, which is just as important!)

1. ALBION ONLINE: A CROSS-PLATFORM MMO
David Salz
CTO / Co-Founder
david@sandbox-interactive.com

3. What is Albion Online?
Albion Online is a modern
interpretation of EVE Online with
the skill based combat from
League of Legends
ABOUT ALBION ONLINE

4. • Sandbox MMORPG
• Cross-Platform (Windows/OSX/Linux/Android/iOS)
• One World (no „Shards“ or „Servers“, not even for different platforms)
• 4 years in the making
• Currently in Closed Beta w/ 100.000+ „founding“ players
• „Release“ in Q4/2016
ABOUT ALBION ONLINE

5. • Engine Selection: Unity
• powerful, accessible
• Cross-Platform was a „target of opportunity“
• Database Selection: Cassandra, Postgres
• One world  need a very scalable database, NoSQL
• still use SQL for query-heavy problems
• Networking Middleware: Photon
• UDP (reliable/unreliable), TCP
• can use C# on server (like in Unity!)
• works with all Unity platforms
MIDDLEWARE SELECTION

6. • NoSQL Database
• Originally developed by Facebook
• Open Source (Apache-License)
• written in Java
• Concept: everything is a hash table
• in-memory (as much as possible)
• optimized for high throughput
• scales horizontally (just add servers)
• redundant (no single point of failure)
• CQL: SQL-like language (w/ massive restrictions – it‘s NoSQL)
CASSANDRA

7. • Server needs to work without Unity
• Ideally, client works without Unity, too!
• think: tools, stress-test-bots!
• Use Unity only as rendering front-end
• cannot rely on Unity features for basic functions!
• levels / game objects
• collision
• pathfinding
CONSEQUENCES

8. ObjectFactory ObjectViewFactory
Object
+Position
+…
+RequestAction()
ObjectView
+Renderer
+AnimationCtrl
+HandleInput()
destroyed
changed
…etc..
created
Object
+Position
+…
+RequestAction()
Server Client Unity-Client
Interest-Management
changed
…etc..
obj-enter
obj-leave
manage
create create
SEPARATION

9. Game Server
Game Server
Game Server
Login Server
World Server
Marketplace Server
GoldMarket Server
Statistics Server
Ranking Server
BackOffice Server
Chat Server
Client
Connect to different game
server depending on
location in game world
Game DB
(Cassandra)
Accounts DB
(Postgres)
Market DB
(Postgres)
GoldMarket DB
(Postgres)
SERVER FARM

10. • game world split into unique „clusters“ of ~ 1 km²
• current world: ~600, next world: x2
• distributed among game servers
• player changes servers when travelling
• handoff done through database (even on same server)
• World Server
• responsible for everything „global“
• guilds, parties, coordination of guild battles etc.
SERVER FARM

12. IO Thread
IO ThreadNetwork IO
Thread
Event
Queue
Logging IO
Thread
Event
Scheduler
Cluster Thread
Event
Queue
Event
Scheduler
Cluster Thread
Pathfinding
Thread
Database IO
Thread
Cluster Thread makes
request
Events / Results get
put into Event Queue
Cluster polls Events from
Queue and Scheduler
GAME SERVER – THREADING MODEL

13. • Players should only „see“ (network-
wise) what‘s on their screen
• important to reduce traffic…
• … and prevent cheating!
• Needs to be efficient!
• ~500 mobs / cluster
• > 10.000 game objects (e.g. trees)
• up to 300 players
player
GAME SERVER – INTEREST MANAGEMENT

14. grid based hash (10x10m cells)
● cells contain list of objects inside
● list is updated by object itself when moving
● cells fire events:
● ObjectEnteredCell()
● ObjectLeftCell()player
● objects also fire events
● ObjectMoved()
● ObjectDestroyed()
● EventFired()
GAME SERVER – INTEREST MANAGEMENT

15. player
Interest area
Moves with player
Subscribe to objects when they
enter inner area
Unsubscribe when they leave
outer area
Tell player when:
● an object enters / leaves interest area
● an object in the area fires an event
GAME SERVER – INTEREST MANAGEMENT

16. Level consists of
„tiles“ (Unity prefabs)
Tile has 3d collider
(for mouse picking +
ground height
definition)
2d collision is painted
per tile
(blocks movement /
blocks shots / blocks
placement etc.)
Ground tile
Object (non-ground) tile
LEVEL DESIGN

17. Collision
• TODO: pictures, demo
Collision of all tiles
is blended together
COLLISION

18. • Character + Equipment
gets baked into one
mesh (= 1 draw call!)
• parts of character mesh
hidden depending on
equipment
• Only one material for
character + all equipment
items
• Limit number of
characters drawn (esp.
on mobile)
CHARACTER RENDERING

20. • .NET code is very accessible for analysis
• camera hacks (minior problem because of interest management)
• found internal tools, cheats in code (not working on live)
• extracted data from client
• maps, player rankings… lead to cool community projects!
• Users built bots directly into client 
• Difficult to prevent
• Obfuscation – helps, but not much
• We are doing more integrity checks now!
• Future: Unity IL2CPP ?
CHEATERS

22. THE END
Thank you!
Questions / Comments?
david@sandbox-interactive.com