Network Units
Network units is a way to Decentralize multiplayer gaming and to provide developers an easy way to integrate multiplayer functionality. We will use the Ethereum blockchain and its smart contract functionality to create a platform that will allow hardware owners (service providers) to share their unused Bandwidth and CPU resources with developers who would traditionally require their own servers to drive their multiplayer functionality and earn tokens for doing so. Gamers can mine tokens from the platform by connecting their wallets to their gaming accounts to become active clients. Therefore Network Units has a unique mining process with two very different but interesting ways to mine tokens.
What Is Network Units ???
Network Units (NU) is a decentralized worldwide collaboration of computing power.
By allowing gamers and service providers to participate in our unique mining process, we will create an ultra-fast, blockchain controlled multiplayer infrastructure rentable by developers.
The majority Platforms in the Crypto-sphere account for one category of user, and at best just two. The NU Platform is unique in this aspect as we account for three categories of users:
- Developers — They feed our platform with NU tokens in order to rent out the NU multiplayer Infrastructure for their games.
- Bandwidth and Processor Lenders — They mine tokens by lending the Bandwidth and Processing that powers the NU infrastructure.
- Gamers — By connecting their wallets to an NU powered multiplayer title, gamers can participate in our verification process. The verification process helps ensure that the lenders are providing a reliable service and allow us to penalise dishonest nodes. Therefore Gamers can mine tokens just by doing what they already do and enjoy — playing games!
The Problems
- Plenty of computing resources and bandwidth on PC’s and servers remain unused.
- Writing your own network code and managing your own servers can be complicated, time consuming and expensive.
- Without interesting incentivization gamers can quickly get bored of a potentially great game.
- Cheating or broken matchmaking mechanics ruin entire gaming communities resulting in lost revenue.
- Limited infrastructure at game launch can turn a good game into a failure.
Our Solution
All of the problems mentioned above can be solved or greatly improved by the Network Units platform.
1.Turning trash into treasure
There is a lot of unused processing power and bandwidth out there, Network Units intends to leverage it into a decentralized, blockchain controlled infrastructure used for multiplayer gaming that is cost effective and reliable.
2. Multiplayer functionality can be easier and cheaper to integrate
With our easy to integrate Unity Asset developers can be freed of having to write complicated network code and the infrastructure that drives it. It will be available on the Unity Asset Store which is a highly popular third-party marketplace for the Unity Engine. This allows faster time to market and savings regarding development costs. Additionally, because Network Units relies on processing power and bandwidth that would otherwise be wasted, we can ensure a cost-effective solution that is cheaper than cloud services or dedicated hosting providers.
3.Gamers can mine tokens by playing
Network units is unique in the sense that its verification process rewards gamers that connect their wallets to their gaming accounts with tokens as they help verify the service providers. Not only does this help improve active user counts but it can drive new players to your game that are looking for fresh ways to mine tokens and have plenty of fun in the process.
4.A reputation system
The Network Units framework will have an in-built cross platform reputation system. This way when you are a collaborative player in one game it is likely you will be matched with collaborative players in all the games you play on the NU infrastructure. This reputation system can be used to support communities (guilds/clans/alliances) that are looking for a particular style of players or a minimum reputation/score. Our anti cheating mechanism will be built right into the NU framework and will work hand in hand with the reputation system in order to prevent cheaters getting matched with the fair playing majority.
5.Network Units is decentralized
Because the NU platform is decentralized we can offer a more resilient solution that is backed by its automatic failover in the event of a catastrophe or deliberate malpractices. This ensures players are seamlessly moved to a new provider so their gaming can continue without disruption.
Solved or Improved by NU
- Network Units leverages these unused resources for it’s multiplayer infrastructure.
- With NU developers can be freed of having to write complicated network code and the infrastructure that drives it for a reduced cost.
- Network Units is unique as it rewards gamers that connect their wallets to their gaming accounts.
- The NU Framework has a built in reputation system to improve fairness and help prevent cheating.
- The NU Platform can seamlessly migrate players to larger servers.
For Game Developers
MMORPG’s allow many players to interact in a shared game world. Generally, the MMORPG model of today is free to play however premium content is purchasable. This model has attracted many users although; a majority of them will not purchase any premium content. NU will be an attractive option for developers who wish to save on hosting costs for a more reliable and faster service. Additionally, development time can be reduced by using our flexible multiplayer framework as opposed to developing one from scratch.
The use of the “Free to Play” model was used initially to attract more players. It can be very tough for developers who put their heart and soul into a project only to find that the costs to maintain it are far greater than they expected. This puts them in an unfortunate situation of having to invest their own money just to keep their project alive. Any opportunity to save is an opportunity to allow developer’s projects to survive, giving them more time to improve and successfully complete their projects.
For Service Providers
Token holders of 10,000+ NU will be eligible to rent their hardware out to the NU platform as Service Providers. They will receive tokens as a reward for renting their resources to developers. Not only does this make the network stronger and more secure but it also allows holders with the opportunity to mine by contributing their hardware. This is a very genuine and pure business transaction where both parties have a mutually beneficial arrangement.
For Active Clients Active Clients are players that have linked their wallet to their gaming accounts. Their role is to add an additional verification layer for the Service Providers. This is to make our network stronger and more reliable. Not only does this incentivize gamers to set up or connect their wallets, but it gives these users an opportunity to mine while playing a supported game of their choice.
Technical Features
1.Masternodes/Service Providers
Masternodes will be required to provide a stake and run the host application. This host application will serve requests based on our multiplayer framework. Masternodes can act as relays for other masternode hosts and take over as the new host in the event of a failure. Masternodes will also be responsible for verifying peers. Clients (Gamers with connected wallets) will also verify that they are in fact providing their resources.
2.Gamers/Active Clients
Active clients are gamers that connect their wallets to their game that utilizes the NU multiplayer framework. This allows them to participate in our verification process that runs in the background. Not only does this help make the infrastructure stronger and more reliable but Active clients can earn tokens for participating in this process.
3.Orchestration Protocol
- Developer Criteria
Developers will be able to select the criteria they require vs the pricing they are willing to pay in order to use the NU infrastructure. Minimal latency may be requested so service providers with backbone internet connections may be required for a more premium service. Or maybe cost effectiveness is more important for a game where a slight latency can be forgiven. Perhaps the game is more CPU bound vs Memory bound or vice versa. Regardless of the requirements, developers will have plenty of options and a variety of ways to set up their criteria. Lastly, it can also be setup with conditions where requirements can potentially change depending on situation, this makes the NU framework very flexible, adaptable and even more cost effective than other centralized solutions.
- Level of Service Provided
There will be different types of services provided depending on whether a service provider has backbone internet access, strong CPU, high memory and large bandwidth allowances. Not only 16 will service providers be able to choose the portion of resources they want to share but they can also set utilization limits.
- Matchmaker
When players are matched and a game is to begin an auction process is held which determines the best bid for the level of service required by the developer. The developers have specified their criteria in terms of the level of service vs pricing they require and the service providers have specified what they are willing to bid for the level of resources they can provide. The best bid is determined and the game begins immediately. The service will keep running until no players remain. At this point if players are to join again a new auction process will be held and the best bid at this time will be selected as the service provider for this new session.
- MMORPG Style or Gameworlds
The auction process is similar to the matchmaker process detailed above, the only difference is that the service will run until it fails over or the service is stopped for any reason. This is because sessions are required to persist for this style of play. Additionally, if the current active user base grows past the level of service that can be provided, and the developer has specified the required level of automatic scaling in their criteria, a new auction process is held to determine a more suitable provider. Players are then seamlessly moved to a new provider so their gaming can continue without disruption.
- Automatic Failover
During the auction process a backup node is also decided on, during the course of the game, the auction process will be held again if the backup node is no longer available. This will help facilitate the automatic failover process by ensuring there is a service provider ready to take over in the event of a catastrophe.
- Esports Hosting
Developers will have the option of allowing custom multiplayer server hosting. This will allow anyone to host their own custom esports tournament on the resilient Network Units Infrastructure.
Proof-of-Service
We use two types of verification in order to determine the proof of service:
1.Masternode/Service Provider Verification Online Verification is requested from a node by a random number of verifying nodes which will attempt a minor network function by the service provider application installed on the node. A mismatch or timeout results in the verifying node or nodes complaining using our smart contract. This will be triggered by the Service Provider application. When the majority of the verifying nodes complain, the reputation of the node that is verified is affected. Random node-tonode verification is done by using staking and reputation fueled by on-blockchain complaints.
To Summarize:
● Verification is carried out randomly between nodes or on request
● Multiple nodes are involved in the verification process
● Reputation can be affected by the verifier and the verification requestor
● Reputation is influenced positively by duration without complaints (positive) and negatively with complaints (negative)
● Timeouts, dishonesty and bad nodes count towards a negative reputation.
2 Active Client Verification Active Clients are gamers that connect their wallets to their gaming accounts. This is done through our dashboard rather than the game itself in order to avoid potential issues with gaming marketplaces. The game will provide a unique code which the user can submit to our smart contract in order to get rewarded for playing. In the background, the client will be adding another verification layer that works very similar to the Peer Verification detailed above. This will help make our infrastructure stronger and will also encourage more players to become Active Clients.
Strict Verification Policy
In order to compete with large cloud providers or dedicated server hosts, our service must be more secure, reliable and efficient. Therefore, a strict verification policy is imperative to maintain a quality of service that is exceptional. It is true that we will have automatic failover system in place however, we believe that failovers are not a solution but a means to maintain connectivity in the event of a failure. It is these failures that our strict verification policy is aimed at reducing.
Improved Reliability
Because the NU platform is decentralized, players will receive minimal disruptions to their gaming experiences. Not only will Service Providers that lose connection be penalized, but our decentralized failover system will automatically move players to the closest potential Service Provider.
Host Application
The host application will be connected to the Service Providers wallet in order to identify the masternode so that it can receive payment in the form of our tokens for sharing its resources.
Game Developers
Game developers will maintain their wallets and ensure that it has enough tokens in order to rent the platform for their own projects. This will be provided in an easy to use unity asset that they can easily integrate into their own projects. The asset will be responsible for connecting the users to the right hosts as well as verification of the host’s uptime and shared processing. Our framework will allow synchronous and asynchronous gaming and eventual integrations with.
Users
Users can enjoy improved speed, uptime and reliability on the Network Units Infrastructure. Our integrated asset will handle verification for users that become Active Clients by connecting their wallets to their game Id. Active clients will be rewarded for their role in strengthening the network. Gamers who do not link any wallets will still be able to enjoy the game, they will just not receive any rewards.
Integration
Unity3D is the most popular gaming engine due to its multiplatform support and massive asset store and community. We will be offering the NU framework as an asset on the Unity Store. We will provide sample projects with the asset for examples of how to utilise the NU framework to its full potential. We are also considering integration with Unreal Engine, please contact us if you would like to express interest in UE or any other Engine you feel would be worth considering.
The Network Unit Token
- Users with more than 10,000 NU tokens will be able to earn more tokens by becoming hosts or relays by renting out their hardware
- Developers who wish to have an easy to integrate, secure and stable multiplayer network solution can rent the Network Units infrastructure using NU tokens.
- Developers will receive a share of the penalties if one of their hosts are penalized. This will be awarded in NU tokens
- NU tokens will be tradable on exchanges
- Active Clients are the players that participate in the verification process. They help to make the network stronger and more secure. For their participation, they receive a part of the tokens awarded to the masternode operator, based on their contribution.
Development Roadmap
Timeline
2015
● Evil Badger Company Registration
● Release of Wood Smash 3D on iOS and Android
2016
● Release of El Mirador on iOS and Android with Cardboard VR support
● Expansion to Holographic and VR Research & Development for applications, gaming and entertainment
● Experimentation of .netcore viability for multiplayer server functionality
Q1 2017
● Research into current Hosted Multiplayer Framework Solutions ● Research Optimization code for Dark Experiences on VR & Holo
Q3 2017
● UDP and RUDP library experimentations
● Zombie Mocap Development
● Spatial Mapping Implementation for HoloZombies
Q4 2017
● Bled of State Political Fighting Game Release to iOS and Android.
● Network Units Service Provider Application Proof of Concept Development
Q1 2018
● Initial Smart Contract Development for Verification Reputation
● Network Units Framework Proof of Concept Demo Release
● Acquire more Programmers as Contractors and/or Staff
Q2 2018
● UDP and RUDP library conversions to .netcore.
● Viability Studies of TCP integration.
● Initial Smart Contract Development for Active Client Verification
Q3 2018
● Initial Smart Contract Development for Masternode Staking
● Initial Release of Service Provider Application
Q4 2018
● Release Network Units Unity Asset with initial Real Time Action Networking functionality.
Q1 2019
● Blockchain Storage and Database viability research
● Flagship Title Release 1
Q2 2019
● Full Integration of Reliable RUDP and or TCP protocols
Q3 2019
● Flagship Title Release 2
Q4 2019
● Next Phase Release of Network Units Unity Asset with TCP and or RUDP functionality.
Q1 2020
● Flagship Title Release 3
Details Information :
Website : https://networkunits.io/
Whitepaper : https://networkunits.io/dl/network-units-whitepaper-latest-3.pdf
Twitter : https://twitter.com/network_units
Telegram : https://t.me/networkunits
Profile Bitcointalk : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1109350
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