APPARATUS, METHOD, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA TO PERFORM TRANSACTIONS IN ASSOCIATION WITH PARTICIPANTS INTERACTING IN A SYNTHETIC ENVIRONMENT

• US 20090275414A1
• Filed: 07/16/2009
• Published: 11/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trion World ABC LLC
• Original Assignee: Trion World Network, Inc.
• Inventors: Aldridge, David M., Lee, Robert Ernest
• Granted Patent: US 8,898,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/352 involving special game server arrangements, e.g. regional servers connected to a national server or a plurality of servers managing partitions of the game world
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/60 Generating or modifying game content before or while executing the game program, e.g. authoring tools specially adapted for game development or game-integrated level editor
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/513 server hierarchy, e.g. local, regional, national or dedicated for different tasks, e.g. authenticating, billing
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5526 Game data structure
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/6009 for importing or creating game content, e.g. authoring tools during game development, adapting content to different platforms, use of a scripting language to create content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2111/02 CAD in a network environment, e.g. collaborative CAD or distributed simulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/004 Artificial life, i.e. computing arrangements simulating life

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate generally to computer-based simulations and synthetic environment generation, and more particularly, to a system, a computer-readable medium, a method and an apparatus for generating synthetic environments in a distributed architecture to, among other things, introduce dynamic content. In some embodiments, computer readable medium facilitates transactions in massively multiplayer online games. The computer readable medium can include executable instructions for execution by one or more processors to receive data to perform a transaction between participants associated with the synthetic environment. The executable instructions also can be configured to transact an exchange of a first subset of game data for the first participant and a second subset of the game data for a second participant. The exchange of subsets of the game data between the first participant and the second participant can occur in the common process.

Claims

1. A method to facilitate transactions in association with a synthetic environment, the method comprising:

generating data representing a synthetic environment through collaboration between a first game management server and a second game management server;

receiving data representing a request to perform a transaction in association with the synthetic environment; and

performing the transaction in association with a common process space for one or more processors.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying game data associated with separate process spaces.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the separate process spaces are implemented with read-only memory and the common process space is implemented with read/write memory.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

implementing a quasi-aggregated memory space as either the common process space or one or more of the separate memory spaces.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein implementing the quasi-aggregated memory space comprises:

determining that the request is associated with transaction-related data; and

implementing the quasi-aggregated memory space as the common process space to operate with the transaction-related data.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the transaction-related data comprises:

data representing an item to be exchanged between a first participant associated with a first process space and a second participant associated with a second process space.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein implementing the quasi-aggregated memory space comprises:

receiving data representing another request for a participant associated with the synthetic environment;

determining that the another request is associated with environment-related data; and

implementing the quasi-aggregated memory space as a separate process space to operate with the environment-related data.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the transaction comprises:

modifying an association within the common process space for a subset of the game data from being related to one of a first process space and a second process space to the other.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the transaction comprises:

exchanging associations of subsets for the game data between a first participant associated with a first process space and a second participant associated with a second process space,

wherein exchanging the associations for the subsets of the game data occurs at the common process.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the transaction comprises:

exchanging subsets of the game data between a first participant associated with a first process space and a second participant associated with a second process space substantially simultaneously;

determining one subset of the game data did not transfer from either the first participant or the second participant; and

preventing other subsets of the game data from exchanging with any of the first participant or the second participant.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the data representing the request to perform the transaction comprises:

receiving the data representing the request into the common process space; and

determining that both a first participant associated with a first process space and a second participant associated with a second process space confirm the transaction.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

detecting that the first participant and the second participant confirm the transaction; and

executing the transaction in the common space.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a first participant associated with a first process space for the first game management server.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

identifying a first set of game data to be disassociated with the first process space; and

identifying a second set of game data to be associated with the first process space.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

disassociating the first set of game data with the first process space; and

associating the second set of game data with the first process space,

wherein disassociating the first set of game data and associating the second set of game data occur in the common process space.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

updating the first process space to include the second set of game data.

17. A system to facilitate transactions in association with a synthetic environment, the system comprising:

one or more memories configured to provide a quasi-aggregated memory space;

a transaction server associated with a processor configured to interact with the one or more memories, the transaction server comprising;

a transaction manager configured to exchange game data between participants associated with different process spaces in a common process space; and

a failsafe manager configured to execute an exchange of the game data between the participants or to nullify the exchange of the game data between the participants,

wherein the synthetic environment is configured to be presented in association with a display device.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the one or more memories are configured to provide the quasi-aggregated memory space, wherein the quasi-aggregated memory space can be configured to operate as the common process space and the different process spaces.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the transaction server is configured to receive a request to exchange the game data in association with the synthetic environment.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the request originates from one of the different process spaces.

21. The system of claim 17 wherein the transaction server is configured to detect that the participants are committed to exchange the game data.

22. The system of claim 21 further comprising:

a validator configured to determine whether to the exchange of the game data is a valid action.

23. The system of claim 17 further comprising:

a game data modifier is configured to modify associations of a first set of game data associated with a first process space and a second set of game data associated with a second process space so that the first set of game data is associated with the second process space and the second set of game data is associated with the first process space,

wherein the first process space and the second process space constitute the different process spaces.

24. The system of claim 17 further comprising:

a first game management server; and

a second game management server,

wherein the first game management server and second game management server are configured to exchange messages to initiate a transaction to exchange the game data.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein either the first game management server or the second game management server comprises:

a temporary memory configured to store the game data during the initiation of the transaction,

wherein either the first game management server or the second game management server extracts the game data from the temporary memory and includes the game data as part of a request to exchange the game data.

26. The system of claim 24 wherein the first game management server and the second game management server further comprise a first process space and a second process space, respectively, and the transaction server comprises the common process space,

wherein the first process space, the second process space, and the common process space constitute the quasi-aggregate process space.

27. A computer readable medium to facilitate transactions in massively multiplayer online games, the computer readable medium comprising executable instructions for execution by one or more processors to:

receive data representing a transaction request to perform a transaction between a first participant and a second participant associated with the synthetic environment; and

transact an exchange of a first subset of game data for the first participant and a second subset of the game data for a second participant,

wherein the exchange of the first subset of the game data and the second subset of the game data between the first participant and the second participant occurs in the common process.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein the executable instructions further comprise executable instructions to:

establish communications between a transaction server and one or more of a first game management server and a second game management server; and

access a read-only memory portion associated with the one or more of the first game management server and the second game management server to determine the first subset of the game data and the second subset of the game data.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein the executable instructions further comprise executable instructions to:

generate for an interface at a display, the interface including;

an input portion of the interface configured to accept data representing an item offered,

an output portion of the interface configured to present another item in exchange for the item, and

another input portion of the interface configured to accept data representing confirmation of the transaction.

30. The computer readable medium of claim 29 wherein the executable instructions further comprise executable instructions to:

generate the transaction to include data representing the item, the another item and the confirmation of the transaction from a process space associated with one of a first process space or a second process space.

31. The computer readable medium of claim 30 wherein the first process space and the second process space include data associated with a first game management server and a second game management server, respectively.