Deferred Teleportation or Relocation in Virtual Worlds

Abstract

A user of a virtual universe system is provided with the option of deferring a response to an invitation for an avatar to be relocated (including relocation by performing a (exportation operation) by providing for selective storage of received invitations in a queue with a priority determined based on one or more rules which can preferably be developed by conversion from an invitation. Status of issuers of invitations can be monitored or the issuers polled and the current status can be displayed to a user to determine actions to be taken in manipulating priority in the queue. The user is also provided with the capability of editing priority of stored invitations including the ability to accept, reject or forward the invitation or convert the invitation to a landmark. Invitations having similarities may be grouped in accordance with any desired metadata contained in the invitation. Rules can also be set from the virtual universe system independently of a user in regard to priority and thus provides a new form of advertising.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention generally relates to the production and management of interactive virtual universes presented to users on computers linked by a network and, more particularly, to administration of requests / invitations for teleportation or relocation of avatars directed to users.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Closely following the introduction of computer generated graphic[0003]representations of objects, computers games have been developed and have become popular to the point of becoming a significant industry. A significant factor in the continuing popularity of such games may possibly be the fact that the simulated venue or environment in which the game is played is limited only by the imagination of the game developer and can be presented to a viewer on a display with a realistic appearance which is limited only by the hardware and software employed to render associated images. Moreover, such simulated environments may be changed at will and ve...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]In order to accomplish these and other objects of the invention, a method is provided for performing or causing performance of steps of logically analyzing an incoming teleportation invitation on the basis of at least the sender and proposed teleportation location, and respo

Problems solved by technology

A significant factor in the continuing popularity of such games may possibly be the fact that the simulated venue or environment in which the game is played is limited only by the imagination of the game developer and can be presented to a viewer on a display with a realistic appearance which is limited only by the hardware and software employed to render associated images.

However, as the use of virtual universes becomes more popular, notifications to users of the issuance of such invitations, usually accomplished using a pop-up window, can be numerous to the point of causing interference with the virtual universe experience of the invitation recipient while some invitations may require an immediate response.

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