System and method for selective distribution of information
AssigneeArenanet, Inc.
InventorsMike F. O'Brien, William J. Strain, Patrick J. Wyatt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for selectively updating remote devices is described herein. A method incorporating at least some of the present teachings may include, for example, receiving a communication from a client application executing on a remote device. The communication may indicate a condition of a game character being played in a massively multi-party online game. The method may also include developing a filtered manifest that includes a list of files needed by the client application and associated with the condition. A portion of the collection may be identified for communication to the client application, and communication of the portion may be initiated.
Claims21
A method for selective distribution to a remote gaming device, further comprising:
- receiving at a server device a communication from a client application executing on a remote device, the communication indicating a condition of a game character;
- developing a filtered manifest comprising a collection of information needed by the client application and associated with the condition, the collection of information being a subset of game information available to be communicated;
- maintaining a dependency graph that maps a plurality of game elements with associated geometry files, texture files, sound files, and animation files, the dependency graph comprising a directed acyclic graph;
- providing at least a portion of the directed acyclic graph to the client application, the filtered manifest based on the directed acyclic graph;
- identifying at the server device a file indicated by the collection of information as already resident at the remote device;
- and
- communicating only a portion of the collection of information to the remote device, the portion excluding the file.
A system for selectively distributing information to a remote client comprising:
- a computing platform configured to serve an online game to a plurality of remote clients;
- an interface configured to receive an update signal for at least one of the plurality of remote clients;
- an update engine responsive to the update signal and operable to access at least a partial listing of available information, to select a portion of the available information for outputting by identifying a file already resident at one of the plurality of remote clients and excluding the file from the portion, and to initiate an outputting of the portion;
- a memory maintaining the partial listing;
- and
- wherein the update engine selects the portion in response to a filtering process that comprises:
- communicating a portion of a directed acyclic graph to a first remote client, the portion associated with a condition of a character played by the first remote client;
- and
- receiving a communication from the first remote client indicating at least one file from the directed acyclic graph that the first remote client needs.
A method for selective distributing files to a plurality of remote devices, further comprising:
- distributing an executable to a user of a first remote device and a different user of a different remote device, the executable associated with a massively multi-party online game;
- maintaining at least a partial listing of files for the massively multi-party on-line game, the partial listing associating a first collection of files to a first portion of the game based on a dependency graph and a second collection of files to a second portion of the game based on the dependency graph, the first collection of files based on identifying a file already resident at the remote device, the dependency graph comprising a directed acyclic graph;
- communicating at least one of the first collection of files to the first remote device in connection with an interaction between a character played by the first remote device and the first portion of the game;
- and
- communicating at least one of the second collection of files to the different remote device in connection with a different interaction between a different character played by the different remote device and the second portion of the game.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.