Patent ID: 9550125
Date: 2017-01-24
CPC Classifications: A63F

Claim:
1. A method, comprising: in response to a request of a user computer system to transfer from a first place to a second place in a virtual world environment, identifying, by a processor, a plurality of instances of the second place, wherein the virtual world environment comprises a plurality of connected places, and wherein the virtual world environment further comprises the plurality of instances of the second place and zero or more instances of each connected place from the plurality of connected places; determining, by the processor, one or more other users associated with a user of the user computer system, wherein the one or more other users are associated with the user of the user computer system by at least a common place occupancy association with the user, wherein the common place occupancy association indicates that the one or more other users have occupied the first place in the virtual world environment at a same time as the user; determining, by the processor, one of the plurality of instances of the second place in the virtual world environment that satisfies the request of the user computer system based at least in part on an association with one of the one or more other users, wherein the one of the one or more other users has been routed to the determined instance, and wherein the one of the one or more other users is associated with the user of the user computer system by at least the common place occupancy association; routing, by the processor, the user computer system to a game server that provides the determined instance of the second place in the virtual world environment; and updating, by the processor, runtime conditions of the virtual world environment associated with the user to indicate that the user computer system has been routed to the game server that provides the determined instance of the second place in the virtual world environment.