Patent ID: 8734254

Claim:
A method for generating event notifications from within a persistent world game, the method comprising: activating a player agent for an offline player, wherein the player agent has an associated set of offline player rules; monitoring, by the player agent, events maintained by a game server, wherein the game server observes and generates game events for a persistent virtual world, wherein an online player interacts with the persistent virtual world by operating a game client device to control a character avatar within the persistent virtual world, and wherein the game client device being operated by the online player graphically renders the persistent virtual world from a perspective of the character avatar; responsive to a given event triggering one or more of the set of offline player rules, generating a notification event message; and sending the notification event message to a messaging client associated with the offline player, wherein generating a notification event message comprises: composing a text message; obtaining an image, sound, or video associated with the given event from the game client device being operated by the online player and in communication with the game server; and adding the image, sound, or video to the text message to form the notification event message; wherein the player agent comprises a rules manager configured to perform a check against offline player rules to determine if an incoming game event matches a rule; wherein they player agent comprises a message parser configured to receive incoming messages from a Web server that may add, modify, or remove rules in offline player rules, wherein the Web server provides a Web-based user interface for configuring offline player rules using a Web client; wherein the player a agent comprises a message composer configured to generate the notification event message; wherein the player agent is configured to send the notification event message to a notification server, wherein the notification server forwards the notification event message to the client associated with the offline player; and wherein the player agent comprises an event generator configured to generate game events on behalf of the offline player and send the generated game events to the game server responsive to a particular rule being activated from the offline player rules.