Patent ID: 8261199

Claim:
A method of creating a breakpoint associated with an avatar in a virtual world, comprising: retrieving a user profile associated with the avatar, wherein the user profile specifies criteria for setting a breakpoint, wherein the criteria for setting the breakpoint is customizable by a user associated with the user profile; monitoring activity of the avatar in the virtual world to determine if the criteria is satisfied, wherein the virtual world is simultaneously populated by a plurality of avatars controlled by a plurality of users, and wherein the virtual world is persistent such that the virtual world provides an immersive environment regardless of the presence of the avatar in the virtual world; and upon determining that the criteria is satisfied: capturing a then existing location of the avatar within the virtual world and a context of one or more elements proximate to the avatar present in the virtual world; and storing the then existing location of the avatar within the virtual world and the context of one or more elements present in the virtual world for the breakpoint; receiving a request from the user to access the breakpoint, wherein the request permits the user to choose between dynamically or statically restoring the breakpoint; when the request specifies to dynamically restore the breakpoint, returning the avatar to the location stored for the breakpoint wherein a current context of one or more elements proximate to the avatar when the avatar is returned to the location is different from the captured context; and when the request specifies to statically restore the breakpoint, generating an image of the virtual world representing the then existing location of the avatar within the virtual world stored for the breakpoint and the context of one or more elements present in the virtual world, wherein the avatar is prohibited from interacting with the virtual world.