Patent ID: 8622841

Claim:
A method for engaging players in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, comprising the operations of: receiving a request for assistance with a game task from a first player of a MMO game; transmitting the request to a second player of the MMO game who is associated with the first player through a relationship recognized by the MMO game; determining whether the second player responds to the request within a time period, wherein the time period depends on one or more factors related to game mechanics and to user data for the first player, wherein the user data includes the number of times the first player has made the request; assigning completion of the game task to the first player, if the second player does not respond within the time period and the game task is a game task whose completion can be assigned without the assistance of another player according to game mechanics; and transmitting an automated apparent response to the first player, if the second player does not respond within the time period and the game task is a game task whose completion can be assigned without the assistance of another player according to game mechanics, wherein each operation of the method is executed by one or more processors.