The present disclosure relates to subject matter contained in Japanese patent application No. 2010-268905 filed on Dec. 2, 2010, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
This invention relates to a game server connected with many players through a communication line, through which the players can enjoy an online game and player control program proper for use in the game server (game server computer).
Recently, so-called MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) for enjoying a role-playing game in a virtual space set in a game server with which many players are connected through a communication line is now widespread.
In many cases in the RPG (role-playing game), an operation character operated by a player runs various kinds of risks (does quests) according to a game scenario set in a game program (see patent related document 1 shown below). One of such quests can be attained only by clearing one scenario, and another quest is so-called succeeding quest wherein the whole quest can not be attained until two or more partial quests are cleared in a predetermined order.
[Patent related document 1]: Japanese patent application publication No. 2004-8764
In MMORPG, the operation characters operated through many players are located in a virtual space of the server, and such operation characters take actions in the virtual space according to instructions from the players through their game terminals. Therefore, the operation characters normally become acquainted with each other, talk each other and take actions together in the virtual space.
In a scenario of MMORPG, quests are normally set, and the above-mentioned succeeding quest may be set. In a case of such a quest, an individual operation character operated by individual player (game terminal) generally receives an order of such a quest and executes the quest, and in order to control states of execution of the quests for each player (game terminal), whether the player (game terminal) cleared some quest, or is clearing the quest (“during order entry” hereinafter) or has not yet executed the quest (“before order entry” hereinafter), the game server stores a quest execution control table storing the states of execution of the quests in memory, such as a hard disc every each player (game terminal).
In a case where the quest is the succeeding quest, it is necessary to receive orders of two or more partial quests comprising the succeeding quest and to execute these quests in a predetermined order determined in a scenario (game program) so as to be cleared. In the case of the partial quests which sequences of receiving orders are determined in the game program, contents of the partial quests are closely related to each other. For example, the first partial quest is the quest “gather materials for cakes”, the second partial quest is the quest “bake a cake with the materials for cakes gathered in the first partial quest”, and the third partial quest is the quest “deliver the cake baked in the second partial quest to a friend”. In such a case, the game program controls to execute the first partial quest, the second partial quest and the third partial quest in these orders, and the game program controls the player who has cleared the third partial quest not to receive the order of the first partial quest again, for example.
If it is possible to receive the order of the first partial quest again, the state that “the first partial quest has been cleared” should be changed into the state “before order entry” wherein it is possible to receive the order of the quest. If the first partial quest is changed into “before order entry”, the control of proceeding of the scenario fails and it is impossible to proceed with the proper scenario since the second and third partial quests that have been already cleared are premised on “cleared” state of the first partial quest. For this reason, in a conventional control method in the succeeding quest, the order of the partial quest that has once been cleared is controlled not to be received again in order to prevent the failure of the scenario proceeding.
In MMORPG, the player often becomes acquainted with another player via the operation character and executes the quest together with another player (cooperation play) in the virtual world of the game. On the other hand, the states of execution of the quests are different from each other among the respective players in many cases. In such a method that the order of the partial quest that has been already cleared of the succeeding quest is controlled not to be received, the player who has already cleared such a partial quest is not able to receive the order of such a partial quest and to do the cooperation play with the player who has not yet cleared, and attractions of MMORPG may be damaged thereby.
An object of the invention is to provide a game server and player control program wherein in the succeeding quest of an on-line game, such as MMORPG, the player who has once cleared the partial quest is able to receive the order of such a partial quest and to do a cooperation play with another player without failing scenario proceeding.
A first aspect of the invention is a game server connected with many game terminals (1A, 1B, 1C . . . ) through a communication line (2), through an operation of said game terminal by each player, said player can play a game online by operating his (her) own operation character in a virtual space in said game server (3), said game setting a succeeding quest that is comprised of two or more partial quests therein, said partial quests being determined so as to be executed in a predetermined order and being determined to be executed through a cooperation play to be done in cooperation with said two or more players, said game server comprising:
A second aspect of the invention is the game server further comprising:
A third aspect of the invention is the game server, wherein said attainment information of said partial quest stored in said memory is stored, being divided into three cases, 1) in a case where said player has already cleared said partial quest, 2) in a case where said player is receiving an order of said partial quest, and 3) in a case where said player has not yet been received an order of said partial quest.
According to the invention, when executing the partial quest of the succeeding quest through cooperation play by two or more players, the order entry state changer (9) that rewrites the attainment information of the succeeding quest of the game terminal judged to be impossible to execute the partial quest by the execution judger (9) in such a manner that all attainment states of the partial quests after such a partial quest are changed into “before execution of quest” so as to execute partial quest, so that the execution limiter (9) does not limit the execution of such a partial quest and the player who has already cleared such a partial quest is able to receive the order of the partial quest without failing the scenario proceeding and to do cooperation play with another players in various levels.
Besides, even if the order entry state changer (9) rewrites all states of attainment of the partial quests after some partial quest into “before execution of quest” when executing the partial quest through cooperation play, the attainment information recoverer (9) recovers the attainment information of the succeeding quest to one at the time of inputting the order entry notice after the cooperation play, so that the game terminal that has already cleared such a partial quest is able to do cooperation play with another players without damaging one's own clear record.
The number in parentheses shows the corresponding element in the drawings for the sake of convenience, accordingly, the descriptions are not restricted and bound by the descriptions on the drawings.
An embodiment of the invention is now explained, referring to appended drawings.
The game server 3 as the game server computer has a main controller 5, and a communication controller 7 connected with the public communication line 2, a game proceeding controller 8, a quest proceeding controller 9, a program memory 10 for storing game program of MMORPG, and a quest control memory 11 are connected with the main controller 5 via a bus line 6.
The game server 3 as shown in
The game terminal 1 and the game server 3 have the above-mentioned structures. In order to play an online game, such as a MMORPG for players, each player operates his (her) own game terminal 1 so as to connect with the game server 3 through the public communication line 2, and executes the game in such a manner that the player operates to move an operation character that is set corresponding to each player in a virtual space formed in a memory in the game server 3 so that the operation character take actions according to a predetermined scenario controlled by the game server 3. The game program executed by the game server 3 is stored in the game program memory 10 in the game server 3, and does main controls in the online game. In each game terminal 1, the game program for controlling the terminal for executing a desired online game by connecting with the game server 3 is stored in a predetermined memory.
As mentioned above, many quests are set in the game scenario according to the game program. Among such quests, a succeeding quest comprised of two or more partial quests may be set. That is, a succeeding quest A is set as a quest that can be done in MMORPG as shown in
The quest proceeding controller 9 controls attainment states of all quests including the succeeding quest A every each player (player ID attached to each player) as a quest execution control table in the quest control memory 11, and the control state is shown as shown in
Among the quests, “cooperation play” to be done through two or more players cooperating with each other is set, and the succeeding quest A as shown in
If the order entry of the quest of the group including the game terminal 1A has not been notified from the other game terminal 1 (player), the game proceeding controller 8 sends a message of inviting to receive the order of the quest in cooperation with the other game terminals 1 to the game terminal 1A that outputted the order entry notice so as to secure a proper scenario proceeding.
After the order entry notices of the quest were outputted from the game terminal group of the game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C to the game server 3 and the information of attainment of the corresponding succeeding quest was read out of the quest execution control table, the quest proceeding controller 9 prepares a succeeding quest control table QCT for respective players ID corresponding to the game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C through which the order entry notices of the succeeding quest A were outputted to the game server 3 according to the game program, as shown in
That is, the quest proceeding controller 9 judges the order of which partial quest of the succeeding quest A the order entry notice outputted this time through each of the game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C receives based upon the player ID (in
And, the quest proceeding controller 9 judges the partial quest that the respective game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C can receive the order based upon the succeeding quest control table QCT. According to the game program, the quest proceeding controller 9 controls such that the partial quests should be executed in order starting from 1, and the partial quest that has already been cleared is not possible to be executed again, but the game program includes such a cooperation play procedure that the partial quest to be executed with another players in cooperation with each other is temporarily allowed to be executed even if the partial quest has already been cleared.
In
If the order entry notices outputted from the game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C are ones of receiving the order of the partial quest 2 as the cooperation play, the quest proceeding controller 9 judges which of the game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C that outputted the order entry notices has a qualification for receiving the order of the partial quest 2 from the information of attainment of the partial quests of the succeeding quest A. In such a case, the judgment is that the game terminal 1B can receive the order of the partial quest 2 (can execute the partial quest 2), and the other game terminals 1A and 1C are not possible to receive the order of the partial quest 2. If the judgment is that the order entry notice includes a notice showing that the cooperation play is done and at least one of the game terminals 1 has a qualification for receiving the order of the partial quest shown in the order entry notice, the quest proceeding controller 9 starts the cooperation play procedure based upon the cooperation play execution flag shown in each order entry notice.
As shown in
Subsequently, the cooperation play procedure proceeds to Step S3, and the quest proceeding controller 9 notifies the game terminals 1A (the player ID=12345) and 1C (the player ID=78901), the cooperation terminals that the present states of attainment of the succeeding quest A are temporarily preserved and changed through the communication controller 7 and the public communication line 2. Receiving this, each cooperation terminal outputs a signal showing that the player allows to temporarily store and change the state of attainment of the succeeding quest A to the game server 3 through the controller 1b that is input means. In response to this, the quest proceeding controller 9 of the game server 3 enters Steps S4 and S5 of the cooperation play procedure, and does the procedure of rewriting the succeeding quest control table QCT so as to allow to receive the order of the partial quest the order of which the cooperation terminals received together with the terminal having the qualification.
A “cleared” flag is stored at the address of the partial quest that the cooperation terminals have already cleared in the succeeding quest control table QCT, so that the quest proceeding controller 9 is not able to allow the cooperation terminals to execute the partial quest 2 as it is since the scenario proceeding of the succeeding quest A may fail in the above-mentioned state. However, the succeeding quest control table QCT is temporarily rewritten for two or more game terminals 1 to which the cooperation play is requested through the cooperation play procedure. That is, the state of attainment of the succeeding quest A of the game terminal 1A (player ID=12345) and 1C (player ID=78901) is rewritten from “cleared-cleared-cleared-cleared-during order entry” into “cleared-during order entry-before order entry-before order entry-before order entry” for the game terminal 1A (player ID=12345) and from “cleared-cleared-cleared-before order entry-before order entry” into “cleared-during order entry-before order entry-before order entry-before order entry” for the game terminal 1C (player ID=78901). No specific procedure is done on the game terminal 1B that is the terminal having the qualification since the partial quest 2 has been updated into “during order entry” in Step S1.
The succeeding quest control table QCT has been thus rewritten and changed from the state at the time of the order entry notice of the cooperation play of
Receiving this, the players of the respective game terminals 1A, 1B and 1C execute the partial quest 2 in the game server 3 (Step S8 of
When clearing the partial quest 2, the quest proceeding controller 9 enters Step S9 of the cooperation play procedure, and the state of attainment of the partial quest 2 of the terminal having the qualification, that is, the game terminal 1B in the succeeding quest control table QCT in the quest control memory 11 is changed from “during order entry” into “cleared” as shown in
After the game terminals 1A and 1C that are cooperation terminals return to the states of attainment of the succeeding quest A before the cooperation play with the game terminal 1B and “cleared” fag is stored for the partial quest 2 that is the subject for the cooperation play in the terminal having qualification in the succeeding quest control table QCT as shown in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2010-268905 | Feb 2010 | JP | national |
Number | Date | Country |
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2004-008764 | Jan 2004 | JP |
Entry |
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Lummis, Michael and Vanderlip, Danielle, “World of Warcraft Official Strategy Guide”, Pearson Education, 2004, pp. 25-26. |
World of Warcraft Wikipedia Page, Oct. 30, 2010, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World—of—Warcraft&oldid=393854104>. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20120052956 A1 | Mar 2012 | US |