Participant search method in online game, processor network server and network terminal

Online game participant searching method, processing device, network server and network terminal

Technical field

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for searching and processing a player, an opponent, or a companion as a participant in a network game or chat, etc., which utilizes the network or the like.

In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-164271, an online game system that can smoothly shift from notification communication to action game communication is disclosed. According to this network game system, although it is possible to search for opponents widely through notification communication, it is necessary to start the chat device with the game device every time the game is to be started, and search for the match one by one through a cumbersome method such as text conversation. opponent.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-57215 discloses an online game system in which unspecified multiple participants on a communication network play a game against each other, which is characterized by having a server device and a client A device in which the server device is equipped with a user information storage device that stores information of a large number of users; the match request response device, if a match request is accepted, distinguishes the user who issued the match request as waiting for the match; A game player selection device for a game combination between users who are distinguished as a game waiting, wherein the client device includes a game request device that outputs the game request to the server device.

In this network game system, since the player selecting device in the server device freely selects the opponent of the game, there is no need for the user to select the opponent of the game himself, and the convenience can be improved somewhat. However, the client device constituting the network game system is equipped with a game that outputs a match request to the server device and accepts a match that specifies the time when the request should be sent from the server device to send timing information. Request device; and when it becomes the time designated by the opponent requesting the transmission timing information, the opponent request device that outputs the opponent request to the server device, and receives information about the opponent from the server device, therefore, In the selection of players, the player stays in the processing of the time-specific information, and the game cannot be started immediately like an offline game.

The present invention is used in online games or online chats, especially in online games of the battle participation type, by automatically searching game players (or chat participants) by the communication server, so that it has the equivalent of offline games Immediacy and anytime.

The participant search device used in online games or online chats on a network connected to a network server and a plurality of network terminals according to the present invention is characterized in that the network server includes a user attribute information storage for storing attribute information of network users Unit; an ID storage unit that stores the ID of the user; the participant selection unit of the user is selected from the user attribute information storage unit according to the request of the game or chat applicant; manages the ID and IP address of each user who is logged in The above-mentioned network terminal is equipped with an ID holding unit for holding the ID assigned from the network server; and temporarily recording the IP address assigned by the respective providers that have joined during the online process until the offline process. IP record unit.

Preferably, the above-mentioned network terminal further includes an ID storage unit for selecting an ID exchanger from network users and storing the user ID in the terminal in advance.

The program used by the web server to search for participants in online games or online chats of the present invention is characterized in that it includes receiving participant search information from a user connected to the network, and storing relevant network users in the server. The attribute information of is compared with the above-mentioned participant search information, the user who is consistent with it and is currently connected to the network is selected, the participant recruitment information is distributed to the user, and the participation promise information of the user who has promised the recruitment information is returned to the above Each processing for 1 user.

FIG. 2 is an example of the startup initial screen in terminal A.

FIG. 3 is an example of a display screen in the standby state (a) and the call receiving state (b) in the terminal B.

Fig. 4 is a block diagram showing the structure of an automatic opponent search processing device.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the judgment processing in the login monitoring unit 218.

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing the overall structure of the apparatus and method of the present invention, and Figs. 2 and 3 show examples of display screens in a network terminal. In Fig. 1, terminal A and terminal B1, terminal B2,...terminal B5,...terminal Bn are respectively connected to network server S via a network. Therefore, terminal A and terminal B1, terminal B2,...terminal B5,...terminal Bn are online game clients. In the following description, it is assumed that terminal A is the network user who spontaneously wishes to engage in online game entertainment, indicating the start of the game Terminal B1, Terminal B2,...Terminal B5,...Terminal Bn is assumed to be on the side of other network users, namely, on the side of potential online game challengers.

FIG. 2 shows the optimal startup initial screen in the terminal A. Various operation buttons or pull-down menus are displayed on the control screen 30 on the right side of the screen, and all the parts on the left side of the screen show the expansion screen 29 of game or chat.

First, the match requester presses (clicks) the connection button 31 on the above-mentioned initial screen, connects to the network and connects to the network server S. Next, in order to set the conditions of the opponent, in the game selection radio button 32 and the session selection radio button 33, select the game selection radio button 32, open the game selection pull-down menu 34, and select the desired game not shown . Next, after the number of persons is input in the number of players input field 35 (in a one-to-one game, no input is required), the player call button 36a is pressed. Of course, in the case of multiple matches, decide your own players at that moment.

In addition, the above-mentioned operation is a condition setting for searching for a rival in an online game. When the purpose is to search for a chat partner, after selecting the chat selection radio button 33, the chat call button 36b can be pressed. The symbol 37b is a chat promise button that has the same function as the battle promise button 37a described later, and the symbol 40b is a chat start button that is the same as the game start button 40a described later.

By pressing the player call button 36a described above, a player search signal 21 including player search information such as the game type is generated, and the signal 21 is transmitted from the terminal A to the web server S. In the web server S, select the attribute information related to the game's hobbies, etc. that the network user logged in when joining, or the ability level that is frequently updated or added, the number of points for each game, the ranking and other attribute information, etc. The conditions are consistent with those who are currently connected to the network. The web server S sends to these users, the terminal B of the potential online game challenger, a message containing the above-mentioned game type, the number of players and other setting conditions and pre-prepared messages (for example, "Search for game players.") Recruitment signal 22 of the opponents. FIG. 1 shows a situation where the recruitment signal 22 is transmitted in each of the terminal B1, the terminal B5, and the terminal Bn.

Terminal B is also equipped with the same control screen 30 as terminal A, showing the above-mentioned chat or game screen 29, or the screen in the standby state (a) shown in FIG. 3, and if the recruitment information number 22 is received, the battle call button 41 flashes, and the screen of the call receiving state (b) shown in Fig. 3 is displayed. In addition, in FIG. 3, the symbol 42 is a call button that flashes when the terminal B receives the recruitment signal 22 during the chat.

By pressing the open button 44 in the terminal B, the expansion screen 29 and the control screen 30 of the game or chat shown in FIG. 2 are switched. Therefore, if the user who wants to challenge the game in the terminal B presses the battle promise button 37a, the terminal B sends the battle promise signal 23 including the challenge information to the network server S. The network server S that has received the acceptance signal 23 sends to the terminal A a player selection signal 24 including the network name, the attribute information of the ability level, and the IP address information registered in advance inside. In FIG. 1, it is shown that the acceptance signals 23 and 23 are respectively sent from the terminal B5 and the terminal Bn, and then the selection signals 24 and 24 are sent to the terminal B via the server S.

On the control screen 30 of the terminal A that has received the selection signal 24, the participants who have indicated the challenge are displayed as a list of participants 39, so the match requester presses the network name displayed in the participant list 39 again, and the reference is passed This presses its attribute information displayed in another window not shown, designates a desired opponent from the participant list 39, presses the game start button 40a, and waits for the start of the game. In this way, according to the method of the present invention, a match requester can instantly search for a game match opponent only by performing the above-mentioned simple operations.

4 is a block diagram showing the basic structure of the opponent search processing device. In each of the terminal A, the web server S, and the terminal B, the communication control unit 100 and the communication server constituting the opponent search processing device of the present invention are shown Unit 200 and communication control unit 300. The terminal A, the terminal B, and the web server S are equipped with other game control units or chat server units that are necessary for playing games.

In the communication control unit 100, the communication server unit 200, and the communication control unit 300 described above, each part has components that should normally be provided in order to perform its functions. That is, these components are the control units 101, 201, and 301 that control the actions of the various parts 100, 200, and 300; the processing units 102, 202, and 302 that perform the data processing of each part; and various input and output peripherals not shown in the figure. The input and output interfaces 105, 205, and 305 connected to the device and the network; the input units 106, 206, and 306 that receive data from the input and output interfaces 105, 205, and 305 respectively; the output units 107, 207, and 307 that output data; store data The storage units 108, 208, and 308; the sending units 109, 209, and 309 that send communication data; the receiving units 110, 210, and 310 that receive communication data.

The communication control units 100 and 300 of the terminal A and the terminal B respectively have ID holding units 112 and 312 for holding the ID assigned to each user by the network server S in addition to the above-mentioned components that should normally be provided; The IP addresses allocated by the servers that each joined during online are temporarily recorded to the IP recording units 113 and 313 until the offline process. In addition, the communication control units 100 and 300 are preferably provided with ID storage units 114 and 314 for selecting an ID exchanger from network users and storing the user ID in its own terminal in advance.

The communication server unit 200 is also equipped with a user attribute information storage unit 215 that stores all user attribute information (name, gender, age, interest, good game, highest score, etc.) in addition to the above-mentioned structural parts that should normally be provided; storage The ID storage unit 216 for the IDs of all users; the player selection unit 217 that selects the opponent from the user attribute information storage unit 215 according to the request of the opponent; manages the relationship between the ID and the IP address of each user in the login Channel registration monitoring unit 218.

Next, a description will be given of an automatic search method for opponents by the above-mentioned search processing device.

In the communication control unit 100 of the terminal A, the difference between the game and the chat, the specific game name, the number of players and other conditions input by the input and output interface 105 are stored in the input unit 106 according to the instructions of the control unit 101 and processed by the processing unit 102. In the storage unit 108. Then, according to the instruction of the control unit 101, the own IP address obtained through the current connection stored in the IP recording unit 113 and the above-mentioned information stored in the storage unit 108 are transmitted to the sending unit 109 according to the processing of the processing unit 102, from the input The output interface 105 uses the network as a medium and transmits it to the communication server unit 200 of the network server S as the player search signal 21.

The information contained in the output signal 21 passes through the receiving unit 210 from the input/output interface 205 of the communication server unit 200, and is processed by the processing unit 202 according to the instruction of the control unit 201 and stored in the storage unit 208. Based on the search information and the information of the user attribute information storage unit 215, according to the instruction of the control unit 201, the competition candidate data is selected in the competition selection unit 217. That is, in the opponent selection unit 217, the search information can be compared with the information in the user attribute information storage unit 205 between the fields. According to the parameter setting at this time, for example, regardless of the number of logged-in users on the network, They can also be flexibly corresponded.

On the other hand, in the login monitoring unit 218 of the communication server unit 200, users who log in to the network are monitored for a long time. The judgment processing of the login monitoring unit 218 will be explained using FIG. 5.

In FIG. 5, symbols in the sequence of 50 show the operation state of the operation buttons in the terminal B. In addition, the 60-sequence symbol is the type of signal received by the button operation registration monitoring unit 218, and the 70-sequence symbol is the judgment content of the registration monitoring unit 218 based on these.

For example, if the operator of the terminal B presses the connection button 31 on the control screen 30 shown in FIG. 2 (act 51), ID information is sent to the server S, and the login monitoring unit 218 determines that the received ID information 61 is The connection begins 71. In this state, when the player search signal 21 is added to the server S from another user, the terminal B judges that it cannot compete. Hereinafter, in actions 52 to 58 of the terminal B, the respective signals are similarly issued, and in the registration monitoring unit 218, the respective judgments 72 to 78 are performed based on the received signals 62 to 68. That is, for the judgments 71, 73, 75, and 77, the terminal B judges that it cannot compete, and on the contrary, for the judgments 72, 74, 76, and 78, it judges that it can compete. In addition, although not shown in the figure, when the disconnect button 38 is pressed on the control screen 30, a network disconnection signal is transmitted from the terminal, and the disconnection status is judged by the server S, which is out of the scope of the judgment function.

Through the above-mentioned judgment processing of the log-in monitoring unit 218, the status of each terminal B currently connected to the server S is distinguished, and a competition candidate is extracted. Although it is expected that the number of terminals connected to the network at all times will increase in the future, in this case, the number of terminals in the standby state shown in FIG. 3(a) will increase, and the processing of the log-in monitoring unit 218 having this distinguishing function is indispensable.

The above-mentioned competition candidate data is compared with the above-mentioned registration data of the registration monitoring unit 218, and the registration data of the competition candidate is searched and sent to the transmission unit 209. The sending unit 209 receives an instruction from the control unit 201, and sends the player recruitment signal 22 from the input/output interface 205 to the network for the IP address included in each data. In addition, the IP address is associated with the user ID stored in the ID storage unit 216.

The opponent recruitment signal 22 is in the communication control unit 300 of the terminal B corresponding to the above IP address value, receives an instruction from the control unit 301 from the input/output interface 305 through the receiving unit 310, and stores it in the storage unit 308 through the processing of the processing unit 302 . The recruitment signal 22 is transmitted to the terminal display unit (not shown) via the input/output interface 305 to light up the network name of the participant list 39 shown in FIG. 2 (if there is no login in the terminal B, it will be displayed as [New login ].). In addition, in the standby state, as shown in FIG. 3(b), the display is communicated by blinking of the battle call button 41.

Observing that the user who is able to challenge displayed above presses the battle promise button 37 when his terminal screen is the expansion screen 29 of the game or chat shown in FIG. 2, and the screen of his terminal is the standby screen shown in FIG. 3. In the case, press the immediate match button 43. As a result, the terminal B receives an instruction from the control unit 301, and the processing unit 302 forwards and processes the current own IP address from the IP recording unit 313 and the user ID from the ID holding unit 312, and transmits them to the transmission unit 309. Then, according to the instruction of the control unit 301 of the terminal B, the battle promise signal 23 including this information is sent to the communication server unit 200 via the input and output interface 305 via the network.

The battle promise signal 23 input from the input/output interface 205 of the communication server unit 200 to the receiving unit 210 receives an instruction from the control unit 201 and moves to the processing unit 202. The processing unit 202 transmits the above-mentioned data together with the data of the user attribute information storage unit 215 to the sending unit 209 as a player selection signal 24 again through the input/output interface 205 and sent to the terminal A via the network.

After the opponent selection signal 24 is input to the receiving unit 110 through the input/output interface 105 of the terminal A, it is processed in the processing unit 102 that has received the instruction from the control unit 101, and the user ID contained in the selection signal 24 is stored in ID storage unit 114. At the same time, the selection signal 24 passes through the storage unit 108 and the output unit 107, and is transmitted to the display unit of the terminal A (not shown) through the input/output interface 105. As shown in FIG. 2, the network name of the participation list 39 is displayed.

Then, the match requester of the terminal A presses the aforementioned network name, refers to its attributes displayed in other windows, selects a desired opponent from a large number of opponents, presses the game start button 40a, and waits for the start of the game. By pressing the game start button 40a, a game start signal 25 is generated in the terminal A, and the start signal 25 is input to the receiving unit 210 of the communication server unit 200 through the input/output interfaces 105 and 205. The start signal 25 receives an instruction from the control unit 201, and is transmitted to the login monitoring unit 218 via the processing unit 202, and is monitored until the end signal is received from the terminal A.

The various processing functions in the communication control units 100 and 300 and the communication server unit 200 described above can be recorded in advance as a processing program in a computer-readable recording medium such as a CD-ROM and a DVD-ROM.

According to the participant search processing method of the present invention, since the participant search is automatically performed at the start of the online game or online chat, the participant search can be performed extremely easily. In addition, since the game can be started anytime and immediately when desired, like an offline game, it is most suitable for use in a battle-participating online game.

According to the participant search processing device of the present invention, the participant search requester of a game or chat can perform a search instantaneously with a simple operation.