US Patent 9225805 Selectively ordered protocol for unreliable channels

A method for communicating in a distributed game system includes, at a server system, maintaining information associated with a plurality of entities in an environment; and maintaining communication sessions between the server system and a plurality of client systems for exchanging information associated with the entities between the server system and the plurality of client systems. Each such communication session uses a communication protocol that supports both reliable transmission of ordered messages, and transmission and selective discarding of ephemeral messages.