''Habitat'' is a
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
(MMORPG) developed by
LucasArts
Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game brand licensing, licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as ...
. It is the first attempt at a large-scale commercial
virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual communi ...
that was graphic based. Initially created in 1985 by
Randy Farmer
Frank Randall "Randy" Farmer (born October 16, 1961) is an American game developer, co-creator with Chip Morningstar of one of the first graphical online games, 1985's ''Habitat''. In 2001 he and Morningstar were the first recipients of the Pione ...
,
Chip Morningstar
Chip Morningstar is an American software architect, mainly for online entertainment and communication.
Morningstar held many jobs throughout his career in the research and development of technology and programs. Most notably was Morningstar's r ...
,
Aric Wilmunder and Janet Hunter the game was made available as a
beta test
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
in 1986 by
Quantum Link
Quantum Link (or Q-Link) was an American and Canadian online service for the Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated starting November 5, 1985. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia, which later became ...
, an online service for the
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
computer and the corporate progenitor to
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017 ...
. Both Farmer and Morningstar were given a First Penguin Award at the 2001
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are awards annually presented at the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.
Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were ...
for their innovative work on Habitat. As a
graphical MUD it is considered a forerunner of modern MMORPGs unlike other
online communities
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
of the time (i.e.
MUD
A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...
s and
massively multiplayer online
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...
s with text-based interfaces). ''Habitat'' had a GUI and large user base of consumer-oriented users, and those elements in particular have made Habitat a much-cited project and acknowledged benchmark for the design of today's
online communities
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
that incorporate accelerated
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...
and immersive elements into their environments.
Culture
Users in the
virtual world
A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...
were represented by onscreen
avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
s,
[Morningstar, C. and F. R. Farmer (1990]
''"The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat"''
The First International Conference on Cyberspace, Austin, TX, USA meaning that individual users had a third-person perspective of themselves, making it rather like a videogame. Players in the same region (denoted by all objects and elements shown on a particular screen) could see, speak (through onscreen text output from the users), and interact with one another. Habitat was governed by its citizenry. The only off-limits portions were those concerning the underlying software constructs and physical components of the system. The users were responsible for
laws
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
and acceptable behavior within Habitat. The authors of Habitat were greatly concerned with allowing the broadest range of interaction possible, since they felt that
interaction
Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to:
Science
* Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition
* Interaction (statistics)
* Interactions o ...
, not technology or information, truly drove
cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
.
Avatars had to
barter
In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists distingu ...
for resources within Habitat, and could even be robbed or "killed" by other avatars. Initially, this led to chaos within Habitat, which led to rules and regulations (and authority avatars) to maintain order.
Timeline
Randy Farmer
Frank Randall "Randy" Farmer (born October 16, 1961) is an American game developer, co-creator with Chip Morningstar of one of the first graphical online games, 1985's ''Habitat''. In 2001 he and Morningstar were the first recipients of the Pione ...
,
Chip Morningstar
Chip Morningstar is an American software architect, mainly for online entertainment and communication.
Morningstar held many jobs throughout his career in the research and development of technology and programs. Most notably was Morningstar's r ...
, Aric Wilmunder and Janet Hunter created the first graphical
virtual world
A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...
, which was released in a
beta test
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
by Lucasfilm Games in 1986 as ''Habitat'' for the
Quantum Link
Quantum Link (or Q-Link) was an American and Canadian online service for the Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated starting November 5, 1985. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia, which later became ...
service for the Commodore 64.
''Habitat'' ran from 1986
to 1988, and was closed down at the end of the pilot run. The service proved too costly to be viable, so Lucasfilm Games recouped the cost of development by releasing a sized down version called ''Club Caribe'' on
Quantum Link
Quantum Link (or Q-Link) was an American and Canadian online service for the Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated starting November 5, 1985. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia, which later became ...
in 1988. It was then licensed by
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...
in 1988,
and released in Japan as ''Fujitsu Habitat'' in 1990.
In 1994, Fujitsu Cultural Technologies was spun off as a new division of Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, INC or OSSI for short. In conjunction with Electric Communities, the two companies began work on the ''WorldsAway'' project (which was codenamed "Reno" at the time). Originally, the initial plan was for the team to work from the Fujitsu Habitat code and bring it to the Mac and Windows operating systems.
This proved not to be possible due to the fact the underlying architecture was nothing like its predecessor ''Habitat'' due to being developed by a different team. This led to delays in the project whilst the kinks were being worked out. It was launched on
CompuServe
CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...
in 1995 as a free service for members. The world was called ''Dreamscape''
and moved to the public Internet in 1997 still under the operation of Fujitsu. As CompuServe morphed into
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017 ...
's "value brand", Fujitsu sought to sell off its product as they were making a loss. Inworlds.com (who later became Avaterra, Inc) stepped up and bought the licensing rights and took over the reins. In 2011 the Dreamscape was still surviving independently as one of the VZones.com worlds – owned by Stratagem Corporation. Other WorldsAway worlds using the same server software that have been launched during Stratagem times were newHorizone, Seducity, Second Kingdom and Datylus. The VZones.com worlds closed in August 2014. The only remaining licensees of the technology is vzones.com.
Creation
One challenge in producing games is to resist the "conceit that all things may be planned in advance and then directly implemented according to the plan's detailed specification". Morningstar and Farmer argue that this mentality only leads to failure as the potential capabilities and imagination of a game would remain confined within the small niche of developers. They generalized this well by pointing out that "even very imaginative people are limited in the range of variation that they can produce, especially if they are working in a virgin environment uninfluenced by the works and reactions of other designers".
An example of this approach was when Wilmunder, the programmer responsible for developing both backgrounds for the Habitat World and Avatar animations noted how the original specification only included a single generic male and female character. Wilmunder determined that the system could go further and he implemented the ability to customize player Avatars, first by patterning their clothing, and later allowing Avatars to change height, carry items, and ultimately to allow the players to select from over one hundred different heads for their characters, capabilities that are today taken for granted in other Avatar based systems. This feature became so popular that 'heads' were sold in in-game vending machines and were even used as rewards for players when they completed quests.
With this outlook Morningstar and Farmer stated that a developer should consider providing a variety of possible experiences within the cyberspace, ranging from events with established rules and goals (i.e. hunts) to activities propelled by the user's own motivations (entrepreneur) to completely free-form, purely existential activities (socializing with other members). The best method to manage and maintain such an immense project, they have discovered, was to simply to let the people drive the direction of design and aid them in achieving their desires. In short the owners became the facilitators as much as designers and implementers.
Regardless, the authors note the importance of separation between the access levels of the designer and the operator. They classify the two coexisting virtualities as the "infrastructure level" (implementation of the cyberspace, or the "reality" of the world), which the creators should only control, and the "experiential level" (visual and interactive feature for users), which the operators are free to explore. The user not need to be aware of how data are encoded in the application. This naturally follows from the good programming practice of encapsulation.
Revival
An effort is currently underway to relaunch ''Habitat'' using
emulation
Emulation may refer to:
*Emulation (computing), imitation of behavior of a computer or other electronic system with the help of another type of system
:*Video game console emulator, software which emulates video game consoles
*Gaussian process em ...
of both the Commodore 64 and the original Q-Link system that ''Habitat'' ran on. The project is headed by
Alex Handy, founder of The
Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment
The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (stylized as The MADE) is an Oakland, California, museum dedicated to digital art and gaming, with fully playable gaming exhibits.
Its mission is to collect and curate video games, digital media concep ...
(MADE), who received the game's
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
from its original developers. In July 2016, the source code was uploaded by MADE to
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
under
MIT license
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...
for open review.
In February 2017, an open-source project to revive ''Habitat'' led by Randy Farmer (one of Habitat's creators) named NeoHabitat was announced to the public. The project was requesting volunteer contributors to aid in developing code, region design, documentation and provide other assistance. Due to the volunteer contributors, original source files, maps created during development and database backups were unearthed. This enabled the original Populopolis world to be fully restored. NeoHabitat is currently operational and accessible to all. Development is mostly complete and the original Habitat experience can be had once more.
''WorldsAway''
''WorldsAway'' was launched in 1995 and was developed by some of the Habitat team, although no code is shared between the two projects. WorldsAway is an online graphical "virtual chat"
environment in which users designed their own two dimensionally represented avatars.
It was one of the first visual virtual worlds.
In 1996 it was one of the top 20 most popular forums on Compuserve. ''WorldsAway'' users would login, originally through dial-up Compuserve accounts and later through the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. First-time users would choose their gender, name, head and body style on a virtual ship before entering the world proper to meet other online users (these could be changed later by paying a quantity of tokens).
Each subscriber would view and manipulate their own avatar which was displayed in a limited set of poses and profiles.
A user would walk their avatar around a virtual city (named Kymer), enter shops and teleporter cabins, gesture or chat to other avatars (cartoon like text bubbles would appear), and carry out various in-game actions.
Ty Burr's 1996 review of the three graphical chat worlds then available (the others were Worlds Chat and Time Warner's
The Palace
''The Palace'' is a British drama television series that aired on ITV in 2008. Produced by Company Pictures for the ITV network, it was created by Tom Grieves and follows a fictional British Royal Family in the aftermath of the death of King ...
) rated ''WorldsAway'' the lowest at C+, criticizing the slowness and lack of flexibility.
Unlike some modern virtual worlds, ''WorldsAway'' did not boast 3D graphics or any combat system (although inworld combat had been planned, it was never implemented).
[Gullible's Travels: Through the Dreamscape](_blank)
Bruce Damer, Avatars!, "This is not a shoot-em-up world" Most time spent in the world by users was spent on economic endeavors and chat. This meant that the world had a monetary token system and virtual business endeavors could be set up such as Clover's famous auctions with commissions for sales, or Dennis S's nightclub with admission charges, or the payments for the various street games such as bingo. The token system facilitated the economy. Avatars received tokens based on the number of hours played, from sales of objects, from gifts, and other sources such as running enterprises. Rare and/or functional objects were introduced into the world by stores and Acolytes. Acolytes were appointed by the Oracles and had access to changing supplies of objects that they gave away or awarded as prizes to the community. Clover's famous auctions were held weekly and people bid vast amounts of tokens to acquire rare items such as heads, clothing, furniture, and other useful or artistic objects. Apartments could be purchased, furnished, or sold. Other popular past-times were playing Bingo
and other simple games. These games were not a part of the original software, but were made by third party developers as plug-ins.
''Dreamscape''
''Dreamscape'' was the first graphical
online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time text, real-time transmission of text-based, text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participa ...
environment built on the ''WorldsAway'' platform. It allowed users to create an avatar to represent themselves in a 2D world and interact with other users and virtual items.
The player chooses an
avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
, which is the graphical representation of the player. The avatar can text chat, move, gesture, use facial expressions, and is customizable in a virtually unlimited number of ways. Avatars earn money, own possessions, rent apartments, and make friends. The environment itself is composed of thousands of screens, in which the player's avatar moves about.
Popular culture
Much of the second and third seasons of the American TV series ''
Halt and Catch Fire'' is centered around the development and troubles of the fictional tech startup ''Mutiny'', heavily inspired by the story of
PlayNET
PlayNet (or PlayNET) was an American online service for Commodore 64 personal computers that operated from 1984 to 1987. It was operated by the PlayNet, Inc of Troy, New York.
History
PlayNet was founded in 1983 by two former GE Global Research ...
and Quantum Link in the 1980s. In the show, Mutiny transitions from an online games company to eventually delivering an online subscriber-based graphical chat community for Commodore 64 users, mirroring Habitat.
Reception
Roy Wagner reviewed the game for ''
Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'', and stated that "this game effectively optimizes the local storage, processing and graphics power of the low cost Commodore 64/128 home computer that is in over four million homes and the real-time, person-to-person, interactivity made possible by a low cost nationwide network that is accessible with a local phone call".
Reviews
* ''
Commodore Microcomputers
''Commodore Power/Play'' was one of a pair of computer magazines published by Commodore Business Machines in the United States in support of their 8-bit home computer lines of the 1980s. The other was called ''Commodore Interface'', changed to jus ...
''
* ''Run''
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
Literature
Farmer, F. R. (1993). "Social Dimensions of Habitat's Citizenry".Virtual Realities: An Anthology of Industry and Culture, C. Loeffler, ed., Gijutsu Hyoron Sha, Tokyo, Japan
by F. Randall Farmer (Fall 1988), Electric Communities
External links
Playing Catch Up: Habitat's Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer on
Gamasutra
''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Gam ...
by Alistair Wallis (October 12, 2006)
VZN's guide to Club CaribeScreenshots and comparisons to the modern version of habitat, Vzones
COMPUTE! magazine article about Habitatfrom
COMPUTE!
''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
ISSUE 77 / OCTOBER 1986 / PAGE 32
Enter The Online World of Lucasfilm RUN Magazine Issue 32
VZones WebsiteVZones Network Archivesarchives of locales, screenshots and info from 1995 to 2003
archived screenshots from 1996
{{DEFAULTSORT:Habitat (Video Game)
1986 video games
Commercial video games with freely available source code
Commodore 64 games
CompuServe
FM Towns games
Internet Protocol based network software
LucasArts games
Classic Mac OS games
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Online chat
Video games developed in the United States
Windows games
Graphical MUDs
Virtual world communities