Lucasfilm's Habitat was an early and technologically influential online role-playing game developed by Lucasfilm Games and made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to America Online. It was initially created in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, who were given a "First Penguin Award" at the 2001 Game Developers Choice Awards for this innovative work...
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Lucasfilm's Habitat was an early and technologically influential online role-playing game developed by Lucasfilm Games and made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to America Online. It was initially created in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, who were given a "First Penguin Award" at the 2001 Game Developers Choice Awards for this innovative work, and was the first attempt at a large-scale commercial virtual community (Morningstar and Farmer 1990; Robinett 1994) that was graphically based. Habitat was not a 3D environment and did not incorporate immersion techniques. While not VR (virtual reality), it is considered a forerunner of the modern MMORPGs which are more similar to VR-style applications and was quite unlike other online communities (i.e. MUDs and MOOs with text-based interfaces) of the time. The Habitat had a GUI and large userbase of consumer-oriented users, and those...
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