Habitat: The LucasFilm MMORPG

Developed in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, when the company was still called LucasFilm, Habitat was the precursor to today's MMORPGs. Before any other graphical online game, it allowed hundreds of people from around the world to connect and interact with one another, and to affect the world that surrounded them.

In the history of MMORPGs, one of the most important titles in terms of evolution was Habitat, the massively multiplayer game from LucasFilm. It was a graphical MMO that presented a concept far ahead of its time, and its beta was only available for the Commodore 64.

A Bit of History...

The first MMORPG came out in 1985 and was called Island of Kesmai. It didn't have graphics per se, but used ASCII characters to represent different parts of the game. It wasn't until 1991, with Neverwinter Nights, that we saw the first graphical MMORPG. This is why Habitat was so influential: it did things that had never been seen anywhere else, and much earlier than anyone else.

Habitat was originally created in 1985 by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar, and it was the first time that a user could connect with others and interact with them in real time, with a graphical interface, in a world constantly changing due to the actions of other humans. Something never seen before, and even less on the Commodore 64.

The project began as an initiative between LucasFilm and Quantum Link — also known as Q-Link — an online service for the Commodore 64 that would eventually become AOL. Farmer and Morningstar worked on this project for more than three years until the beta came to an end. Then Q-Link continued developing its own version of the title, and LucasFilm licensed the technology to Fujitsu in 1989, resulting in an enhanced and exclusive version for Japan in 1990, known as Fujitsu Habitat.

During the beta, players connected to Q-Link's server, located in Virginia, which was nothing more than a modest computer. In that period, Habitat took on a structure, because initially it was too free. The developers realized that being on virgin ground, they didn't have the necessary influences to create a varied world.

That's why they decided to give users the tools to do whatever they wanted, and thus businesses and other things emerged, like newspapers (as in Second Life!). But there was too much freedom: players could exchange objects, rob each other, and even kill each other. This ended in chaos, and they were forced to impose rules and regulations, as well as authoritarian avatars that would maintain order.

The World of Habitat

Today's MMORPGs offer vast worlds divided into continents that we can explore with complete freedom, and where it's easy to get lost for hours. Habitat was quite different. You could explore with total freedom, but of course, the computers of the time didn't have enough processing power to display a giant world.

So the world was divided into screens or regions. Habitat's great world consisted of 20,000 of these screens. And although much of what was seen on screen was facade — like the sky, trees, and mailboxes — other objects had functions. For example, doors transported the avatar from one region to another.

Without a doubt, it was a very exciting experience, and encountering your avatar for the first time had no precedent. The player could control their character with the Commodore's controls, and the avatar could pick up objects, drop them on the floor, store them in pockets, carry them from place to place, and manipulate them. They could also talk to other users and make different gestures to convey emotions.

It was the first time that a user could connect with others and interact with them in real time, with a graphical interface, in a world constantly changing due to the actions of other humans.

Just like in today's games, you could customize your avatar in any way you wanted at any time. But not just your avatar, also your home, with different types of walls and furniture. In addition, it offered very varied settings, such as cities — with different shops and streets — caves, beaches, and others.

It also had an integrated mail system to send private messages between players. And there was even an economic system, with a currency known as Tokens. These could be collected in the scenarios, deposited and withdrawn at an ATM, and spent on vending machines that sold usable goods.

At that time, people generally used 1200 bps modems to connect to Q-Link's service. But of course, it wasn't available all day: on weekdays it was active only at night, and on weekends all day. It cost US$9.95 per month, with additional costs of six cents per minute to access exclusive services. And beta testers had to pay US$0.08 per minute to play Habitat, which allowed LucasFilm to finance its development.

Habitat used much of the software that SCUMM would later use to create stories.

Interestingly, Habitat had graphics similar to other LucasFilm games that came out later, like Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and Maniac Mansion, even though the graphic engine, SCUMM — written by Ron Gilbert — didn't exist yet. But Habitat did use much of the software that SCUMM would later use to create stories, so we could say that it also influenced the classic adventure games we love. The graphics were limited, but that didn't mean there was no detail; as we said, it was very similar to those adventure games of yore.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much more than the beta of this promising project, as it ended in 1988. But the project didn't die there, because Q-Link continued with its own development, improved it graphically, and released it exclusively for its clients under the name Club Caribe. The problem was that, unlike today's MMOs, it didn't receive updates, and they removed many of the things that LucasFilm developers had added to always keep it different. In the end, it became an extension of the communication service, almost like a graphical chat room.

But the legacy of Habitat is more than evident. Today, many of the concepts that project introduced for the first time are a reality, from character customization to the way of interacting and having an effect on the world you inhabit. Of course, it was a very primitive MMO, but it worked… and on the Commodore 64! If you want to read more about this forgotten project, we recommend reading Chip Morningstar's presentation "Las Lecciones de Habitat", where he tells how the development went and what they hoped to achieve with Habitat, among many other things. You can also browse the game's code, now preserved on GitHub.