The decision was later made to only allow violence and robbery outside the city limits. The lack of rules lead to much controversy and debate amongst inhabitants as to what form the society should take. We recognized the age old story-teller's dictum that conflict is the essence of drama.' We included these because we felt that players should be able to materially effect each other in ways that went beyond simply talking, ways that required real moral choices to be made by the participants. 'Among the objects we made available to Avatars in Habitat were guns and various other sorts of weapons. The unit of currency was 'Tokens', and an individuals bank account could be accessed via an ATM (Automatic Token machine).

Habitat was intentionally designed to allow the broadest range of interactions possible, complete with its own internal economy, featuring banks and commerce. At its peak popularity around 20,000 regions existed, each containing objects that users could interact with.

The environment was made up of discrete regions, which could adjoin to up to four other areas. Lucasfilm Games (a division of LucasArts Entertainment) in association with Quantum Computer Services, began development in 1985, it was later released to the public in 1986.Īt its peak Habitat had around 15,000 players, despite only being available in the US and via certain service providers. It benefitted from the emergence of affordable home computer hardware and consumer internet connections. Habitat is regarded as one of the most influential virtual world communities, given the amount of groundbreaking developments that transpired during its short existence. This first installement examines developments up until the year 2000. This is a two part article, looking at some of the most influential historical virtual world communities. As current design choices are being made for this new evolution of virtual worlds, it is important to try and avoid many of the past mistakes and build a more sustainable ecosystem. The historical evolution of the space provides many interesting insights on human behaviour, economic design, and the impact of technological constraints on user adoption. 'In order to see where we are going, we must not only remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.' Yet, virtual world communities have existed for decades, including vibrant economies, self governance, law & order, religion, and even virtual wedding ceremonies. The excitement and buzz around the Metaverse gives the impression to many casual observers that virtual worlds are a new found concept.

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