Origin
See also: Player characterThe word Avatar originates in Hinduism where it stands for the "descent" of a deity in a terrestrial form (deities in India are popularly thought to be formless and capable of manifesting themselves in any form).
The use of the term avatar for the on-screen representation of the user was coined in 1985 by Chip Morningstar and Joseph Romero in designing Lucasfilm's online role-playing game Habitat. The computer game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar was released in 1985, but does not use the word in this sense, only in its original religious sense; the player's in-game final objective is to become an "Avatar". Later games in the Ultima series use the term in the same sense as Habitat and introduce Habitat-style customization of avatars. Another early use of the term was in the pen and paper role-playing game Shadowrun (1989).
Read more about this topic: Avatar (computing)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)