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STO UI is modernized LCARS; "think iPhone"
Now that the Star Trek Online nerf scare has passed, it's time to take a few deep breaths of anticipation and soak in STO-related news again. The first news-worthy bit to pop up post-scare is a post by Steve Mason (the lead UI designer) at the startrek-online.net forums.Mason is dedicated to preserving the LCARS look in Star Trek Online. For those who aren't total Star Trek nerds; LCARS is the graphical user interface used by Federation ships in the 24th Century-era Star Trek series (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager). It was designed by a TNG-staff artist who was trying to theorize what a high-tech GUI interface would be like when GUIs were still in their infancy in the real world.So, there are some challenges in making LCARS useful to modern users. Mason says that STO will use an updated version of the LCARS interface (which won't hurt canon, since the game takes place quite a few years after Voyager left off) that will include all the bells and whistles of modern, cutting-edge UIs. " Think iPhone," he said. There are more details in his post, and he also opened up the thread to questions.[Via WarCry]
