Star Wars Galaxies Combat Upgrade Q&A

MMORPG.com has conducted an interview with LucasArts' Julio Torres, in which the producer addresses questions about the recent less-than-popular combat upgrade for Star Wars Galaxies. Check it out:
Q: The new UI has been pointed at by many as a big reason for their displeasure with the combat upgrade. What solutions, if you any, will you offer to this problem?

A: We spend a lot of time considering all the UI changes made to the game. With the changes made to the combat system, we had to do some level of updating the user interface, the most obvious changes being the updated icons. The updated icons are more intuitive in both their look and function. It should immediately be more obvious to players what move/ability/item each icon corresponds to just by seeing the updated graphic. Veteran players were comfortable with the old icons, so to themthis represents something (new) to learn.

In addition, the new icons serve a dual purpose with the power up/cool off animations. Players will now be able to tell at a glance what special moves and abilities are immediate available to them and which they'll need to wait slightly longer to use. This provides a far more immersive and natural flow to combat than seeing (You can not use that ability for X seconds) as before.

Again, we recognize that any change in the UI is going to take time to get used to, but we're confident that the new UI look and feel is essential to achieving the immersive Star Wars-y combat everyone wants from Galaxies.