I imagine you have probably already seen this, but Gamasutra reported on the Ensemble MMO-that-wasn’t, Halo. Simon asked me for a few words on the UI, and I offered him up some semi-cogent statements regarding the possible use of what were undoubtedly entirely placeholder assets.

“The character pane shows a health bar and ‘mana’ — or Psion, as is referred to in this title… The upper right icons are for basic character functions. The one on the far left would most likely be inventory, represented by the outline of a man.

Moving right, I’d guess that’s a ‘talent tree’ screen for customizing your character, most likely a powers menu (a brain to represent the Psion?), a titles or achievements screen represented by the trophy, and a support ticket system represented by the chat bubble icon.

There are many obvious tips of the hat here to the World of Warcraft interface. Simplicity and streamlined play appear to be the object of the game, but it’s interesting to see so many strange icons on the hotbar.

From the choice of abilities, it’s easy to surmise that that the character would have been some sort of melee/magic brawler. The upper bar has some similarities to the WoW UI modification Titan Panel – a favorite amongst players.”

I don’t really care about my name getting around, but it’s nice to see Massively’s URL in such prominent places.