For a MMORPG for be successful, it must succeed on many fronts: without instant visual appeal, players won’t buy the boxed product; and without solid game design, they won’t stick around in the pretty world after they’ve seen the sights. The game has to be immediately accessible and fun for the newbie, yet offer a fulfilling experience for the accomplished player. As a graphics programmer, I can confidently say that creating a pretty world has not been the primary focus of the ORIGIN team. “What? Heresy?” I hear you say. It’s true. The primary focus has not been design, either. Nor has it been reusable code, engineering methods, database structures, or any of the other areas that game developers like to focus on. The primary focus has always been on balancing these things to create a great game.

Hopefully we'll see this coming into effect when the game is released...