It's been proven from past game sales that crap betas translate to crap retail. It may not be fare but betas are becoming more and more of just a sneak preview than bug fixing.

Looking at the beta for WoW, although it started out with a level cap of 20 and only 1/5 of the zones it has today, it had its graphics engine set up. So the eye candy was there and that was all that mattered because people took screen shots, posted them on sites, showed them to their friends, and it got people excited to play, regardless of the fact that it had no PvP in yet or missing levels or missing zones.

Shadowane on the other hand had shit-tastic graphics and many of us went around daily saying, "Oh it's beta, when final comes out the graphic will improve." But honestly, how easily can you get a friend excited to play a new MMO when the screen shot you're showing them is Shadowbane's graphics. Eye candy is where the market is at, luckily Darkfall realized this and thus pushed back it's beta a year and during this past year they've upgraded their graphics.

"It's not enough to win... others have to lose."
-Stephen Colbert 'Colbert Report'
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