I will have to flesh this topic out a little later (day job going to intervene in my doing it all in one go). Anyways as an introduction...
A fair amount of the feedback (that I saw, anyway) -was that release without 3D art was something that was commented on. To be honest, releasing it without the 3D wasn't something that was planned, but was just one of those things. My part in this project (started out as playtester -with some early beta work back in 2012 -but then later on got asked if I was interested in trying out being a graphics coordinator).
Graphics coordinator is largely a research based role, but also means that you get what material that comes in and fit it in to the game; you also have to pay attention to the game play, to ensure that the graphics make sense with how the title works -I'll probably explain that more a bit later). There will be more samples than I got time to add right now, but at this point there are a lot of place holders ... however, consider this, most things in development are not fair game to post previews - but this one is. I expect it to happen - there will at the very least be a set of map graphics created. The units are also being done -by a couple of guys that contacted Rich (I'll be a bit more formal later - yes I do know their names, and will use them - and will give them full credit)... and things are coming along pretty nicely, but there are a lot of units to go through
(http://hist-sdc.com/images/spotlights/mp_syw/_mp_syw_cover.png)
I guess one thing that I will put out there - something that I thought was public knowledge - and that is SDC is pretty much just me. There is no team behind it -although I have had guys help out off and on over the 9 years or so that I have had it ... far more off than on, really.
The image above - I decided that the rectangle had to go. It didn't make it to the JTS website- that one there is the original one that I replaced. I did it as a 32 bit png ... ok and did the background as the same colour as the load screen (black). I guess that counts as a preview ... sorta...