The switch away from Open GL took place a while ago. There had been two camps at Maddox Games, the pro-OpenGL camp and the pro-DirectX camp, for a while. Eventually the arguments of the pro-DirectX camp won over, so the switch was made. It wasn't a particularly dramatic event, just a logical evolution of opinion based on a bunch of boring technical details.
Regarding the colors, once again, this is work in progress. Oleg specifically said that it's being worked on, that it's not final. So please think of it as a glass half full.
A lot of features go through this annoying development phase where it takes forever to get them perfect. It can take 3 days to build a feature to 90%, and a month to get it to 100. That's where we are with the visuals. It's a hugely complex system with lots of components, each at a different stage of completion, so at this particular time it happens to result in the picture we're seeing right now. Glass half full, guys, glass half full.
A bunch of smart, talented, experienced people are coming to work every day to work on the graphics. Oleg is constantly breathing down their necks and hounding them over each tiny detail. The visuals are a HUGE priority for him personally, huge. Have a little faith in the man.
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