Even following best practices, the top priority of the project should be to fulfill the players' expectations and realize the designers' vision. That's not as c

Even following best practices, the top priority of the project should be to fulfill the players' expectations and realize the designers' vision. That's not as compatible with technical excellence at every stage of the project as you'd hope it would be. On well-planned projects, best practices of development help achieve that priority throughout the project. However, the more problematic development becomes, the more things come into conflict with that top priority. And in practice, planning is almost never good enough to prevent that as the project wears on. Project management that can push back the day when that vicious cycle kicks in is invaluable. Usually, in reality, the top priority is to ensure the short-term viability of the project or (worse) the studio or (much worse) the studio management. It's like Robocop's hidden directive, sadly. That diversion of focus, especially early in a project, is totally poisonous. If anything, MMOs are more susceptible to these kinds of existential threats than most projects. They're incredibly challenging feats for even a massively skilled development team. The ability to produce an MMO is actually a fairly good way to measure how well-buffered a development environment is from this kind of insecurity.