Just to steer it all a lil back on track, there was a Tech Demo of "Project Rapture" in 2005, the video is on youtube {Linky): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhPf8eCiDcw
This is now clearly identifiable as the Port city "Limsa Lominsa".
It's Pre-Alpha, but the backbone of the game would have been built at this stage, with just varying iterations of Content and polish being added. This looks similar to the quality you see in a game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 (Which for an MMO, is actually quite impressive) and even more so at such an early stage, but all easily attainable pre DirectX10.
Edit: Wrong one: higher quality (Can actually see stuff) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgtZvn5c4e4