Personally I'm 100% Certain they did. The head writer Joe (can't remember last name) left the studio in early 2013. Besides that watching the ViDoc's from early to mid 2013 shows a playable area in the reef and is highly polished. We have a PvP map on mercury, and references to mercury by the Dink yet we never ever visit mercury? Between the AMA on Reddit and all the video evidence out there, -blam!- yeah some major changes for the worse happened in that final year up to release.