Why was Indar chosen?

[julfo]

Let me start by saying a few things to protect my ass when the flamers arrive.
1) I am not a level designer, nor have I ever been a level designer. I am unlikely to ever be a level designer. Thus, I know nothing about the process of level design; the problems, difficulties and what makes certain aspects easy or hard.
2) I am not complaining. I am simply curious. I have 100% confidence that the devs know what they are doing and I am not professing to know better.
3) I love Indar anyway.
4) I searched for similar topics before posting this.

With that out the way, the reason for my thread: Why did the developers choose Indar as the (at least thus far) "flagship" continent of Planetside 2? We've just seen a screenshot of Esamir and I think the unanimous view is that is is a thing of pristine beauty. In comparison Indar is, in my opinion at least, not as pretty nor as awe inspiring as Esamir, perhaps simply due to the fact that Indar is a desert and, well, deserts are barren wastelands. Usually. Seeing this screenshot of Esamir rekindled my massive excitement for PS2 which died down slightly after the many Soon's and whatever.

So I just wondered why Indar was chosen over Esamir or even Amerish as the main face of Planetside 2 thus far. Was it an easier, less time-consuming continent to create? Or was it simply the fact that the Devs started on Indar first? Do the devs prefer one continent over another?

I can see that maybe Amerish would appear slightly too similar to other current FPS's, such that new players might be turned off and think "ooh this is just another BF3" or whatever. Maybe Indar is the least similar to current games.

What do you guys think? Which continent do YOU prefer?

Edit: It seems some people have missed my point. I wasn't concerned that Indar is barren or w/e. Quite frankly, I don't care whether it is covered in rainbows and lollipops. I was purely wondering why it was Indar specifically that was chosen as the main continent to be shown pre-beta. If it was the first to be developed then I would furthur ask why it was chosen over Esamir or Amerish?

These questions are completely benign!