Barton

Dateline: Thursday, February 24th, 12:55 p.m. EST. After having rushed home from work (huzzah for a half-day), I was frantically putting the kids to bed for an afternoon nap and patching up my client. Twitter was abuzz with gamers sitting at the starting gate and revving their mice. It was here. After seven betas, it was here, and we would be the first in the door.
12:59 p.m. EST. Began checking the server status list, trying to will the dull grey names to light up as they eve isk signified activity.
1:00 p.m. EST. Scott Hartsman posts a short message on Twitter: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to eve isk."
Right on cue, the servers came up, and what felt like the entire population of Oregon tried to cram into the game all at once. By 1:01 p.m., when I logged in, my chosen server of Faeblight was already full and had 461 people in the queue. I was 462. It would be another 45 minutes until I was able to play the game proper.
So with RIFT’s head-start and official launch out of the way, what’s the number one topic on everyone’s lips? It’s hard to buy eve isk, because it’s a tie between "WHEE! This is fuuuun!" and "Oh em gee, what’s up with these horrendous queue times?"
Depending on which of the 29 original servers you and your guild chose, the wait to log in could be instantaneous, measured in minutes, or drawn out for many, many hours. I’ll admit it: It was bad. Later on Thursday, I had to start my logging in process a full three hours before I knew I was going to be able to play, just because of the queues.
It wasn’t just the crush of people but the fact that buy eve isk the initial few days in the game represented an abnormality in normal play -- nobody wanted to log out and give up his spot. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t attempt to hire a local teenager to sit at my computer during the day, occasionally tapping on the keyboard so my character didn’t get booted due to being /eve isk.
The forums, naturally, erupted in the kinds of verbal tirades that we’re used to seeing on the evening news, with folks spinning the situation from "This means the game is ultra-popular; that’s great!" to "This means Trion’s failed; I’m leaving!" It’s more fun if you sung the comments in a high-pitched dramatic voice, perhaps with friends as part of a pantomime eve online isk thing.
For its part, Trion Worlds didn’t hesitate to bring more servers online -- I think the first one was announced about 15 or 20 minutes into the head-start. This continued all week through launch, as we now have a mind-boggling 99 or so realms from which to choose. But of course new servers weren’t the solution for people unwilling to migrate to them, which meant that the queues continued for the better part of the week in some places.