A Game & A Service

I have enjoyed the game in what limited time I've played so far but what we have to remember is that Square is not only selling us a game but also selling us a service, much like a cable tv, internet, or cell phone service you expect to have working service 24hrs a day minus tiny hiccups and maintenance.

If you have to make a phone call seven times over an hour to call your wife that wouldn't be acceptable service now would it? You would switch Cell providers wouldn't you? Same would go if you pay 40$ a month for internet, if that internet only worked for 5 hours out of the day that you weren't home to use it and they advertised it as a 24 hours service that would also be unacceptable.

Now to play devils advocate only a little;
When we paid for our preorders part of that payment went into the 30 Days online service that came with the box but probably not the 4 day head start that was free so I'll give them that.

Now the bad news;
A lot of the damage will probably come tomorrow the actual release. Not just more rage from customers but moreso to the brand. Several sites are already reporting on the shaky prerelease. Soon more sites will pick up on if the actual launch is successful or not tomorrow night during prime time more fuel for the hate machine.

What is needed to quell those fires?
Square Let us know your thoughts on how the servers are coming along, are you planning to add any more? Some sort of hope for those that can only play during peak hours but can't.

Now personally
From the last update posted little over an hour ago I've heard the "As we continue to monitor the situation" comment before. My union says that, my old cell phone provider used to say that... and to me that does not seem like action is being taken to fix the problem. I'm sure to many people it seems like a sit and wait posture. What are they waiting for? Optimisations to be initialized? For servers to be added to existing worlds? Let us know!

Myself like many others have been burned by this before and waited and waited Diablo 3... SimCity 5.... Maybe i should have learned my lesson and waited but that little optimist in me peaked thru the cynicism and said, hey it's Square they learned their lesson it'll be good this time.....won't it?

I really do hope this is all fixed soon the game itself seems great, it's simply the service it's attached to that needs work. Sorry if my post is all jumbled I rushed through the end I'm just about to leave work to now see if I can get on the same server I made a character on this morning. My gf hasn't been able to even create her first character yet still. FF why won't you let me love you!! lol :p