How was Square-Enix unprepared for this? (not a rant)

As we all know, the game's servers are full and no one can log on to the game. My question is how was Square-Enix unprepared for this? Sure, launch trouble is standard for MMOs, but wasn't the point of phase 4 to stress-test the servers? That phase went off without much of a hitch, save for that "still logged in" issue near the end.

So shouldn't this mean they were ready to handle the traffic on launch day? If anything, they should have been extra ready, since phase 4 was free open-beta and to play at launch, you actually needed to buy the game, so there should be less people than there was in phase 4.

There was more people on the NA EU servers during early access than there was in the beta.

They probably weren't unprepared, things just did not work out like they thought it would.

Limited people allowed in beta 1.

Limited people allowed in beta 2.

Limited people allowed in beta 3.

Errors preventing anyone from logging in to beta 4 to get an accurate count.

Im really pissed off, i booked time off work just so i could play and not only can i not log into my character but i cant make a new one as there are no available eu servers and what i find completely unacceptable is that there is not even possible to join a Q to log in. This kind of bullshit id expect in 1.0 but not now. Im disgusted SE you should be ashamed.

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Originally Posted by Skaramush

Im really pissed off, i booked time off work just so i could play and not only can i not log into my character but i cant make a new one as there are no available eu servers and what i find completely unacceptable is that there is not even possible to join a Q to log in. This kind of bullshit id expect in 1.0 but not now. Im disgusted SE you should be ashamed.

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Anyone who has ever been through an MMO launch should know you never, ever take time off in the first week of a launch. Consider it a lesson learned. Same goes for expansion launches.

The login cap was introduced as a direct result of the instancing server(s) being overloaded.

Phase 4 has a level 20 cap so there were only a limited number of dungeons/instanced events available in P4.

But when the cap was removed for early access that meant there was a ton of people now doing instanced things that weren't in P4 and thus the instancing servers all fell over quite horribly during the EA weekend. Since their login limitation was implemented it seems to have "fixed" the instancing issue, but I doubt anyone is calling that a permanent solution (from the forums it's obvious that we the players are unhappy about it!).

Most already noted, but yes the beta 4 stress test just was not a stress test.

They capped it every time and then raised the world cap. Which is normally a good idea. But when you stop raising that limit on the first day of a stress test. It doesn't stress the servers.

Followed by all those 3102 and 90000 errors. Equals a failed stress and just a buggy pre-launch.

I know why they did, but letting us keep the character info was not the best move.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skaramush

Im really pissed off, i booked time off work just so i could play and not only can i not log into my character but i cant make a new one as there are no available eu servers and what i find completely unacceptable is that there is not even possible to join a Q to log in. This kind of bullshit id expect in 1.0 but not now. Im disgusted SE you should be ashamed.

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I usuaslly get home and spam the log in till I get in and im spamming for maximum 15 minutes.. I am on a legacy server as well Hyperion. not sure how you cant log in if you have all day? and even at that as soon as you get yourself in the gameplay is uninterrupted, at least for my end

They severely underestimated how many people would register for early access. That was their problem and will be their downfall if they can't turn this around.