Emergency Maintenance would solve nothing.

[Gramul]

This would be a valid point if this was an actual pre-order bonus that ended some time before release. As anyone can buy this game at any time and get the access immediately right up until 'release date' its not really going to do anything/split up the congestion.

Well, that's why the "real" release date is in name only. Totally for the sake of splitting up the userbase.
It's all about the pastiche. The illusion of consumer reward. Convincing those that come in "early" that they're getting something special, while those that don't care as much will just buy it when it comes out "officially". It's all for show to try to mitigate the rapid influx so that issues can work their way out before the "official" release date when the mighty eye of the media casts its judging gaze.

[DarkRain]

I feel like Early Access has been more of a Beta test to be honest. I did not do a single Stormblood thing today. I came on the game at 5am CDT. I played 19 hours. In that 19 hours I unlocked SAM and RDM. The Duity Finder was broke a good chunk of the morning . When it did work and you leveled in PotD you might MIGHT get a run in. For a while it was working well than slowly but surely DC after DC after DC to the point I would DC log in wait for que get to loading screen to DC again. Happened all day long . I didn't even get SAM to 60 its half way into 58 I'm too tired and frustrated to finish it to 60. My plan was Wake up spend a good 8 to 10 hours to get SAM to 60 and rest of time enjoy Stormblood.................Never Happened. Something should be done on server level

[Airget]

The biggest issue currently is how tight lipped they are about accessibility. If there was some form of logic to ability to get these instances done then people could actually wait without having to play lotto with the NPC that initiates the instance.

And of course this board has had enough of said comment but it comes back to, why are they so unwilling to even attempt to implement a queue system for these instances? They have queues for everything else, dungeons, which you can solo queue right now with no issue, so why is it they don't want to implement a hotfix to create a queue for this content. a queue would solve the congestion, it would reduce the amount of information being sent to the server at a given time because the people who are spamming to enter would now have a ticket waiting for their turn. It's just baffling that they seem to have no other response but be patient and wait for it to die down.

[Asphexius]

What else would you really call it? The servers won't be under this amount of stress for years after this.

Oh i don't disagree that this is what it has essentially turned out to be. I just disagree that this is what it should have been and subsequently disagree with White Knights (generically, not anyone specifically I've been speaking with directly here) saying that its OK to have a failed launch but use semantics to say 'Oh no, the launch isn't reallllly until the 20th' as if this wasn't the same product that they would have turned out on the 20th. A proper Beta/stress phase would have been weeks in advance anyways, not 4 days till launch.

[savageink]

Oh i don't disagree that this is what it has essentially turned out to be. I just disagree that this is what it should have been and subsequently disagree with White Knights saying that its OK to have a failed launch but use semantics to say 'Oh no, the launch isn't reallllly until the 20th' as if this wasn't the same product that they would have turned out on the 20th. A proper Beta/stress phase would have been weeks in advance anyways, not 4 days till launch.

LOL! I don't think I qualify as a white knight. I crank off half the people I talk to on this board. I've just done enough "launch days" to expect them to be like this.

[Asphexius]

Totally for the sake of splitting up the userbase.The illusion of consumer reward. Convincing those that come in "early" that they're getting something special, while those that don't care as much will just buy it when it comes out "officially". It's all for show to try to mitigate the rapid influx so that issues can work their way out before the "official" release date when the mighty eye of the media casts its judging gaze.

I totally agree with this likely being a way to mitigate bad media impressions, but I really doubt this is going to fool the players into buying and accessing the game 4 days later for no real reason, do you? I also agree that the 'early access bonus' certainly could have snagged extra pre-orders early on, but I just really doubt anyone is just sitting around for the 'release date' if they intend to play it instead of just getting it then/now/whenever and getting instant access (to the first half an hour of content).

[Sayora]

Oh i don't disagree that this is what it has essentially turned out to be. I just disagree that this is what it should have been and subsequently disagree with White Knights saying that its OK to have a failed launch but use semantics to say 'Oh no, the launch isn't reallllly until the 20th' as if this wasn't the same product that they would have turned out on the 20th. A proper Beta/stress phase would have been weeks in advance anyways, not 4 days till launch.

Oh, fair enough. I am indeed curious though if we'll see a surge on the 20th.

[Asphexius]

LOL! I don't think I qualify as a white knight. I crank off half the people I talk to on this board. I've just done enough "launch days" to expect them to be like this.

I dunno if I read your post or not lol. I didn't name any names, more of a general thing as I've for sure seen some die hard fanboying here and in shout while trying to advance this borked MSQ. I'm also used to server stability/bugs/etc, but this is probably some of the worst dev. planning/short sighted issue I've seen to date out of a big dev like Square. Like everyone knows not to funnel everyone to the same hardpoint in expac #facepalm. Maybe "FF apolgist" would be the more apt expression :P.

[Blacktestament7]

So I am seeing cries for "DO MAINTENANCE!"

Uh...

What would that solve, exactly?

What needs to happen, is people need to log off and go to bed, and let some people through. We are having these problems because the servers are just inundated with ridiculous floods of people all trying to do the same things at once.

If they don't do maintenance, people will eventually get tired of the waits, log off, and go to bed which is exactly what needs to happen.

If they did maintenance, then you force everybody to log off (which hinders progress), and then set a time that everybody can set their alarms to, so that they can all try to log on simultaneously, and we're back to square-freaking-one all over again.

Maintenance is not the answer. It would only make matters worse.

I did that, got back on. Still a problem. And the problem got worse. And now I can't do pretty much anything except fate grind and crafting/gathering. Serves me right, for thinking maybe I'll just come back later and shit will die down. I mean it's not like more and more people won't get on repeatedly because they payed for a game to play.