When will NA get more shards?

[Doozer]

This isn't about me. It isn't about "packed servers". This is about new players being unable to make a character anywhere. Why do you think this is acceptable practice? Why do you think it's okay for JP to have so many more servers with the same, or even slightly smaller, player base?

You're getting really mad when it not only doesn't affect you, but is easily remedied. The servers aren't full, they're just under strain right now from increased traffic. And if new people want to play so bad, they can make their characters at non-peak times. Wake up early before work or school, load in the saved character appearance data, pick a server, start it, then just shut the game off. It'll skip the opening cutscene and you'll be able to start playing for real later.

[Kirsten_Rev]

You're getting really mad when it not only doesn't affect you, but is easily remedied. The servers aren't full, they're just under strain right now from increased traffic. And if new people want to play so bad, they can make their characters at non-peak times. Wake up early before work or school, load in the saved character appearance data, pick a server, start it, then just shut the game off. It'll skip the opening cutscene and you'll be able to start playing for real later.

It's even more easily remedied from SE's end.

After all, it is utterly ridiculous to have time-sensitive restrictions for character creation. I mean, does SE think that by allowing people to create a character at 3am, that same character won't log on during prime time? Warn people about congestion, lock the server completely if it is truly maxed out, and other than that, step back and let people fend for themselves. All that time-sensitive locking does is anger people for absolutely no good reason.

[MistakeNot]

After all, it is utterly ridiculous to have time-sensitive restrictions for character creation. I mean, does SE think that by allowing people to create a character at 3am, that same character won't log on during prime time?

No, they think that if character creation on one server is only possible at 3am, then most new players will create their characters on some other server.
Having all servers in a data centre locked for character creation is not something the system is built to handle, but since that only happens during the first week or so of each expansion SE probably thinks it is not worth the trouble to come up with a better system.

[IttyBitty]

I am struggling to see why people are defending SE over the fact that new players are unable to create characters unless they wake up/stay up until 2 in the frickin' morning. Not everybody has the luxury of no-lifing for a chance to create a character on any server, much less specific ones.

"Oh but it's a new expansion it should be expected!" When the hell do you think is a better time for them to make their game available to new players?

[Eriane_Elis]

I am struggling to see why people are defending SE over the fact that new players are unable to create characters unless they wake up/stay up until 2 in the frickin' morning. Not everybody has the luxury of no-lifing for a chance to create a character on any server, much less specific ones.

"Oh but it's a new expansion it should be expected!" When the hell do you think is a better time for them to make their game available to new players?

SE hosts all their servers in-house. Right now they have a boon of players coming from all over the place. They don't really know what to do and they have to tread carefully. Adding new equipment costs a lot of money. A single rack can costs tens of thousands. If they implement all this new hardware and half of the player base stops playing after they complete the main content of Shadowbringers, then they are left with a lot of spare hardware doing nothing. Additionally they are about to receive a much higher budget now with upcoming content release and so that means that they'll be able to grow the staff, content release, and player base with that. Right now it's all about riding out that sudden growth spurt.

On the business side of things, SE has to tread very carefully but also attempt to cater to as many players as possible without wasting millions in hardware expansion and support. WoW / ESO / GW2 / BDO's failures weren't necessarily unexpected but in such great numbers I imagine it is. Yoshi P has been really good at directing this project and while he's made mistakes here and there, he found ways to redeem himself and his team. They need metrics and I believe this week they will get enough to figure out what to do if they're not doing anything already.

Remember, they're not telling us whether or not they are adding new hardware. Perhaps they are and they are struggling to keep up with how many players there are lol.