To everyone complaining about not being able to get into the game...

[Shori]

OP saying they couldnt anticipate the popularity is lazy thinking. They have a whole marketing team, some of whom should easily be able to track popularity in MANY ways such as streamer engagement (which we know they do), pre-order numbers, and the general increase in player count over the past year. EU were already experiencing queues both peak and off peak BEFORE endwalker dropped. In marketing campaigns they boast about how many registered users there are, a massive 400% on the number we had in Heavenward yet where are the servers??? SE just wont pay the price of the server hardware upgrades which is a huge insult given how many subscriptions are landing in their pockets.

[Sclair0]

EU were already experiencing queues both peak and off peak BEFORE endwalker dropped.

I second this point. I'm very on Squares side when it comes to the semiconductor shortage (clearly if a company like Sony cant get chips then Square cant atm), but EU has had issues for years even outside of expansion launches, and this wont be the last time this comes up. In future they really need to look into working on the European infrastructure when things smooth over a bit.