I have several friends in-game who don't tend to visit the forums who are also having the log-in issues. Same exact format:
Connecting to NA servers fails most of the time and IF a connection is made, a failure usually occurs after selecting a character anyway.
Rarely, if lucky, you actually can complete the server connection as well as the character log-in load screen.

Once logged in, me and my friends have practically no issues with the game. It appears to be an issue exclusive to the log-in process and not regular game connection/communication.

I had to leave my character logged in overnight, and obviously had to leave my computer running, to avoid another 4+ hours of login attempts today.

I am supposed to have raid tonight, and that requires datacenter travel to join up with the rest of my group. I am genuinely dreading it, because there's nothing I can do except waste hours of my life trying to get lucky enough to hit "START" at the beginning of a fully random stint of stability on some haywire node along the connection path to the physical log-in servers.

In this case, it's not just MY time (and money, as this is a subscription game) at risk of being wasted. It's 7 other people, too.