Quote Originally Posted by qemokitty View Post
I had to get up at 3 AM Pacific time to make a character on the server where my friends were. It took 7 days and a ridiculous wake up time to achieve it. Was a pretty poor customer experience for me, but now that I'm in, I'm happy with the game and it was worth the effort to be with my friends.
It's a better customer experience than just locking the server to new characters completely. At least this way you can get in eventually with a little patience.

I think the server status in-game updates constantly based on the current population, so it's worth checking back more frequently than the website suggests if you can be bothered. Also, if there's ever maintenance or a patch day, try to get in ASAP after that and you'll probably find most of the servers are available.