Worst Launch Ever?

[JMadFour]

Stormblood launch isn't even top 5 in worst.

Anarchy Online was the worst of the worst.

Sometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and Exhibit A is 2001's Anarchy Online. When it launched, some players found that the product keys shipped with their discs were invalid, while others were billed twice for the same registration fee. Crashes were common, servers were often down, and once they were actually in the game, players found there were areas of the world they couldn't even access. Naturally, Funcom's customer service staff were overwhelmed.

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-worst-pc-game-launches/

I defy anyone to tell me how Raubahn's quest being bugged compares.

More on Anarchy Online:

Let's put it this way: Anything that could have gone wrong -- up to demonic possession and the apocalypse -- went wrong when Anarchy Online went live in 2001. Billing and account registration was a nightmare, the game was inaccessible to many, lag and latency was through the roof, and the MMO as a whole was pretty much unplayable. Yours truly was on the scene during that time, and I have to say that the slideshow that was Rubi-Ka did not impress me enough to stay. Years later, I wrote an article summing up the timeline of this launch, if you're so interested in revisiting the nightmare.

https://www.engadget.com/2012/05/31/...s-of-all-time/

https://biobreak.wordpress.com/2009/...nlines-launch/

So what went wrong with this launch? Just how bad was it, really? Let’s take a trip through the timeline of the disaster:
•June 27, 2001 – Anarchy Online launches in NA and Norway. “The number of subscribers we had at launch were much more than we had anticipated.” (CM Tor Andre)
•June 27, 2001 – According to Wikipedia, “Customers were unable to register to play using the product keys included with their installation discs. Others were accidentally billed for the registration fee twice, although they were never charged for the second bill. The game software would crash repeatedly, according to reports from players. Significant portions of the game world were inaccessible, and the game’s servers were routinely out of service.”
•July 2, 2001 – “Numerous complaints from Anarchy Online customers cited problems with registration and difficulties retrieving patches needed to play the game.” Funcom issues a statement through Gamespot saying that they were hard at work fixing the registration system.
•July 2, 2001 – Funcom announces 35,000 registered accounts created.
•July 3, 2001 – Funcom issues a statement on their website, apologizing for the disaster, and promising that no player would be charged until the mess got fixed.
•August 12, 2001 – Funcom sends out a Post Launch Newsletter, detailing why the launch went so wrong.
•September 21, 2001 – To lure players back, Funcom opens a free one-week trial.

and read this:

http://www.somethingawful.com/featur...onlinei-first/

and then tell me that Stormblood's launch is worse.