Generally every launch period has been rocky due to server issues, either from DDoS or just sheer crowd hype, though ShB was amazingly smooth in comparison to them all at least here on Crystal. Unless something breaks very very badly the devs won't compensate lost time in Early Access or even in the regular launch period.

Quote Originally Posted by Omedon View Post
...but how does Squeenix traditionally handle this from a PR standpoint? I can tell you that if the FFXIV community is anything like the WoW community (and there is a LOT of overlap now), there will be cries for some kind of compensation. Does that traditionally manifest some response from the devs?
Can you not? Seriously. You can easily do a thread search and see the numerous topics involving compensation for lost time due to maintenances or hot-patches and it's not a WoW thing, it's a human thing. If there is downtime due to server problems you can guarantee there will be a thread complaining about it just like there is any other time it happens whether or not it's during an expansion.