If you can only login to play during the evening hours on a EU server...

[Hasrat]

expected? we have been having queues all summer ...up to 500 ....so no , SE saw that coming from months.

Everyone has had small queues since Shadowbringers. It's not really indicative of anything other than the login server throttling access. Source: I moved to the lowest population NA server when Crystal was split off, and we still had queues.

Despite that, I still agree, EU needs at least 1 or 2 more servers per DC. But, as you said, SE might've seen this "coming [for] months." Thing is, getting new servers in the span of months is not something that can ever happen, even under normal circumstances. You've at least got to accept they're already near the end of installing an entire DC that has been in the planning stages for well over a year. With that in mind, is it so hard to believe they're already in the beginning stages of getting approval for and acquiring more hardware for EU? Time is just not on their side right now. Population growth has outpaced predictions, supply chains causing further setbacks. For all we know, the roadmap already included more servers after OCE, assuming that didn't alleviate congestion enough for EU.

[Laerune]

I fear for the next month, I wont be able to play this game during week, only weekend. 3-4 hour queue with lots of 2002 error will make it impossible for me to play.

[Ramiren]

Everyone has had small queues since Shadowbringers. It's not really indicative of anything other than the login server throttling access. Source: I moved to the lowest population NA server when Crystal was split off, and we still had queues.

Despite that, I still agree, EU needs at least 1 or 2 more servers per DC. But, as you said, SE might've seen this "coming [for] months." Thing is, getting new servers in the span of months is not something that can ever happen, even under normal circumstances. You've at least got to accept they're already near the end of installing an entire DC that has been in the planning stages for well over a year. With that in mind, is it so hard to believe they're already in the beginning stages of getting approval for and acquiring more hardware for EU? Time is just not on their side right now. Population growth has outpaced predictions, supply chains causing further setbacks. For all we know, the roadmap already included more servers after OCE, assuming that didn't alleviate congestion enough for EU.

The thing is, had they actually listened to us during previous launches when we complained about the infrastructure, they might have been in a better position now.

This has happened to a greater or lesser extent during every single expansion launch, 8 years they've had to plan their infrastructure for the worst case scenario, and they fail to act every single time. This isn't an "oh no we can't get servers this instant for this sudden influx of people" situation, this is Square-Enix spending two years creating this expansion and not thinking from the get-go that they should increase their capacity.

No amount of forethought could have predicted the pandemic, and the mass exodus of players from WoW to FFXIV, we'd still have had sizable queues, but had they spent the last 8 years gradually improving their infrastructure to properly meet peak demand we'd have significantly more manageable queue times today.

[Misutoraru]

RIP.

Took 3 hours to get through the queue. Well I did the 81 dungeon at least. Dinged 82. I am on Louisoix which I think was the last server added in the EU back in 2017 (EDIT: Two others were added in 2019) . Ah well.. anyone got a a spare server SE can borrow?

got very young toddler to look after and got to work next day
the long queue is fine, I just log in and queue when I get back home.
Then 2002 drop...hope 2002 will get fix soon, this way at least we can expect we will eventually get into game

EU DC would need upgrade asap, I dont recall any new server when we split, and looking NA/JP, despite they having to queue they have some server got spot for new character. Us in EU DC seem always red