I've said this in a few other forums since people are misunderstanding 1017:

1017 is not an error. SE put 1017 in to limit the amount of people playing so they could 'prevent server instability'.

All in all, it's a load of fail on SE's part since they obviously have no plans to lift 1017 anytime soon. If they can't deal with players now, wait until the more people try tomorrow.