The headstart has ended and from the customer perspective was a roaring success. Introducing players in waves while at the same time giving them the perception of a reward was a brilliant strategy. The pre-order revenue surely did much to boost confidence for the bean counters at EA.

The traditional first day slam was avoided by having production servers ease into full capacity. Two waves of pre-release players meant that by the time the full release day came, much of the headstart crop was already into T2 zones.

Last night at prime-time was the first time the queue system was visible to me. Small queues at this point are a welcome sign of a healthy population count. Player count balance is so critical to a game of this type, too thin and a server or faction could be crippled. The Mythic team seems to be monitoring the loads carefully, releasing new servers only as needed.

Only gripe I had with the queue was the need to re-queue when switching characters on the same account…what a drag.

Queue, the hairstyle