We’ll open up sales of a limited number of copies of Darkfall tonight European time Tuesday March 3d. We will try to repeat this every weekday until the extreme demand slows down and we’re able to leave the shop open 24/7. To answer the questions of how you can sell out a digital download, we’re throttling the number of new players in the world to limit queue times and protect the user experience. Server optimizations first and adding new servers in time are the steps we are taking to improve this experience.
From our launch experience, the extreme demand caused the account management infrastructure to lag and often time out. The hammering of the system by the users made things worse. Repeated attempts by users led to charge failures because of bank security rules. Incorrect billing information also led to failed transactions.
We expect the account management system to face extreme demand today as well. In order to try to avoid the issues we describe above, users who refresh before timing out, open multiple windows or tabs, and hammer the system will be temporarily blocked. Please do not refresh unless you have timed out or you will lose your place in the queue.
We'll post when sales open. If the copies we have available for today sell out, we will repeat this process again tomorrow.
I suppose I will take the optimists point of view in that the DF team has been working hard troubleshooting problems (i.e. sync issues) and managed to get those under control relatively quickly. The four bastages who managed to get accounts report that the servers have been up and stable all weekend. Hopefully we'll see additional servers and accounts made available this coming week.
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