The ArcheAge head start started late last night; four days of early access to those who bought one of the various founders packs. However servers are periodically crashing and queues are in the thousands, leading to many players stranded at the login screen. Every MMO launch is never perfect, but it’s hard to imagine what it’ll be like come Tuesday, when the doors open to all the free-to-play players too.

However this evening, Trion revealed one of the reasons for their technical difficulties. “Wanted to be open with everyone: yes this is a DDoS, and we’re all over it.”

Head start launched last night at 6PM BST, and the initial stampede to login was immediately met with a queue. The first signs of problems arose when players – who had all bought a founders pack and so should be classed as “Patrons” – were incorrectly being marked as free-to-play players, giving them a lower priority in the queue. This caused queue times to be exceed 2 hours for thousands of players.

Image courtesy of Lunatitch

Early this morning, most of the servers received multiple emergency maintenances after reports of disconnects plaguing players who eventually managed to get in. The good news is that Trion plan to put in a grace period: where if you’re disconnected, you have 5-10 minutes to log back in and skip the queue entirely.

Another issue includes players not receiving their Founders in-game items. This has recently been addressed in Trion’s latest update, and they should be “delivered much more rapidly” now.

It appears however that a major cause for Trion’s technical difficulties is due to high load, and not the good innocent type inflicted by eager players:

Hey folks – Wanted to be open with everyone: Yes this is a DDoS, and yes we’re all over it. Stay tuned for updates. — ArcheAge (@ArcheAge) September 13, 2014

The origins of the DDoS attack are still unknown, but Trion are working to restore services. You can follow their Twitter for further updates and announcements.

Lookout for my review in progress of ArcheAge later tonight, where I’ve managed to play through the first ten levels.