UPDATE: The queues have died down after the weekend.  Managed to have 2 hours on Tuesday evening without a single queue wait.

I actually saw the login queues for the first time Sunday.  I started as 148 out of 155 waiting to enter.  The wait was about 20 seconds.  Not a big deal.

My frame of mind: I have not really played much in the past week – less than 2 hours – due to a wide range of odd episode glitches. (Sorry that comment sounded like it was game glitches alone that limited my hours.  Work has eaten up most of my free time.  What limited time I do have, well, read on…) In most cases I would finish an episode, and then warp right back to the start.  Groundhog Day – over and over. I get you that sometimes the best way to repair a glitch is to drop the mission, and start again.  But 2 times in a row, I’m frustrated.  After a hard days work, I don’t want to play a game that challenges me that way.

I come to STO for fun and for the extremely rare opportunity to say hi to fleetmates.

Fast forward to Sunday.

The only alt I’ve been playing is my new Delta Recruit.   Perhaps the ONLY benefit of R&D is that for new alts getting a new selection of gear is cheap and easy.  The process of “twinking” is fun (no giggling please), you get to try out a selection of power types, and you have a pretty good chance to upgrade your gear to pieces with the optional proc arrangement.

I’ve tried making to level (it’s fine to do below X), and had a lot of fun.  I like crafting for new alts.  Anything needed for post X, I make at level II and upgrade.  Seems to be the most cost effective, and you sometimes luck out with an Ultra Rare or EPIC.

So I switch characters to my primary crafter.  And I see this:

No biggie I think.  18 second later, I’m in.  Then I forget what I had on the previous alt.  So I switch back, and see:

35 seconds.  Now I see what I need (writing it down this time), and switch back.

40 seconds.  Start to craft.  Now everything I need will be ready in 5-15 minutes, when I’ll have to set-up another set to craft.  I pause as I look to prepay in dilithium to save the login queue hassle.  No I think, the queues won’t be that bad.

*Grumble*  Play 15 minutes on the alt, and switch back for my finished upgrades.

This time no queue.  Grab the upgrades, return to the Delta Recruit and:

*Frustration*

So my choices are pretty simple.  I can used my limited game time in one toon just to make upgrades – or I can pay more dilithium to get what I need now.  So I break down, move what I need to an expanded bank, and switch again.

You know what happens next.  I forgot to make Torpedo Upgrades.

Out of my 120 minutes of gaming time today approximately 18 minutes ends up dealing with login queues. Sure I was switching characters.  Yes, I could have “made do” with the gear my alt earns in the Delta Recruits program.  But I didn’t want to.  I wanted to use the R&D skills that have taken 6 months of daily logins to create.

Yes Cryptic, I use R&D.

Hundreds of dollars in buying ships and dilithium, and 1 minute in 6 is eaten up by queues.

Not my idea of a great gaming experience.

Is there anything that can be done?   Will Cryptic even address this as something they will address as part of planned improvements to infrastructure? I haven’t even begun to touch on the in-game lag that’s associated with high traffic.