Updated 4:00 PM PT May 26th
Hello Slayers! We have an update regarding our progress today. Very shortly, we will be deploying multiple improvements to our Dauntless services. This will cause a few things to happen:

Dauntless will go offline for a brief period of time. This will allow us to make important improvements to the servers.
If you were in the game, you will are going to try and move you to the front of the queue when you re-log.
If you were in the queue, you will keep your place in line.
Once these optimizations take effect, we the following improvements will take effect:

Matchmaking should be faster and more reliable. This means that transitions between islands and cities should be improved.
With matchmaking being more optimized, we should™ be able to let more people into the game. This will happen slowly at first, but as more people join the game, fewer people will remain in the queue, resulting in a shorter wait to login.
Since last night we’ve had a couple of questions about how your place in queue is held if you crash, disconnect, or otherwise get booted from Dauntless. There are two systems in place to get you back into the game as soon as possible, but the best, most reliable way is to always leave your patcher open and re-click “Play” as soon as Dauntless closes.

Separately, we have also received numerous reports of Founders not receiving their Slayer Pack of consumables. We are currently in the process of re-granting all Founders this item. You should see it shortly!

Again, thank you for your patience. We’re working tirelessly to get everyone into the Shattered Isles as quickly as possible.

Updated 12:15 PM PT May 26th
Good afternoon everyone, we have an update on our progress overnight, and the improvements that will be coming to Dauntless and its online services.

Late last night we deployed a small patch that included improvements to the tutorial island performance, the patcher, and the queue system.

Earlier this morning the login queue halted briefly while we made some improvements to it, as of right now this issue should be fixed and the queue should be moving again. We know that it is still at a very large number and we are continuing work to fix it. As mentioned last night, we intend for Dauntless to be a zero queue game.

Overnight we made some significant strides in solving the queue problem, which we are continuing in shifts today. We have a larger solution that we are working on that should significantly reduce the queue number, but will take us time to deploy. As of right now we do not have a specific window for when it will release, but we are talking days not weeks for it. We’re close Slayer, thank you for your continued patience.

While we develop the larger solution we are also rolling out a number of smaller optimizations that will help improve moving through the queue. We believe that this two pronged approach is the best solution to get everyone into the Shattered Isles as quickly and reliably as possible. During this time there may be brief interruptions or downtimes in the service. But we’re doing our best to keep them minimal and infrequent.

Thank you again for all your patience and support. Seriously. When any of us got exhausted through the night, we looked to your comments on Reddit and social media to keep us pushing through. Thank you for believing in us.

We’re planning another update at 6PM PT May 26th, or sooner if we have updates to share.

(PS - Thanks for the aether wisps, they gave us a boost of energy)

Updated 2:00 AM PT May 26th
Hello again Slayers, we have an update for you regarding some of the fixes and improvements we posted earlier tonight.

We are currently deploying a small patch that will address the following:

Tutorial Island Performance: You should see an improvement in FPS and stability of the tutorial island.

Login queue: While we are still working to remove the need for a queue altogether, we have made some improvements…

Login queues are now faster and more efficient.
Additionally the queue will now track your place in line more effectively.
If you make it in game, then fail to matchmake, crash, or otherwise get booted you will be able to jump back in game if you restart after leaving the game.
Overnight, the team is going to continue hammering away at our matchmaking service as we outlined below. We believe in our solution and expect to have a status update no later than 12PM PT May 26th (roughly 10 hours from now). Of course if we make progress or have any new updates we will post them as soon as we have them.

Thank you again for your patience and support. It’s an inspiration and what’s keeping us going through the night!

(PS - Send Aether Wisps)

First and foremost, thank you for your patience and dedication as we work to get Dauntless running smoothly. Our team has been working in shifts around the clock to get these issues resolved, and your passion has been a great source of inspiration.

Over the past day, we’ve worked through many potential solutions and updates. And while we don’t yet have a permanent fix, we now know how to resolve the issues impacting Dauntless.

The Plan
First, please know that our goal is to get Dauntless to a “zero queue” state. We don’t want anyone to have to wait to play. It is also our goal to have a smooth experience while in town, while hunting, and while transitioning between the two.

We anticipated 75,000 concurrent Slayers hitting our servers at launch. This number was based on player activity during the Closed Beta and on our previous experience with game launches. 75,000 players would have put our game in the top three of actively played Steam games (for comparison). A lofty goal, but we didn’t want to run out of servers for our players.

However, an error in our system prevented our online service from working correctly.

Our team has been working to solve the resulting issues since launch, working in shifts and overnight to get you playing as soon as possible.

Our initial response to the incoming wave of players was to add tens of thousands of additional servers via our cloud hosting provider. While this allowed us to increase our capacity by about 50%, it also resulted in a drastically degraded matchmaking for all players – making getting to and from islands worse.

Given the choice between allowing more players in – and offering an worse, potentially broken in-game experience – or limiting the number of players admitted – and offering a more stable experience – we chose to favor the stable experience.

Incremental Improvements
In the short term, our team has been working on incremental improvements to our online service to improve queue times, matchmaking, and in-game performance. These improvements will be rolling out slowly throughout the day.

Queuer Solution
The Dauntless login queuer is currently holding your place in line, but we’re taking steps to optimize it. The queuer does not currently represent an accurate number of people waiting and may cause issues for players when they reach the end of the queue.

We are going to make two improvements to the queuer.

First, if you make it to the end of the queue but are disconnected from the game, you will be able to log back in without waiting. It will hold your place in line for 1 hour. This should make potential network issues for connected players less frustrating. (UPDATE: MAY 26, 2 AM PT – This is implemented.)

Second: We will be making a major update to the queuer. This update will make the queue faster, more reliable, and more accurate, but as a side effect will also reset everyone’s place in the queue. If you’ve been waiting a while this might feel unfair, but this reset will improve your overall experience and help get you into the game quicker. (UPDATE: MAY 26, 2 AM PT – This is implemented.)

Server Progress
Our team is also working on changes to our online services, including matchmaking, that will let many more players into the game, creating a more stable experience for everyone playing. In order to do this, we will need to temporarily disable global matchmaking (EDIT: Clarification added – this is the service that allows you to connect to anyone else in the world). This means that, for now, Slayers will only be able to play and matchmake with other people in their region.

These restrictions on global matchmaking are temporary, and our future plans still include zero-queue, global matchmaking (as we had in the Closed Beta).

Performance Improvements
Another issue that’s been impacting players is poor performance in the tutorial island. Slayers have been experiencing low framerates, timeouts, and game-stopping bugs. We have identified the problems behind these issues and have solutions for them. (UPDATE: MAY 26, 2 AM PT – This is implemented.)

This update will also include minor bug fixes that will improve performance in other ways. (UPDATE: MAY 26, 2 AM PT – This is implemented.)

We are targeting this weekend to deploy this update. (UPDATE: MAY 26, 2 AM PT – This is implemented.)

Final Target
As stated, our ultimate goal is zero-queue, global matchmaking, and we will be working tirelessly to deliver on that. Once our interim solution is in place and working, we’ll going back to the drawing board and designing an entirely new online service from the ground up.

While this will not be fast or easy, we are committed to creating a world-class experience.

Staying Up to Date
This thread will be updated tomorrow at 12 PM PT at the latest.

Our online team will be working through the night on this to give us a better estimate on both the patch and matchmaking solutions.

Recap
– Status
We are aware of server and performance problems and are working to resolve them.
At this time, we know what we need to do, and are working to get you accurate estimates on delivery times.

– Game Performance
We will be releasing an update which improves tutorial island performance and other bugs this weekend (May 26-27).

– Online Services (Interim)
We will be updating our onlines services to improve login, matchmaking, and performance.
We do not yet have an ETA for this update. This should take a matter of days to complete.
We will have more information about this update tomorrow at 12 PM PT.
This update will improve online service performance, but will not allow for matchmaking across regions.

– Online Services (Final)
We will be completely rebuilding our online services to accommodate global, zero-queue matchmaking and play.

Thank You
While this is not the Open Beta release that we had envisioned, we are nonetheless dedicated and committed to delivering the experience you expect. We will not rest until Dauntless meets your expectations.

From all of us at Phoenix Labs, thank you for your continued patience, dedication, and passion.