1,300 players logged in, the servers immediately started sweating, and the "no-queue" promise the devs made lasted roughly as long as a Thanos snap. That's the short version of Project T.A.H.I.T.I.'s 1.0 launch weekend the fan-run emulator bringing back Marvel Heroes, the superhero MMOARPG that Gazillion Entertainment built and then took to the grave when the studio abruptly shut down in 2017, pulling the game's servers offline overnight and leaving its entire playerbase with nothing but memories.
These are unpaid volunteers who spent years reverse-engineering that game back into existence. Which is exactly why the dev team's post-launch mea culpa hits different:
"With a proper, Gazillion-like, efficiency and certainty, we launched. And it went relatively horrible."
They're not wrong. Day one served up the full classic MMO buffet: bugs, a forced server restart, a wipe, performance issues, and account creation problems that kept players from even getting in the door.
The team also had to push back against false rumors spreading through the community, reminding players that any official news would only come from server operators not Discord hearsay.
The queue itself was a plot twist. The devs had specifically said there would be no queue at launch. Then 1,300 people showed up and, well, there was a queue. Fair warning if you're sitting in line: keep something moving on your screen. Go AFK and you're getting kicked out of your spot.
As of the latest Discord chatter, the worst of the day-one turbulence has settled down. Some players are still reporting lag, but others say they got in without waiting at all. The experience varies depending on when you log in.
The bigger news: demand was heavy enough that the team is already spinning up a second server. No ETA yet, so don't cancel your plans around it but it's coming.
If you're gearing up to jump in, the full 1.0 release notes are worth a read before you do.
Source: Massivelyop