I will begin by saying I have undertaken all the "What to do if the game fails to launch" actions. They have not worked. I have also "repaired" the launcher data.

The night of the latest maintenance, on clicking Play in the launcher the game would start but immediately and repeatedly crash. I gave up after over an hour of trying to play, thinking things would probably be fixed by the next day (as usual). This has not been the case.

Yesterday, after I clicked Play the launcher said the game was running but the game window did not load. After some extended time fiddling about, I tried closing the launcher while it said the game was running (although it wasn't). When the launcher was closed, the game window opened and I was able to log in and play. I opened a ticket and was told "thanks for letting us know". My ticket was closed although the problem was not fixed.

Today the same happened. I checked the bug reports page (as I have daily since this started) and have, as above, done everything advised on the help page re the game failing to launch. The game window is now launching, but is again crashing/freezing immediately. The first time it opened, I had reached the "loading" screen. The loading logo spun for about 5 minutes and I was then kicked for inactivity. I never reached the character load page. I tried again, and the game froze and crashed immediately. On my third third attempt, I have the same problem I started with: the launcher says the game is running but the game window has not opened. The game does load, and I am able to log in, if I forced the launcher to close.

I guess I should be happy that I can play, but having to crash/force close the launcher to get the game to work is surely not ideal!