In the time that I have been in the queue just tonight I have downloaded Spiral Knights, played it for the Steam achievement, uninstalled it, and I still have 200 people ahead of me...

What does my Literature degree have to do with voice acting?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *gasp* hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

What does it matter what I expect or not? Is what I'm asking not completely doable and beneficial to everyone?

I'll be the umpteenth person to request it. Please give everyone on the pre-release realms a free character transfer to one of the new realms. 30+ minute queues while staring at a screen full of "light" servers almost makes me want to reroll. I think a lot of people would be perfectly fine moving servers, and everyone benefits.

My friend purchased the game and has received an email that he is registered for early access, but still has not gotten in. Email: (email removed)

Yeah, that's what I thought, I just want to make sure that they are still letting people in as they buy the game.

My friend wants to purchase the game today. Does he have a chance of getting early access at a reasonable time, or is he pretty much going to have to wait till the 20th?

I can see only one legitimate reason for the population cap / queue times being what they are. If they have lowered the population cap for each server for pre-release, so as to insure that after release, when they raise the cap on every server there will be room for people's friends to join, then I'm okay with it. I have 5-6 friends that are seriously considering joining me, and they obviously would want to be on the same server as me, and I'm sure many other people have friends who might play as well. A buffer zone to insure that there is room on the server for such latecomers would actually be really nice. I just hope that's the cause of this issue, and not something else.