I didn't get kicked off, just got impatient... Yes though, stuck in the retrieving chars screen.

Was zoning aswell and it said "sever not responding" then boom. Now stuck at char aswell.

Yeah, same deal here :<

Yep, same for me.

Was doing a mission and got booted while zoning. Now back in and hanging on retrieving character list

Edit: Just in the time i wrote this, i was able to log in. But it's a little slow

yep, same, i logged in, went to switch instances, froze while switching instances and i closed out, reopened, and here we are,

dang it.. been re-downloading all day (steam) and now the server died?

Retrieving sucks.....made it to character select, now retrieving maps........

Same issue as the op. It says the shard is back up, but unable to load my characters

Same issue here too

Add me to the list.
So I guess the servers were not stress tested enough??

And this is not a full Launch just the pre-weekend....