devtrackers.gg
They should have said it starts July 30th at when the f**k ever PST and then announced that it would be "starting a few hours early" as a surprise when it was actually ready to drop.
Remember when we 'surprise launched' Halo: CE early on MCC PC and everyone also yelled at us for not giving them advance notice? :) We can't win. It's a tough spot, we want to give some timeframe because we want that server load and we want to ramp up engagement as quickly as we can. But it's pretty impossible to totally telegraph and exact time given all the variables, least of which is the fact that this the very first time this game and surrounding services are doing anything at remotely this level of scale. We're doing this now, ahead of launch, for exactly this purpose - work through kinks, discover problems, etc.. I feel for the team, they're working super hard. Thankfully most are too busy to notice people starting to yell and sling insults on social.
We'll get there, after ~6 years, I can wait as long as it takes to make sure folks can truly play once we flip the switch.
FWIW I'm trying to share some updates on Twitter as we get them.
I had a friend take the day off for it and it's like bruh. It's a technical test, not a beta. Sheesh people need to look into things more. It would be cool to play right now but we can't. It's not the end of the world.
That seems like a questionable decision, but can't fault the passion. I feel like I learned a long time ago, never take off the actual day of launch. There are ALWAYS some kind of issues, give it a day or three to settle, then take the time off. :) (I'm not saying our flight is a day or three delayed!)