Without having more details, I would assume you did happen to be logged in during a peak spike, probably in one of the more heavily populated zones. I know shortly after GR dropped, Nova Praetoria was bordering unplayable. Though I did have it timed to 1 second of rubber-band for each 5 seconds of progress. I thought things would have been a bit calmer by now but, shows what I know.
I was on last night and the game was unplayable.
Running a /netgraph 1 showed instead of mown grass I had a graph like this ..I..I.I.I.IIII..I.I
with constant red spikes and yet a ping of only 200 or so. I logged into Truimph and got ......................... looks like I may have to move to a new server. It may be just the impact of so many new players but whatever the cause I can't play when I die 3 times due to lag freeze in 10 minutes.