Well, in a way, I'm glad I'm not the only person this is happening to, which would point to the seemingly overall consensus that this problem is on SOE's end.
My entire computer crashed when I updated my LON files (just returning after being gone for 2 years.. gee, this makes me want to stay..), and I had to reinstall EVERYTHING, right down to my motherboard drivers. So after getting everything installed again today and spending a couple of hours downloading EQ2, I was excited to play again.. only to get this annoying error.
I cannot log into the game at all. I hit the "Play" button from the launcher, wait about ten seconds, and then gets this "direct x 9 render device" fatal error (the same one everyone else has been posting..) that shuts everything down. Granted, I haven't tried restarting the launcher ten times, but since my fiance is logging into his account and playing right next to me.. it's just annoying. SOE may only get one month outta' me, because I'm not paying to get an error message.
Please fix it, SOE.