The 30-day free gametime should start counting down once you create an account online, and there is no way to 'freeze' it afterwards, as far as I'm aware.

We don't have separate languages as in DAoC / WoW. Everyone can speak with each other, including dragons.

About your problems logging into game; are servers really acting up, or are you just having trouble connecting to them (I haven't seen anyone else complaining about this)? Are you behind a firewall perhaps? Or a router?