Just logged in but I'm unable to create a character...

- selected the nation
- written a name but it's never accepted...

Were you using a random name? What names are you trying to use?

Did it claim that the character name was already taken?

I just successfully created a new character but it took two tries as the first random name was already taken, so that's something we could potentially improve by actually checking whether the name is available before presenting it to the user...

I used random names also...

Tried to use 20 chars long meaningless name also :-)

Sadly the interface doesn't tell me about name already taken... the button on the lower right - "Create this char" turn from blue to white only...

PS: I'm using a trial account just created.

It looks like a network problem.. Your client is connecting to the server but timing out immediately after that every single time.

Someone else from Italy is no longer able to play due to network connectivity issues, if I recall correctly. I have no idea what's going on with that... Something over there doesn't like UDP traffic.

Thnx for blazingly fast answers to my problems!

I'll keep trying.

That's me, and with helpful friends from my guild (hi FFB), we pinpointed a problem on the US leg of my route, amplified by a bad routing table near the ISP-ISP border.

If that's the problem experienced by Mournbringer, it cannot be fixed easily, if at all. Redirection of IP<>CNAME/A resolutions and UDP tunnels don't work.

I have tons of traceroutes (TCP SYN halfopens, UDP probes, UDP probes with fixed ports, and ICMP ECHOes), tracepaths, and wireshark UDP/21141 dumps to forward to Core Network guys. I'm waiting for answers by the people who can do something.

VO devs just denied the problem, labeling it a local ISP problem even before asking for clues. Ref: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/17653#221593

Welcome to the wonderful world of UDP throttling by non-network neutral US ISPs.

Nobody denied that there was a problem. I looked into it a couple times but I didn't dig up anything you didn't already know; your connection just kept getting quietly eaten. I don't know that there's anything we can do. An HTTP tunnel *might* work; obviously you're able to connect to the webserver, but it seems like traffic only works enough for a couple exchanges of data, which is enough to make HTTP and DNS work. And the updater too, I guess.

It sounded like a local problem simply because (as far as we know) only you guys in Italy are having the problem. A bad routing table entry would do it.

We may need to implement a TCP version of the server in order to get it to work, but even then it could have the same problem...