ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've been having a fairly consistent problem with character creation and locked donator options. I have noticed it numerous times over the last err well forever sometimes it takes me 10+ tries at the character screen to work.

On the main screen I am logged in, but when it comes to character creation it can't find a connect to the login server and thus the donator specific options are locked.

Is this an issue with ping response? I am in Australia so it is usually quite high at the best of times.

Any thoughts?

Are you waiting for the news bar to load?

You should.

same problem!

Bingo!

That is the issue, I just need to wait another few seconds until the news items come up. You'd think when I spend hours in-game I could wait the extra few seconds without getting impatient...

Thanks.