There is one benifit to posting the above question here...I know know that it is not on my end of the tech that the servers say "up", but the game is realy down. So now i can stop fiddling with my Friewall settings. I did go to the Tech forums first (about 20 min ago) but did not see the "server status"error there (perhapse i missed it in the "Patch Notes", went there too) The game being down on Thurs. is not a big deal, I just do housework till it goes back up again...