weird connection problems

I'm having a weird issue right now

I cannot connect to a mud I play, called dark legacy which is at dark-legacy.com port 9898

I've tried a tracert and there does seem to be a point where the connection just times out.

I happen to have another server on another network at my disposal, and it too, chokes at the same point.

I've had another player tell me his connection chokes on the traceroute as well, but he does not have problems connecting - he uses portal gt but says he's connecting at dark-legacy.com:9898

yet another player traces a much different route with no problems

This has been going on for days. I can connect to other muds just fine, and when I proxy, it works just fine, but the nature of proxies makes this unreliable..

Administrators say there is no ip ban on these site


Now, we do have a unusual set up, because we have to use an ED-VO card we are Internet connection sharing through the ethernet port.. but even when we just use the single modem connection it doesn't work...

Anything I could have missed / overlooked?

Well I connected OK.

Tracert doesn't prove a huge amount. That uses ICMP packets, whereas you are connecting with TCP. Some networks block ICMP packets because of stuff like "the ping of death".

Have you tried another PC on your network? It might be some sort of firewall or router issue. Since you can connect via a proxy, you are effectively going out on another IP/port.

If another PC doesn't work I would look closely at the router configuration.

Another possibility is that someone with a similar IP address to you has made a nuisance of themselves, and some network admin close to the MUD has blocked all incoming addresses in a block, including yours.