So, I downloaded the High-res version of the game to start playing around with a friend. I had no issues downloading the game, and none installing. However, when I first booted up the game, I got some god awful metallic static mingled with the game sound. I thought maybe my speakers finally died, so I booted up Dragon Age and played for a couple minutes, with no awful static... So, I chalked it up as an incompatibility with my drivers and DDO, and changed the Audio to come through my G35 headset in 7.1. Voila, no static, the sound is fine.

Now, a few notes about my connection. Loading the DDO store at the character screen sometimes loads in a flash, and at other times takes minutes to load the homepage. When I log into the actual game, I have to wait a good minute or so before my character responds to my actions, yet my ping spikes to 7,000+ and my loss is between 20-60%. I simply cannot play the game. I have tried waiting it out, and hoping it stabilizes, but it never does. Sometimes it may normalize for a few seconds, allowing me to take 8-10 steps in the world, but alas it returns to mega-latency and packet loss. Even more odd, is that it also makes my ping in Ventrilo skyrocket to 10,000+, and eventually gets me disconnected from my Ventrilo server. However, as soon as I exit DDO, everything is normal again. I do not have to reset my internet connection or anything. Just close DDO, and everything is hunky dory.

Now, I have disabled firewalls, set my Modem (Westell through AT&T Fastaccess DSL) to DMZ my Router (Linksys WRT160Nv2), and my Router to DMZ my PC (Over Wireless). All ports are open and accepting connections, meaning there is no reason that this should be an issue with ports. I can play any other online game without issue. But without fail, as soon as I start DDO, my internet connection dies, and I simply cannot play the game. I would love to get in-game, but if I cannot solve this problem, I am going to have to forget about it and move on... :/

Any thoughts? I can post a dxdiag, but I don't think any useful information can be gleaned from that pertaining to this issue.

As a side note, when the game reaches unbelievably high latency and packet loss, my sound cuts in and out constantly... I assume it has something to do with my connection issues, but it may not. Also, my Wireless card is a Linksys Wireless-N, and I installed the drivers on the disk that came with the card and were certified for Windows 7.

Any light that can be shed on this would be most appreciated, I would hate to just forgo my attempts at playing DDO just because of this issue...