Alright, Hiriako and I tried for probably an hour to solve this problem, whatever it is, to no avail.

*I am running the Nexus client (have since December, when I started playing the game).
*I am running Windows Firewall, which is set to allow Lusternia.com through on Port 23.
*The internet connection here at school uses an ethernet card, and is pretty darn fast too. I had no problems with Lusternia last semester at all.
*When I arrived on campus, I had to check my computer in for a scan (they had a major worm problem a few years back)-- this is exactly what the website says IT does during the scan:
* Scan for viruses and worms
* Disable system restore to prevent viruses from being restored after the scan
* Perform any Windows updates that are necessary
* Turn on a firewall
* If no anti-virus software is present on the computer, we will install Symantec Antivirus at no charge and only with your consent (which they had, and they did)
* Check to ensure network connectivity

*Here's where the problem is-- while everything else regarding the internet runs much faster here at school, Lusternia runs much more slowly. I also can't open the port in Telnet, and when I traced and pinged the route, it took 15 jumps to get from this IP to Lusternia.com. All of the pings were above in the 700s to 900s, the highest being over 1000.

*As far as I can tell, the only thing that has changed is where my computer is plugged into (home vs. school), and that they added the virus scanner I used to have anyway, which ended up not working anymore before I started playing Lusternia. Hiriako seems to think it's a conflict between the Windows Firewall and Symantec, but neither of us have any clue what to do about it.

Does anyone out there have any helpful advice?

If its XP you can disable the firewall in the control panel .

I'd rather not disable it entirely, as most of the attacks against my computer happen here at school. But if that's the only way, I guess I could disable it when I play Lusternia and re-enable it after.

I'd say disable windows firewall entirely and download Zonealarm. It's probably the best personal firewall out there (Symantec Network Security is based off of it), and it's free to download at www.zonealarm.com. You'll have to look around for it a bit, Zonealarm Pro and the Security Suite cost money, but the standalone Zonealarm is free. The windows firewall honestly sucks. If you still have an issue, it might be completely out of your hands, having something to do with the schools network.

Also, Norton Antivirus is known to have a ton of issues in general, lots of conflicts with other programs and such, I'd recommend something else. I know it doesn't have any conflicts with zonealarm though, and zonealarm works flawlessly with telnet/zmud once you set them to have unrestricted access (it's very simple, each new program that tries to access the internet, Zonealarm pops up a dialog box asking if you want to allow or deny it, just make sure you click remember).

In all reality there is no need to have a software firewall. In general they are far inferior to anything a NAT can offer. Even then, expecting to get hacked on a personal computer is simple paranoia. But that's really not your problem.

What your problem is. You school has a NAT that you will never be able to traverse without special permission. It's likely they've blocked the telnet port since the only people who really need this port are net admins. If this is the case you're going to have spike it (probably against the rules) or pay for a proxy to adequately tunnel it.

This is what is killing me. Though I've never heard of a NAT... and what is a proxy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

A Wikipedia for everything . I would seriously consider this if I didnt' have to pay for one. Unless anyone knows of a free one by chance.

Be careful with free proxy services, whilst they do exist they are usually riddled with spyware/adware. You could get a friend to run a proxy on their machine for you.