Unable to login to the game

[catagon]

I went through the steps of installing with the ISO, and clicked the launch file to get EQ loaded. I get past the login screen to the server selection. When I try to log in to any server I get the following message:
cannot login to the everquest server you may need to re-run the update patch

I have extracted the most recent patch to the game's install directory (C:/EQ)
I've tried reinstalling. I've tried enabling my VPN. At a loss here. Really was looking forward to playing.