This thread was helpful, but ultimately I'm still stuck reinstalling.
Had 2 instances of RoM running, crashed in game on 1 of them, attempted the update, it failed with crazy characters (?????s) on a WinZip box. Exited that. Restarted patcher, it went through, then I got the "Your version doesn't match the server". Same as other folks it sounds like. Ran manual patch as instructed here. Was able to log in one time successfully.
Now after returning to Character Selection screen once, I get absolutely no response when clicking "Enter World" button. Rebooted computer = same thing. Reran patch = same thing.
So I'm stuck reinstalling.
Looks like the folks here have it figured out: If it requires a client update, then it also requires a server shutdown. Otherwise this happens. Whoever said otherwise is an idiot.
