Let me not be rude and leave this thread open-ended. I was able to fix my problem a couple of days ago by doing a different tutorial (the one for 0.5.5DR1). It actually turns out that the server was coming up LOCKED only because the zones hadn't fully initialized (it was taking about 5 minutes with the old db). It initializes much quicker with the new db.
As for the character name being rejected, I think you were right Samandhi. A database error is all I can think of.
I really appreciate the responses Samandhi and NarutoLegacy.
Cheers!
