I jumped to conclusions. Once I rebooted I was no longer able to connect again. sigh.. tried to reproduce what happened to make it work and was not able to. At this point I am out of ideas. I know the issues lies in my computer but don't know where.
Tried 3 browsers on my pc, all have the same issue
clear cache and cookies, still fails
tried alternate proxy and dns, still fails
disabled ESET NOD32 AV, still fails
all other websites and network connectivity work
I also have VirtualBox installed on this PC with windows xp for retro games, If I use the browser in windows xp virtual box, i can load tribal wars 2 just fine
Try a different pc on my network, works
At this rate I'm probably going to throw in the towel, I've spent over a week troubleshooting with no fix in sight other than a reformat which I'm not prepared to do. (just did last month)