I will try to be as brief and concise as possible. After the 11-9 patch I was able to login and play that evening/night with no problems. This morning 11-10, I had a notification to restart the computer for the latest Windows Update. I restarted, went to work, and this evening attempted to play. I was able to login, but when I clicked "PLAY", I had the same problem as others have posted. I deleted the .dat file from the GW2 folder and redownloaded 570k+ files (this took a whole minute, and I thought I had "fast" internet). I attempted to play, but had the same problem again as others. I decided to try an uninstall of the latest Windows Update. I uninstalled the update (KB5006365), restarted and tried to play again. Same thing, no go. I then uninstalled the latest security update (KB5007186), restarted, and tried again. I was able to make it to the character screen and play this time. I'm not going to claim that it is the latest Windows Update causing the problem, but for me, it was the problem. I just wanted to post this in case it helps someone else. I don't like not having the latest updates on my computer, but I also don't like having the latest updates kitten up other programs on my computer either. Good luck and hope this helps someone.