I got that same problem but the private servers are in these days are always down. Don't know why.
If you want to play another game i know that works is EuroScape.
Click
here to download.
There is some thing you should know about Euroscape before you play it.
NO real life trading. You will get ipbanned.
You can read the rules
here you should know some few things.
You can not pk from level 3-20 you will level too fast!
You get level 1-60 in every skill way too fast!
Best money makes is thieving. I made 10Million on 5 hours.
You can not do any quests. They are all removed.
You can also use the Webclient.