as title says, when I try to start the game I get stuck in the loading screen. it makes me sad.

Could you provide some additional info? Does it get stuck before you get to the main menu, or after you have set up a game and it is trying to load into the match?

I set up a game and try to start it, the game freezes with "connecting to server/launching game".

I've tried changing up the settings I use to start a game and that doesn't work at all. Oh also, when I then go back to try again, the settings are what I was changing them from.

I think at that point, the game should have already started creating a diagnostics file. Can you see if you have any files in "Documents/Endless Legend/temporary files" called "Diagnostics (timestamp).html" and share them?

Could you also try whitelisting the game in your antivirus? Sometimes antivirus programs deny EL access to its own files, which causes some problems when starting the game.

I'll go whitelist the game now assuming it hasn't already been, Avast is normally pretty good about whitelisting games but I'll check anyway.

Found four such diagnostics so here they are

Diagnostics (2019'01'30 @0437'20'').html

Diagnostics (2019'01'30 @0708'34'').html

Diagnostics (2019'01'30 @1245'24'').html

Diagnostics (2019'01'31 @1131'58'').html

...ok, I've just spent half an hour trying to figure out why Avast's AV part isn't working... like, at all.

figured I might as well see if it would work again, ES2 had a similar issue but then it stopped happening randomly, only result was this

Diagnostics (2019'02'05 @1252'30'').html

ok so, Avast is being weird and Windows Firewall seems ot have taken over, EL is def whitelisted.

...aaaaand it's working again...