I doubt that you can't connect because of your ping, in this case you'd never have fun playing online anyway. You might try to ping the SAS server ( 81.19.211.70 ).
Do you also have issues with other mutliplayer games in general?

I can't ping the server for some reason. It just times out.

200-300ms of ping for an online game is a good day for me. I've managed to reach 700-800ms of ping before. I only play one or two multiplayer games consistently, and they're not too bad, although there can be some bad lag.


Edit:

Actually, I just managed to ping the server. The result: 3996ms

Oh wow that's a lot indeed, no wonder then if you can barely ping it.
Try to ping the server for a minute or something rather than the default 3 attempts on win.
In a command window (win+R --> cmd) enter the following command:



This will send 60 packets and have a timeout for each one after 5s if you dont get any reply. At the end the whole procedure will take from 1 to 5 minutes and give you an average result once it's done.

I suppose you'd also have a lot of connection/lag issues on the other online games as well right now if you have such troubles.
Where are you located btw?

It seems to drop in and out when pinging it. On one test no packets were lost, on the next 86% were lost, and then it was donw to 16%. It seems to be about 350ms when it doesn't time out. I don't usually have connection issues, and I can't ever be sure how much of an online game is due to my computer lagging or the server lagging. Games are usually playable.

The horrible internet is probably due to the fact I'm in New Zealand.