I've never actually been able to play this game yet; my friends started playing it, and I've wanted to join, but nothing I've tried has worked. The only thing that has happened is when the game starts up, it shows a black screen. The cursor sometimes changes to what I assume is the cursor in-game (chrome-ish blue), but the screen remains black. If I click within that window, it says it isn't responding anymore. I've tried waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever has.

OS: Windows XP
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (2.4 GHz)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
1 GB of RAM

I've tried all of the recommendations in the FAQ, I have the latest version of Java, no security programs are interfering with it, and I've tried using it from both Steam and this site. Could someone please assist?