Tom,
Since they've started this on a new system and OS after years of the
game being shut down, the new systems has bugs that need to be sorted
before being officially opened again.
The Devs have posted on a thread entitled "Empiriana" on the Yserbius.org site. Here is the link to the thread:
http://yserbius.org/showthread.php/1726-EmpirianaLook at the last 30 posts and you'll see that Beamer and Macros (the Empiriana Devs) have posted about getting the correct info to run the game.
***BE WARNED*** ...there are areas in the game that you CANNOT USE or it will crash the server for everyone. So read the postings on Yserbius.org and take them to heart.
TQQdles™