You are always going to see high on hops going overseas, to sites hosted on servers in another country. As for the time outs, it appears that they have blocked the pings from Xennode201.nctsys-online.de, as shows in my attached trace route:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

tracert lotrtcgwiki.com

Tracing route to lotrtcgwiki.com [188.40.183.43]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms home [192.168.1.254]
2 78 ms 34 ms 24 ms 99-74-34-.lightspeed.spfdmo.sbcglobal.net [99.74.34.3]
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * 24 ms 99.136.7.25
5 125 ms 24 ms 26 ms 12.83.43.133
6 36 ms 36 ms 34 ms gar2.clboh.ip.att.net [12.122.132.197]
7 34 ms 33 ms 33 ms 192.205.37.150
8 130 ms 130 ms 131 ms 4.69.158.158
9 140 ms 141 ms 130 ms ae-6-6.ebr2.Washington12.Level3.net [4.69.148.145]
10 130 ms 130 ms 130 ms ae-5-5.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.143.221]
11 131 ms 132 ms 131 ms ae-43-43.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.137.57]
12 132 ms 131 ms 131 ms ae-45-45.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.143.133]
13 140 ms 132 ms 141 ms ae-71-71.csw2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.140.6]

14 133 ms 132 ms 131 ms ae-2-70.edge7.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.154.75]
15 170 ms 135 ms 136 ms 195.16.162.254
16 141 ms 272 ms 141 ms hos-bb2.juniper1.rz10.hetzner.de [213.239.240.140]
17 142 ms 139 ms 140 ms hos-tr2.ex3k7.rz10.hetzner.de [213.239.227.168]

18 140 ms 141 ms 140 ms xennode201.netsys-online.de [188.40.93.196]
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

So are you unable to access the lotrtcgwiki.com and lotrtcgdb.com web sites as well? I also tried from a smart phone (AT&T wireless), but was unable to get to the sites. Are they basically blocking any traffic from the AT&T ISP?

I hard no problems accessing the Lord of the rings wiki from home. You never mentioned anything about the other in your first post.

You really need to give all of this info up front first, not later.

OK, so I'm confused by your answer. You say the ping is blocked, but you can access the web page lotrtcgwiki.com from home? How is that possible? Is there some setting I need to check on my side to be able to access the web page?

 

As far as the other site (lotrtcgdb.com), the IP address is the same as lotrtcgwiki.com. So my assumption is either domain name will take you to the same web site. Sorry I didn't include it in my original post.

There is nothing confusing about the statement I made. Pings can be blocked to not allow holes to be found. Regardless what the ping not going through, if you can go to the site, then there is nothing wrong.

As I also stated before, if the sites are served overseas, it can take time for the site to resolve itself, so you can see it in your web browser. Also even though the IP is the same for the server, that would mean that both sites are being served off of the same server, nothing wrong with that. Virtual machines are constantly used to serve websites, or multiple sites on the same VM server.  Another item, multiple DNS names can be used to resolve to the same website.  Again, there is nothing wrong with doing that.

I see. The problem is I can't get to the web site with my web browser. Chrome just says "sending request..." and after about 10 seconds I get the Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to lotrtcgwiki.com. IE just takes me to a Bing search page. If I try clicking the LotR TCG Wiki: Welcome! page from the Bing search, I just get the "This page can't be displayed" error. I have tried IE and Chrome on both Windows 8 and Windows XP machines. 

I have tried clearing browser cache, flushing DNS, using Google DNS configuration, using an Android tablet, using an AT&T wireless smart phone. But no matter what, I can't access the web site lotrtcgwiki.com. 

Is there anything else I can try to access the web site with my browser? Thanks for your help, by the way.

Try rebooting your router & modem, along with your computer & tablet, to see if it clears things up. The point that is probably having the issue is 4.68.62.229, since I resolve to Washington D.C., but you are resolving to Dallas.

That can be where the issue is happening in your part of the country. keep in mind, that there is Fiber that leaves the U.S. at various points that can head to the same area of another continent.

This site will let you choose the various companies, and see a map of how their Fiber runs. http://www.telecomramblings.com/network-maps/usa-fiber-backbone-map-resources/

This is Level 3's map http://maps.level3.com/default/#.UQhCFB0c3Sg

I had no issues getting to that website.

Tried rebooting the 2Wire gateway a couple of times, but still can't get to the page. It's so weird, because it shows up when I do an ipconfig /displaydns:

 

lotrtcgwiki.com
----------------------------------------
Record Name . . . . . : lotrtcgwiki.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 2347
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Answer
A (Host) Record . . . : 188.40.183.43

 

But I can't access the web page with any device on my network. Oh well, I guess I'll see if I can contact someone from customer care to see if there could be a routing issue. Thanks for the help guys.

It looks to me like you're getting good DNS, and probably good routing from AT&T, since you're making it across the pond on your tracert.  It appears there's a problem somewhere close to the website itself.  Since others now report they can get to the site, it may have been fixed.