[ninelives1]

I  may be doing something wrong so I am going to put down all the steps I've made.
1. I downloaded RC3 and moved debug and regular into my freespace folder (I'm running on mac Leopard)
2. In my multiplayer settings I have entered my pilot name and password and also entered my IP address into the given box.
Problem. When I first open up freespace, just by launching it without using the launcher, so i open up freespace and click on the main door that leads to multiplayer and it says something about a time out session of 15 secs and i hit ok, connection failed. help!

[William Wolfen]

The IP box is for seleciting an IP address to directly connect to, not for your IP.  Try removing that.