It seems people are saying that this means servers are offline. This isn't the case. It seems that if the game can't load characters within so much time, it says it cannot update the character list.

Over the past hour or so, I've been able to load my characters on and off. One time, I got this message right on top of my characters, at which point I was able to try to log on (1017). I also got 1017 at the character screen without actually selecting a character.

I'm not exactly well versed in this stuff but I'm going to guess that this is some sort of mega 1017. Another layer. When 1017 isn't enough, the game prevents players from even loading their character lists. Imagine the stress of tens of thousands of people spamming login attempts. But that's just a guess. Feel free to say so if I'm wrong.

Even now, I'm still getting my character lists every few tries. If you keep trying, I'm sure you will too.