I guess it needs to be said in its very own topic:
When the Character screen comes up, take a look at the top right corner of the screen.
You will notice that “Offline” is selected by default, and when you click “Online” it attempts to connect to servers and fails.
Your characters are not deleted, it is simply the game defaulting to Offline since Online play is currently not available.
This is not the first time this very issue has occurred since release.
Edit: Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough in my OP, which I thought was quite clear.
I’m stating this b/c there are people crying in forums about their characters being deleted through ignorance, and thought I would being a little clarity to situation.
People are so highstrung they attack w/o comprehending what is being said.