Dear Settlers!

We wanted to give you all a quick update on what we've been working on in order to improve your game experience:

Database improvements
We have improved our database with some optimizations that have increased performance, which means that more data can be handled at once. This is the first step to fight delays and lag when there is high activity, but we are planning to add in additional improvements as well.

Additional web server infrastructure
We'll be directly improving our capabilities with more server infrastructure, and these should be in please approximately next week. On top of this, we have already ordered additional servers, and hope to have them in place in December. Beyond just extending our capacity, we'll be making some architecture modifications. These combined should help solve the bottle neck situation that our servers are encountering during peak hours.

Next version
The upcoming game version will improve several of the issues related to locked zones, client slowdowns and client freezes. Please be aware that neither all freeze reasons nor all locked zone issues will be fixed, because a locked zone is a security process that can occur due to a couple of different reasons.

Maintenance durations
Due to an increased number of game worlds, some of our latest maintenances were extended. We don't want to make you wait, and so we've been working on a solution to improve this situation and reducing downtime. You'll get an update on this soon.

"Bounty Hunter" issues
Some users have been unable to complete a quest, and have gotten stuck in their leveling process, due to not being able to receive the "Bounty Hunter" adventure again. While a fix has been in development, we are happy to provide you with an immediate solution to solve the issue:
Please redeem the voucher code 9B2-C3DC-42B4.
You will get the adventure needed via in game message afterwards. In case you still have problems or questions, please contact our support.