Hi Catanains,
As we have mentioned, over the last few days we’ve had the largest rise in user numbers yet. While we’re very happy about the interest in Catan, this has caused severe technical issues with our system that currently can’t handle the increased demand during peak hours.
We’ve already made several updates to the backend systems, but after careful evaluation, we’ll need to make very substantial changes to some parts of the game’s backend architecture to be able to cope with this situation.
Therefore we will regrettably have to temporarily disable the multiplayer mode “Free Match” used by non-paying users. We do this very reluctantly and only because there is no other short-term solution that can decrease server load as significantly and without effecting paying users.
The function will be restored as soon as other measures have been successfully implemented. We’ve had this mode since the beginning, as we’d like new players to try Catan easily. We want to restore it as soon as possible.
We understand that this will cause speculations if this is just a move to drive sales. It’s quite the contrary. We hate to do that, because it will cause frustration and likely drive off new players.
However we feel obligated to our existing customers and need to make sure that we can sustain the current user numbers until the tech team has made the necessary updates.
Thank you for staying on Catan with us during this time. We will continue to update you on the latest developments via in-game news and our social media channels.