I did some inqueries on the recent outages, here's what I recieved from our host:

"There was a very recent NSA exploit released for Windows 2008 R2 based machines.
This was a zero day exploit and has been reported on multiple news sites such as: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3190161/security/microsoft-past-patches-address-leaked-nsa-exploits.html

The exploiters have been scanning the entire web for servers they can inject into.
We are in the process of ensuring every single Windows 2008 system on our network is up to date and running improved firewall restrictions.

Threads:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1643824
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1643701&p=9878039#post9878039

The UK network is currently undergoing these upgrades, we apologize for any inconvenience but the security patch had to be applied.

Regards,

Callum
Senior Management"

I can view server statics through the host, so I will be keeping an eye on this for future outages to report to the host.

The nerf to fliers introduced in v256 is absurd. The great thing about this server is the ability to do things in a reduced time. Restriction birds for travel (which is their main purpose) won't be allowed on this server.

For now, I've added an item (Fast Flier) that can be used while flying to increase the speed of your bird. There are only two options (3x speed and 4x speed) until I have more time. This is more of a band aid than anything.

THIS DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR LEVEL. Please, do not waste your levels on other stats! WildCard could very well add a real fix to this solution. I cannot help anybody who wasted their stats that were previously allocated for movespeed.

I had to do this per-dino, so if I've missed anything, please let me know. I plan on making this able to increase or decrease speed. I'm thinking of going from 1x to 5x with it. I don't like that this is available at level 1 for every flier, but WildCard has put me in quite the position here.

Keep me posted.

There was an issue with the host not automatically paying the bill this month. I'm not sure why it did this, but I've contacted the host to straighten it out. They're not 24/7 support so I will have to wait until they're in office to resolve this. I've manually paid the bill and we are back online.

Haven (PvE) has been banned, along with Cody and Jihadi Meloni from USA.

I receive multiple reports about a wide range of things each week, and I look into every single one of them. I've received reports that one person is playing on two accounts between two tribes. This isn't exactly a problem, but when I looked into this I did find that this specific player was transfering dinos to the second tribe. The dinos just happened to be max level turtles, which a PvE tribe has absolutely no use for.

I later received notice that this PvE tribe was storing a large quantity of leveled turtles. I was unable to verify this before being informed that this tribe had switched to a non-PvE tribe. Today's actions taken by these combined tribes prove to me without a doubt that this group of 7 has been not only working as one tribe, but hiding under the PvE name to build up and start acting aggressively. The chat used during the event also furthers the notion that these tribes are not here to just play, but rather are here to wipe out other players by any reason that they can come across. This combined with the breaking of two of our rules puts me in a position where the players are not welcome here.

I am posting there here as I know that there will be a lot of flak for this decision, and I only wish to keep this group page clean. I also will not be around tonight or tomorrow to answer questions regarding this decision.

I've been looking into this for over a week, and the breaking of the rules has been dealt with.

Just a quick announcement on how I run things:

This server is new player friendly as well as casual above all else. Giving new players the chance to build up is what separates us from other servers.

With that being said, there will always be that one guy who comes here just to harass new players. I try to be loose with these players, giving them more than one chance (most people don't read the rules, so they don't know what they're doing is bannable).

If I do not ban someone, it's either because I don't know about it, or they've only done it once/twice. It's pretty obvious when a troublemaker is around, but sometimes it's best to let the community deal with the one time offenders. Bringing out the banhammer daily is no way to run a server. If anybody gets out of hand, definitely let me know. There's nothing wrong with playing by the rules.