Messaging System in Iranian Travian Servers Shut Down

In game messaging and message forums for the popular browser-based game Travian have been shut down in Iran, similar to other more traditional online communication methods.

A player who has to come to the Travian.com forums to ask a gameplay question had this to say:

thanks every one
another thing. im in iran right now… internet is really really slow these days over here. you must have heard the news of my country… it takes about 1min to load each page. beleive me, its so hard to search accurately with this speed and this situation.

another thing, even travian.ir has banned its forum and its message system (in the game!)

Currently this is what people see when they try to access the Travian.ir forum:

Here’s a translation of the message into to English, thanks to Google’s Translator:

System Message

Updates due to infrastructure and reform of Travyan Forum. This Forum is closed to secondary information.

Clicking any of the links on the site takes you back to this message.

Travian.Ir has 3 servers and 87,462 registered players.

For more information about the unrest in Iran, here’s a timeline from Yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election_timeline

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has a story about Iranians using online games to avoid the government’s efforts at censorship.