When there is maintenance, anyone trying to register or log in to The Settlers Online is redirected to this page.
http://www.thesettlersonline.com/en/maintenance
It quite clearly is a maintenance url, it says so right there. Why then do you report text such as :
We regret that the connection to the "The Settlers Online" server failed.
and
Should the problem persist, please visit the homepage and the forum for more information.
and
We are working to resolve the problem.
I find this quite confusing, not just because it is misleading, but because from a sales and marketing perspective it is destroying the possability for any new contacts.
In my time zone maintenance is done during gaming prime time.
Any new customers visiting the site, one day out of every seven will get a message which doesn't say, "we are patching a new release, please try back later", but instead says "ERROR BROKEN GO AWAY"
I suggest you take a look at this.
This post is meant to help improve the game.