News Blooms in Spring

We've been hard at work here on Uthgard on a number of initiatives to bring forward some new features. Many of these changes are on our back end for staff to improve our operations, however, there are a number of exciting changes that we wanted to share with you some changes we've made in recent weeks.
Factions
We have been hard at work on implementing our faction system. Factions represent how much an NPC or monster likes or dislikes you. We have reset all standings with all factions and they are now in full effect. Examine NPCs and monsters carefully, as you may now see a different behavior towards you based on your previous actions! Now you can befriend creatures of a certain type. Skillfully explore and make your relationships work to your advantage, such as being able to pass through the dragon zones with minimal resistance as you befriend the warring creatures.
The faction system is now live within our world as of today, 5/29/2018!
Crafting Keep Additions
We believe players should be rewarded for choosing to craft in more dangerous areas. We already implemented a +25% craft speed bonus, however, now you will find all crafting masters as well as a Vaultkeeper in these keeps as well, so that you may now skill up from start to maximum skill level in these keeps, should you wish to undertake the dangerous journey. In addition, crafting tools (sewing kit, planning tool, smiths hammer) are now available on their respective merchants in these keeps as well.
The craft speed bonus and crafting masters are located inside of: Dun Crauchon, Caer Benowyc & Bledmeer Faste.
Social Chat Changes
In addition to within the capital cities, we have introduced region-wide /broad and /trade chat inside housing. Players will now have access to chat with realm mates across their entire housing area, making for a much more social and interactive experience. Because of this new wider access, we have implemented the /trade channel in capital cities (Tir na Nog, Camelot & Jordheim), which has a cooldown timer, similar to LFG.
We ask that all trade be conducted via /trade, rather than /broad. This includes asking for crafters, buying, or selling items. We'll be reminding players over the next several weeks about the proper usage then we will begin moderating the /broad chat with a timeout based system, similar to LFG. Similarly, /trade is not for social chat, joking, LFG or RVR information. We will have a timeout based on those guidelines as well.
Violations will work on the following time scales:
1-2 Violations: 24 hour restriction
3 Violations: 2 day restriction
4 Violations: 7 day restriction
5 or more Violations: 30 day restriction
This will be counted and applied account wide from now on, instead of per-character.
Bug Fixes
We want to remind you that recent bug fixes can be seen on the Uthgard homepage when you are launching the game. You can click each item to get more details including reviewing information about when the fix is live. Some fixes can be effective immediately, while others must wait until after we restart the server. You can view the uptime of the server using the /serverinfo command.
As always, we wish to thank you for playing on Uthgard and we look forward to seeing you out on the battlefield.
Warm regards,
Your Uthgard Staff