Since the last news have been primarily about patch-level decisions, we decided to take a different approach today: How about an insight into what is happening behind the scenes on Uthgard? In our attempts to go more towards classic, we have come to the conclusion that the current v1.113 game client was way too modern for our patch-level - so we decided to go a little pre-alpha, and developed our own game client:



The client will feature the full 16 dos color set, including black and white! We will also try to make use the the entire extended ASCII scheme. That is close to 256 different symbols right there for you!











Okay, this is not really happening. But a lot of other things have actually been happening since Uthgard was shut down. Lets take a look at one of them:


Experimental Pathing for Monsters!



Remember those good old days when NPCs were walking through the dungeon walls, ran head-first through trees and jumped down any cliff just to get to you as fast as possible because they loved you that much? We’ve been playing around with the thought of pathing monsters for a long time but never finished implementing it during the lifetime of Uthgard v1. Well - now it is close to completion. As the first DAoC freeshard we will offer realistic mob pathing. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Please note that the NPCs were given quite a high load of caffeine - on purpose - to produce a higher server load; we’ll keep it a bit more realistic once it is really done. Enjoy!




This works outdoors and indoors in pretty much any zone. Of course it is still experimental and there are glitches that remain to be fixed, but we hope that you can get an idea of what we have been working on in the past few days, and where this is going.

Cheers,
Your Uthgard Staff

Looking good, how do you implement the pathing is it universal or do you have to edit it for each zone/area?

I cant wait for the release, think i will be clearing my schedule for a week to play when its out.

the precursor of DAoC was a text-based rpg, a MUD. It looked nearly the same^^
it's name was Darkness Falls and Darkness Falls: The Crusade, both made by Mythic^^

and nice work for that pathing! it looks way better than live pathing

this looks so good! Good work!
I'm going abroad for work for 1 month in March, I so hope I won't miss the launch :>

Well done! hope to see more changes & updates soon Keep up a good work guys.

thanks for this inside look, one of the things uthgard was missing for years.

Go for gold metty

One more reason why uthgard will hit like a sledgehammer!

Was just frustrating defending a keep as a caster vs. a pet class because stallions, cabby pets and buddys instant jumped inside the keep, and knocked you down while the Keeplord enjoyed the scene.
Gj guys!

Nice to see you back in action kroko;-) and it ´s really cool to get a look as player behind the curtain so we see the development and direction uthgard is going, nice work Staff.
About the relaunch date, I doubt Uthgard will be back in march, as far as I read the progress posts of development there are many things left to do, but I prefer waiting a longer time instead playing a shard in beta state that is bothering ppl with downpatching, lag issues, conective problems, 3rd tool abusing and so on. I think Uthgard 2.0 will be getting awesome.

Good job, Does this also fix pet pathing with keeps?

Edit : also this video gives me a nostalgic feeling... man I want to play now more then ever... thanks for the tease.

fantastic music!!

keep it up the good work

looks nice.
keep up the good work!

That's a really good progress that gives to players a new way to enjoy the PvE experiences, making it a lot more dynamic and realistic compared to other free shards. Keep going like this and you will bring back this project to the top. Great Job staff!

PS: I really wanted the textual version of daoc!

Really impressive work!! I don't often get excited about the new things Uth puts in, but I think this one is really exceptional. Good work!

Looks awesome! Keep it up! Woo!