Story

I've been building a modern Ultima Online server emulator from scratch. It's not feature-complete (no combat, no skills yet), but the foundation is solid and I wanted to share it early.

What it does today: - Full packet layer for the classic UO client (login, movement, items, mobiles) - Lua scripting for item behaviors (double-click a potion, open a door — all defined in Lua, no C# recompile) - Spatial world partitioned into sectors with delta sync (only sends packets for new sectors when crossing boundaries) - Snapshot-based persistence with MessagePack - Source generators for automatic DI wiring, packet handler registration, and Lua module exposure - NativeAOT support — the server compiles to a single native binary - Embedded HTTP admin API + React management UI - Auto-generated doors from map statics (same algorithm as ModernUO/RunUO)

Tech stack: .NET 10, NativeAOT, NLua, MessagePack, DryIoc, Kestrel

What's missing: Combat, skills, weather integration, NPC AI. This is still early — the focus so far has been on getting the architecture right so adding those systems doesn't require rewiring everything.

Why not just use ModernUO/RunUO? Those are mature and battle-tested. I started this because I wanted to rethink the architecture from scratch: strict network/domain separation, event-driven game loop, no inheritance-heavy item hierarchies, and Lua for rapid iteration on game logic without recompiling.

GitHub: https://github.com/moongate-community/moongatev2