You guys shouldn't be so quick to judge the game based on your experience with a bad server with bad staff. Trying out a new server with people you already know can make one hell of a difference too.
I stopped playing that server after 2-3 days worth of play time also (despite having friends to play with from the get go). It was pretty obvious it's nothing more than a temporary server which will vanish (or lose all popularity) as soon as Uthgard is back up and running again.
One of the reasons why Uthgard was so successful for many years, while still having missing features and no SI zones implemented, was also because of their staff/devs who took the time to improve their server and had no tolerance for cheaters (when provided with solid evidence anyway).
Keep checking
Uthgard's site for updates if you're interested.