While i cant provide a link, i'm 99.99% sure they were around at release using i THINK the human icon at first. I knew there was a Shadow Child in the bottom of an old dungeon near Cragstone in November 1999... So they were around, yes. Though ones like the Umbris and Pans were not. --Jedismj 22:30, 17 September 2008 (CDT)
Were shadows around at release? I added the icons/links for all the creature types that were around at release, but I have no idea if shadows were around. I didn't start playing till several months after release.
I know that shadows and fragments began appearing as landscape spawns in the 2nd patch, Dark Thaw. And I'm pretty sure that is when fragments were introduced because they only appeared after The Great Work was killed. But I'm not so sure about shadows. There are several dungeons that I believe have been around since release that contain shadows, places like Mage Academy, Lightless Catacombs, and Dungeon on Shadows. But when I was going through an old portal.dat file using PortalOpus, I saw that the fragment and shadow creature icons were added at the same time, and it appeared to be at the Dark Thaw event. Of course, shadows could have had a different icon before then.
Can anyone clear this up?
--An Adventurer 15:09, 23 June 2008 (CDT)
From Sudden Season patch (December 1999): "Shadow creatures and Olthoi have better defenses" --Tiger1986 07:34, 22 February 2009 (CST)