Answer: We have a publish cycle and limited time to fix bugs. This bug was buried in combat code, which is a core system of the game. It dealt with the combat phases and was not something anyone would lightly tread on. It took me two hours just tracing it and tinkering with it to have the problem's solution dawn on me. That's a short time, yes, but in terms of a schedule, it's not insignificant.

Okay, my major two "blames" on that point is that we've been focused on many other issues and it was an intimidating issue to tackle. It's a bit of a cop out, I know... but it was not an easy issue to track down (least not for me and I'm good at finding bugs in server code - barring network/packet issues/memory leaks...yuck!). Believe me, I'd have loved to fix this earlier. I know I was definitely intimidated by the combat code. Now that I've fixed it (someone else found a bug with the fix already, tho), I'm not so afraid to jump back in and check it some more.

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Question: When can you expect to see this on production shards?

Answer: It's going to be part of Publish 25, as are the rest of the PvP changes I've put out for folks to test and give me feedback on.

and…

We'll keep reviewing changes for PvP balance and archery. The last thread I made for balance changes are more in line for magic item properties and other issues. I expect we'll have another thread for more archery issues in the future. So, I'd like to keep the topics stand-alone. These threads get huge enough as it is. :)

and…

This bug fix is unrelated to the client crash. There is a separation of the code, in this case. One part of the code resides on your computer (game client) and the other resides on our end (UO servers). This fix was made for UO servers. It would require a client patch to fix the other issue.

- Hanse
UO Designer