Asherons Call: Why isn't Fast Casting Fixed?

It's a very common question - with the fast cast fix in, why isn't it fixed? srand stopped in and posted an explanation as to "What ever happened to the explanation about the fast cast fix?" in our Game Issues Forum:

Politics. *grin* But what follows is an explanation I recently wrote in a private message, that I'll quote here so you've got some feedback at least.

"Fast casting is an interesting phenomenon. Most of the cases of fast casting that we have reported to us end up being someone casting at the beginning of their animation cycle, but not actually casting any faster than normal. We have reports that some people do cast faster than normal, however, and although we continue to investigate this, we don't at this point know how they are doing it. So no, I don't know when it will be fixed, but we are still looking into it and trying to fix it for good."

(At this point the person I was writing to told me how you abort the animations, and I responded:)

"We added a server-side timer that will not allow you to cast spells more often than you are supposed to. Every time you cast a spell, the server checks to make sure that it has been at least the animation time of that spell since the last time you cast.

Example: (Note that all times are completely made up.) Say you start casting a spell -- you start at time 1, play the animation (which takes 6 seconds), and the cast goes off at time 7. The server records this time. You start a second spell. If you get to the actual casting before time 13 (recorded time + the animation time), you get a message that you are not prepared to cast, and the spell doesn't go off.

Now, say you are jumping or what have you to abort the animations. You start the first spell at time 1, jump, and make the cast at time 2. (This spell successfully fast cast because the last recorded casting time was hours ago when you were last hunting.) Now you start the second spell at time 3, jump, and the spell tries to go off at time 4. But the server knows that you shouldn't be casting again until 8 (2+6) so it stops you. The next time you can successfully cast is at 8, and then 14, 20, etc.

So notice that a legit player can cast at 7, 13, 19, 25, etc. A jumping caster can cast at 2, 8, 14, 20, 26, etc. Note that the jumping caster can get off one extra spell, but after that he isn't actually casting any faster. This is what I meant by casting at the beginning of your animation cycle, instead of at the end. This is what 90% of the fast casting reports we have seen boil down to. We cannot fix this without a lot more effort, and it generally doesn't seem to be a big problem, except that people mistake it for fast-casting.

Now, we have some reports that some players can still cast spells way faster than they should be able to -- say, at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. This shouldn't be possible, and we're not sure how they might be doing this. But we are still looking into it and trying to fix it for good"

I apologize for posting such an explanation earlier, and I hope that this helps you understand what the state of the matter is and what we are doing about it.

Also, if you have an explanation you'd like to share as to how this is done other than breaking animations, you can send it to me, and I'll forward them directly to her.