I got bored and decided to play with the 'way back machine'. Here are some of my findings...
First, I searched for uo.stratics.com. I did NOT search for uo.stratics.com/arms.htm because searching for that specific site lead to fewer results. So, from uo.stratics.com I navigated to the weapon damage page.
Of the pages I found...
December 12, 1998 *
Jan 25, 1999 *
Feb 10, 1999
Apr 22, 1999 *
Apr 29, 1999
May 08, 1999 *
Oct 12, 1999 *
Oct 13, 1999
Where in the * means the page was updated. I brought up every page in my browser then scrolled to the weapons link and opened them in a new browser tab. This told me the exact URL being viewed to ensure it wasn't showing me the wrong thing.
The URL's came out as follows:
http://web.archive.org/web/199910130704 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199910130704 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199910130704 ... m/arms.htm
As you can see, even though the wayback machine labels different ones with updates, the arms page stayed the same...which, ironically if you search just the arms pages you get the two unique results.
http://web.archive.org/web/199910130704 ... m/arms.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
If I just search for arms.htm I get one on May 2, 1999 and one on Oct 13, 1999. If we look at the numbers in the URL...
1999-10-13-07041
1999-05-02-202037
Note: We are currently using the October values. So why does it go from the October values in December of 1998 to the May values from Feb to May then switch back to the October values? This is certainly a puzzle as patch notes don't seem to imply any change or revert.
Lets compare October (in use now) to May for some popular weapons...
Oct Kryss - 3-28 damage, 53 speed
May Kryss - 5-11 damage, 65 speed
Oct Katana - 5-26 damage, 58 speed
May Katana - 1-16 damage, 58 speed
Oct Dagger - 3-15 damage, 55 speed
May Dagger - 3-9 damage, 50 speed
Oct Hally - 5-49 damage, 25 speed
May Hally - 10-35 damage, 25 speed
If we look at February 2000, its a new arms.htm page but its the same stats in regards to the weapons above as October.
Even up until 2002 the October values for those weapons seem to hold. So I guess its a mystery, still, as to why Stratics apparently dipped into a different set of weapon stats for 4 months before reverting back.
Edit:
Here is more from February 12th, 1998:
http://web.archive.org/web/199905082158 ... rms212.htm
Feb '98 Dagger - 3-12 damage, 70 speed
Feb '98 Kryss - 6-18 damage, 50 speed
Feb '98 Katana - 4-20 damage, 40 speed
Feb '98 Hally - 4-48, 20 speed
Its interesting to note, these stats here seem to say what a lot of the fencers remember. I.E. kryss being faster than katana, and dagger being ungodly fast.
Also note, it says these stats apply to weapons 'Generated before feb 12, 1998'. Could that mean different weapons, depending on when they were crafted, could have had different stats?