Classic Spell Effects Do Not Come Out of Hands

[Fifflefluff]

I think this might be a well-known issue, but on the two servers I've seen recently (Project 1999 and Vallon/Tallon Zek) that have made efforts to bring back the classic spell effects, they haven't been able to get the particle effects to come streaming out of the characters' hands like they should. This is pretty awkward, and it robs a lot of spells of their classic charm. I've tried searching for information about it here on EQEmu's forums, but nothing definitive has come up. I did find one thread that mentioned there was another server that had the same problem:

Originally Posted by Semedaien

Old Spell Effects (except on hands).

However, I was unable to find any other threads that discussed the problem.

My own observations on Project 1999 yielded some interesting results that might also already be known. I was in the Greater Faydark, grouped with a friend of mine, when I noticed these blue sparks coming out of thin air in the middle of the zone:



^casting Salve in Greater Faydark (by actually casting the spell I'd memmed)

This happened whenever I or the player I was with cast a spell (the spell "Salve," to be exact). The location of the spot from which the particles were flowing was right around 0, 0, 0. When I asked my groupmate to try casting the same spell while he was far away in another part of the zone, I did not see any particles flow from 0, 0, 0. That kind of makes sense, though, since you wouldn't expect the client to render particle effects for a spell being cast by someone beyond clip range, anyway.

Later, in Neriak Foreign Quarter, I observed the same phenomenon:



^Casting SoW in Neriak Foreign Quarter (by clicking on Yttrium Studded Leather Boots in inventory)

Here, the particles were located on the ground rather than in the air, but the location was still right around 0, 0, 0. I see NPC spell effects appear here, too, for example when the X`Ta sisters (Timpi, Tempi, and Tompi, the three necromancers who stand on top of the parapets and speak in rhyme) cast their spells.

I also tested to see if the phenomenon happened on the Vallon/Tallon Zek server, and sure enough, it did. I saw particles behaving in exactly the same way in exactly the same spots in both the Greater Faydark and Neriak Foreign Quarter.

So, it would seem as though the particle effects that should be coming out of player/NPC hands is indeed in the game, even with the Titanium client (which is what I was using, of course). And it seems like all one would have to do is tell the client to make those spell particle effects appear on the players'/NPC's hands, going in the right direction. Needless to say, it would be fantastic if someone were to fix this problem, since it would mean bringing back a significant and essential visual component of Classic EQ -- so does anybody have any thoughts on where one might start to find a solution?