Everquest magic system

[Dolalin]

Fundamentally, what's broken?

There was originally a plan in EQ for spells to work differently in the planes. But because of the way the client and server handle spells (as static spdat files, with each spell getting an unchanging hardcoded reference that maps to a constant, unchanging spell effect), that wasn't possible.

Anyone who knows D&D knows spells are supposed to work differently (often unpredictably) in the alter planes.

If I were redesigning the EQ spell system, I'd have the client load its spell definitions from the server each time it zones.