Quick Question: What do my spells do?

[Nofienet]

Hello, everyone. I apologize for the very beginner question, but, either because of scant documentation or my own incompetence, I have not been able to find a straight answer for this even after hours of searching through wikis and video tutorials.

To cut to chase: how do I find out what a spell does in-game without looking up a wiki? I've read in forums for the base Everquest game that one need simply right-click and hold on a spell, but all that gives me is the casting time and mana cost. Am I missing something, or is the information intentionally obfuscated to encourage learning through experimentation?

Additionally, in the name of teaching how to fish vs. simply giving a fish, are there any resources that you would recommend I seek out to help me play the game? The Project 1999 wiki has a lot of useful information, but it doesn't seem to give me the tools I need to organically experience the game the game simply through play.

[bluntfang]

you could try casting them?

edit: it seems like you want to experience the game "organically" but you aren't spending any time in the game and instead searching through documentation. If you want to find out what something does...why not interact with it? explore and learn by doing instead of researching if that is your goal.

[Pope Hat]

Spells did not give a description at this point in the game
You are not missing anything, eq just didnt give a lot of i fo. The wiki has what you're looking for. If not then allakhazam.

[Shrubwise]

Nofienet, welcome to the real shit. You are not mistaken; right clicking on spells here does not give any spell information besides casting time and mana cost. This is proper mechanics for the time period which this server runs on; “live” EverQuest, or as you called it, “the base game”, will give spell information upon right clicking.
In addition, I feel your pain, particularly when playing my level 54 bard. That’s 54 songs called “Brusco’s Boastful Belllow” or “Aria’s Cantata of Blah Bleh” or “Julius’ Concetto of Lasagna”, what I am getting at is it can be very confusing to remember what each spell or song in the game does. I have to assume you are playing a character where the spells are not clear to understand what they do from their name. The best resource/reference is indeed the WIKI, and if you do not want to keep playing the Alt-Tab game, your best bet is to print out a cheat sheet and tape it to the side of your monitor, or something.

God speed.

[trite]

lol, you can try interacting with other players in game. You know, like a real MMO. type /ooc "your question here" . Good luck

[loramin]

Am I missing something, or is the information intentionally obfuscated to encourage learning through experimentation?

Additionally, in the name of teaching how to fish vs. simply giving a fish, are there any resources that you would recommend I seek out to help me play the game? The Project 1999 wiki has a lot of useful information, but it doesn't seem to give me the tools I need to organically experience the game the game simply through play.

You have to understand this is classic EverQuest ... as in 1999-2001 EverQuest ... as in "so old they expected you to look at the manual for everything, and even the manual barely had anything useful in it." Sites like Allakhazam and Caster's Realm were an essential part of understanding how the game worked, including what your spells did, and since the classic versions of them don't exist anymore, we have the P99 wiki.

Back in the day I only had one monitor too, so I coped with that by printing out everything I needed. I had a whole binder of printed maps that I used just to get around.

But now in 2018 we all should have a second monitor: our cellphones. Admittedly it's a smaller screen but it will save you from a ton of printing.

Or do what many (most?) of us do: just get an actual second monitor. Almost every computer sold in the past few years can support two, and you can get a decent sized one for under $100 (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_36_2?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A541966%2Cn%3A1292115011%2Ck%3A monitor%2Cp_36%3A1253505011&keywords=monitor&ie=UTF8&qid=1522786529&rnid=386442011).

[18Rabbit]

iirc it was years after the game launched before anyone really knew what the low level druid spell "Harmony" did for certain.

[Cen]

One tip I can give you is if its red, its a single target spell. Yellow means only on you. Blue means on your group. Orange is a targetted AOE and green I believe is an AOE around you. That's the targetting aspect, the rest is to determine what the spell did to those targets. Best to try red colored things on large rats and yellow things are safe to just use on yourself.

[Hiragawa]

That’s 54 songs called “Brusco’s Boastful Belllow” or “Aria’s Cantata of Blah Bleh” or “Julius’ Concetto of Lasagna”

I vote we make this an actual song that summons Lasagna for the bard and their party.

[loramin]

I vote we make this an actual song that summons Lasagna for the bard and their party.

I'd support that as custom content :)

[Canelek]

I vote we make this an actual song that summons Lasagna for the bard and their party.

You have my blessing.

[Supaskillz]

Back when I was a teenager playing this game I would just cast spells and see what they did most of the time or I would ask a higher level player of the same class. The name and icon usually gives a clue, but you can try casting a spell on yourself on a group member and usually it's pretty clear what it did.

[Pope Hat]

One tip I can give you is if its red, its a single target spell. Yellow means only on you. Blue means on your group. Orange is a targetted AOE and green I believe is an AOE around you. That's the targetting aspect, the rest is to determine what the spell did to those targets. Best to try red colored things on large rats and yellow things are safe to just use on yourself.

I believe it's actually green is targeted AoE and Orange is point blank aoe (PBAoE), but yes this is definitely something you should pay attention to. The color of the spell only shows up once you memorize it. (The color is the color of the spell gem)