Ryan "Imago-Quem" Favale, EQII Graphics Programmer, has been working on the highly anticipated Shaders 3.0 since before Fan Faire.  He's been great about keeping in touch with the players via the official forums and posting "before and after" pictures of the project.  Many people were disappointed Shaders 3.0 didn't hit Test with GU54 this week.  When asked by players for a timeline on the project he posted:

I wish I could tell you before it hits the news, but decisions are always being made and if I say one thing then it's like a promise and I would get in huge trouble.  I can only repeat what's been announced already about release dates.

The planned date for GU54 is December 1, barring unforseen complications.  Kiara posted in the GU54 Test discussion thread that the new shaders are still undergoing analysis and performance tweaks.  In the meantime, Ryan posted a little teaser video showing the Dragon Armor in Shaders 1.0 vs Shaders 3.0.  See it below the jump!

EverQuest II's fifth birthday is November 8.  There's a birthday party and you're invited! Actually, there are two parties:

• When:  November 9th at 5pm PST (1am GMT)
• Where:  in the Community Lounge on the Test server

• When:  November 10th at 11am PST (7pm GMT)
• Where:  in the Community Lounge on the Test server

There will be cake, fireworks, and some trivia with prizes! Make sure to update Test well in advance, especially if it's your first time on the server. 

Here's a time zone converter to help you plan!

Game Update 54, "Will of a Tyrant," is now on the Test servers.  It contains Frostfell and a plethora of bugfixes!  See our Game Update 54 page for complete test notes.

Kiara posted on the official forums:

Shaders won't be going in with this update.  They are still analyzing and tweaking performance.

The update is in fact GU 54, we're calling it Will of a Tyrant - the update is the massive bug stomping.  Also in this update, but not necessarily immediately activated on test when it updates later today - Frostfell and the second part of the prelude events leading up to the expansion. 

Game Update 54 is expected to go live on December 1, 2009.

Responding to a a comment on Twitter, Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, EQII Senior Producer, linked a short video of an EQII barbarian doing a new dance!  We speculate this is for the upcoming expansion Sentinel's Fate (expected February 2010), as the clip is in wireframe models.  An unsubstantiated rumor has is that every race will be getting a new dance.

Thanks for Dolby at MMOInterface for pointing us to the tweet.  Watch the barbarian rock out after the jump!

This just in!  Greg "Rothgar" Spence, EQII Lead Programmer, treated us to a peek at the quest helper window (currently in development) via Twitter. Click the thumbnail on the right to get a closer look!

Despite last week's hotfix many players are still experiencing memory crashing issues on EverQuest II.  Greg "Rothgar" Spence, EQII Lead Programmer, posted on the official forums:

We found and fixed another problem with allocating "shader palettes" when zoning.  It's possible that this could be a big reason why some of you are crashing.  It could have a lot to do with system settings, performance settings, etc.

We are going to test this fix in QA early this week and will get a hotfix out ASAP.  If we cannot get it to pass QA in time for Tuesday's hotfix I will do everything I can to schedule an additional hotfix if this change helps the problem.

Great news for everyone still suffering crashing!

Have you checked your email or the MOTD?  To celebrate Halloween, Void Shards will be dropping all over Norrath!  The bonus starts Friday, October 30th at 2:00 PM PDT and runs until 10:00 AM PDT Monday November 2nd. 

While you're out there, don't forget that Nights of the Dead is in full swing in Norrath!  The new Hedge Maze is particularly engaging, and previous years' events including the Haunted Houses are active too.  Get yourself in the mood with some awesome EQII Nights of the Dead wallpaper!

Greg "Rothgar" Spence, EQII Lead Programmer, posted on the official forums that there's another round of memory improvements being tested internally:

We have another round of memory improvements that we plan to hotfix next week.  They have not been full QA'd yet, so I'm not sure if they completely solved the crashing problem until QA has a chance to check them on Monday.

Either way, they are great changes that should reduce the memory footprint of the client by 50mb or more.  In addition, less memory is allocated and deallocated during the zoning process which could also give a slight performance increase.

I'm going to try to have these changes published to Test on Monday.  So if you can repro this crash on the Test server, you might want to watch for an update and let us know how these changes affect your issue.

Hopefully this will be the fix that alleviates the zoning and crashing bugs plaguing players.  Watch ZAM for more information as it becomes available.

The much-debated Race Change Potions are now available in the Station Marketplace today.  The cost is 2500SC ($25 US).  While there is a minimum level requirement of 20, there are no restrictions based on alignment.  Players can change to any race except their current one.

SOE Community is hosting a Merger Mixer in the Community Lounge on Test Copy today, October 22.

• What:  Mixer!
• Where:  Community Lounge on Test Copy
• When:  4pm to 6pm PDT

Just update your Test launcher, log in and create a new character on Test Copy. Then make your way to the Maj'Dul carpet and there will be a portal there to get you to the party.