F e a t u r e d     N e w s

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!