Here's a sneak peek at Wednesday's Game Update Notes (from the patcher):

*** Highlights ***

- AC and Attack values on food and drink will now be properly added to your character.
- Corrected the description on The Frightening Writ.  It now properly mentions that it grants access to a scarecrow mercenary rather than the title "the Haunted."  It will now grant access to the new title "the Gravedigger."  This title is retroactive - if you have already used your Writ, you will now have access to your Gravedigger title.
- All UI engine changes required by the expansion are now live.  Some patching of UIs may be required.   Most of the popular UIs should already be updated - check your favorite UI site.

*** Items ***

- AC and Attack values on food and drink will now be properly added to your character.
- Changed the way the Vibrating Gauntlets of Infuse and Vibrating Hammer of Infuse function in order to avoid the linkdeath issues that were possible before.  If you transmute them there will be a slight delay before you can transmute them again.
- The bard wind instrument focus on Icy Greaves has been increased to match the focus on other items in that armor set.
- Corrected a polarity issue with the Countersprung Enhancificator.  It should now behave as intended when it comes in contact with water.

*** Quests & Events ***

- Corrected the description on The Frightening Writ.  It now properly mentions that it grants access to a scarecrow mercenary rather than the title "the Haunted."  It will now grant access to the new title "the Gravedigger."  This title is retroactive - if you have already used your Writ, you will now have access to your Gravedigger title.
- Mercenaries will no longer count towards the minimum player requirements for missions they can not enter.
- The Broodmother in Bloodmoon Keep is no longer rootable.

*** Spells ***

- Pets are no longer removed if you've been logged out for more than 30 minutes.

*** NPC ***

- Fixed a problem preventing NPCs from summoning their pets.

*** AA ***

- The chance for Mortal Coil to proc the blocking Mortal Residue has been reduced from 100% to 5%. In addition, the duration of Mortal Residue has been reduced to equal Mortal Coil's duration.
- Reduced the reuse time for the Berserker Savage Spirit AA to 60 minutes. 

*** UI ***

- A large number of UI optimizations have been put in place that should noticeably increase frame rates under certain circumstances.
- All UI engine changes required by the expansion are now live.  Some patching of UIs may be required.   Most of the popular UIs should already be updated -  check your favorite UI site.

- Changed -
- EQUI.xml
- EQUI_Animations.xml
- EQUI_CastSpellWnd.xml
- EQUI_HeritageSelectionWnd.xml
- EQUI_MercenaryManageWnd.xml
- EQUI_ServerListWnd.xml
- EQUI_Templates.xml
- EQUI_VoiceActionBarWnd.xml
- SIDL.xml

*** Miscellaneous ***

- When changing race to a gnome, tinkering skill is now properly set at 50 as if you had rolled a new gnome.
- You can now select your heritage if you change races into a Drakkin.
- Changing race will no longer remove certain ranger abilities.

*** Mercenaries ***

- Added a new selectable assist mode for mercenaries.
- There are two new buttons in the mercenary management window: "Auto Assist" and "Call Assist".
- When "Auto Assist" is engaged, mercenaries should behave exactly as before with respect to what targets they use for attacking/healing.
- Using a tank mercenary with "Auto Assist" disabled, the merc will wait for the "Call Assist" button to be pressed before engaging any targets. When the "Call Assist" button is pressed, all targets currently on the group enemy list (that are in his awareness range) will be added as valid targets and he will begin attacking using the normal AI for determining targets.
- Using a healer mercenary with "Auto Assist" disabled, the merc will behave normally except you can press the "Call Assist" button to override normal rules for not healing pullers. If a puller is in the awareness range of the healer merc when "Call Assist" is pressed, it will have a 3 second window where it can drop a heal on them.
- /mercassist on -- Turns on mercenary auto-assist mode.
- /mercassist off -- Turns off mercenary auto-assist mode.
- /mercassist -- Calls for assist when your mercenary is not in auto-assist mode.
- Fixed an issue where players could cause their tank merc to attack other players' pets.
- The scarecrow tank mercenary now has endurance.

- The EverQuest Team