The long-awaited GU56 is hitting the live servers today, bringing new zones, changes to the travel system, and lots of other improvements and bug-fixes. You can read the patch notes here!

Some highlights:

• New starting zone: New Halas (in the Frostfang Sea)
• New “storyline” addition to the quest journal — make sure you’re using an updated mod!
• Travel system revamp:
  • Bells & carpets consolidated into one travel category
  • No need to harvest Blessed Shrubbery to travel to a druid ring
  • Internal zone travel access quests/location taggings are now optional
  • Several additional zones now have internal travel systems
  • Static Ulteran spire portals added to the few spire destinations that didn’t have them before
  • Call spells’ cast time reduced to 10 seconds
• Shader 3.0 is now available!
• Queen’s Colony and Outpost of the Overlord are no longer available as starting areas for new characters
• New “Render Mounts” option (Options > Display > Animation):
  • Render all mounts all the time
  • Hide mounts during combat
  • Hide mounts all the time
• Guild hall Hunter Hireling now returns tier 8 and tier 9 meats
• Carpets, discs, and cloud mounts all have Glide
• Harvesting Depots now also store world event raw harvests
• More red shiny collections for mastercrafters
• Mastercrafted items have been improved
• Research times of lower-level quests have been reduced

The servers are still down, but keep your eyes peeled; they should be coming up within the next hour or two!