Amary has posted the latest "in progress" notes for 1.9, the day draws closer

1.9 PTS In-Progress Set #3



PTS CONQUEST:

* Reworked the Conquest pane on the PvP window. You now select your faction on this pane and enter Conquest.
* Selecting your faction will lock you to it for the duration of the current Conquest match.
* If your selected faction is full, trying to Enter will queue you.
* Lots of tuning and play changes to Conquest still ongoing!

PTS NOTE: New appearances hooked up to all of the new PvP rank armors and weapons!
PTS NOTE: A bunch of Mentoring tweaks and edge case fixin's.


= NEW SLIVER: PRIMEVAL FEAST! =

* The new Sliver of Primeval Feast has been discovered in Droughtlands!
* As a companion sliver to Infernal Dawn, Primeval Feast is intended to be more difficult than the challenges of Rise of the Phoenix, and its rewards appropriately more powerful.
* Fae Lord Twyl, after consuming Greenscale's power, is on the rise. The Plane of Life runs rampant, devouring all it can reach - running low on prey, they turn on Lord Greenscale himself, attempting to consume the dragon of Life and his essence. It's up to the Ascended to give them a good pruning before Lord Twyl and his minions expand unchecked into other Slivers of Telara to feed their hunger!


= BARBERSHOPS! =

* Long-awaited Barbershop NPCs have set up shop in Sanctum and Meridian!
* For a fee, characters can change any aspect of their appearance aside from character race or gender. The price ranges between simple cosmetic procedures - new hair colors, or new styles - up to significant, dramatic alterations such as height changes, facial features, and skin tones. You can see the total combined cost of your current changes while in the customization screen.


GENERAL

* The Random Normal and Expert LFG Dungeon queues now give separate weekly rewards, meaning you can now get 7 Normal rewards AND 7 Expert rewards each week.
* Warriors and Rogues should no longer receive Mana Potions from Ember Isle Reward bags or Tackleboxes from Fishing.
* Fixed a bug where guilds would be listed in Guild Finder even after transferring to another shard.
* Various monsters and objects left over in the world after the War of the Wanton Maw will no longer appear. Ex: The Wanton Captain Urdal will no longer block players from accessing the Adorned Chest in the cave next to Fortune's Shore for the quest 'I Hope You Like Surprises'. He wasn't the kind of surprise intended.
* Friends can now be added cross-shard with any player in your wargroup and of your faction.


CHAT CHANNELS

* Chat channels are now game-wide by region - North America, Europe, etc. You can now join cross-shard channels on any other shard within your region!
* Members of custom chat channels at the time the channel is set to private/'invite-only' will now properly re-join the channel on future logins (the way it currently works for channel members added after the invite-only setting was enabled).


SOULS

BLADEDANCER

* Fixed a tooltip bug for Keen Strike and Quick Strike.

CHAMPION

* Soldier's Bearing: Fixed the tooltip not being updated with the effects of 3/3 Intense Training.

CHLOROMANCER

* Wild Growth: Healing from Wild Growth now affects allies who are immune to crowd control effects (such as the Marksman's Strafe).
* Essence Surge: Now triggers Natural Awareness when cast.

RIFTBLADE

* Rift Surge: Fixed a tooltip error where it reported that it was granting too few stacks.


PVP

* Players no longer drop random loot or consumables.
* PvP Daily Quests that involve collecting items will now flag you for PvP when updated.
* Wrath Stone, Mighty Wrath Stone, and Wrath Spikes are no longer available from Templar Whispers and Solomon Dewey. Existing purchased runes will not be affected.
* Reduced the notoriety requirements to Honored for purchasing Shoulder slot runes from Templar Whispers and Solomon Dewey.
* The achievement description for Warfront Veteran now mentions that Library of the Runemaster will give updates.


DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, and RAIDS

* A character attempting to log out in a Dungeon or Raid while anyone in the instance is in combat will now take 2 minutes to fully log out, rather than 20 seconds.


ITEMS

* Darkmetal Hauberk now has Focus instead of Hit.
* Life-Iron Chain Greaves and Hauberk can now be sold to vendors.
* Planar Vanquisher's Baton now appears by default for Clerics viewing the merchant.
* Steel-Stitched Leather now sorts correctly in the Auction House.
* Twilight Bloom Roots now have an appropriate vendor sale price.
* Yeti Fur Trinket will now appear in the Auction House under Trinkets instead of Consumables.
* Monastic Hammer, Curious Scarlet Hauberk, and Glacial Hauberk have been re-itemized for Clerics.


CRAFTING

* The Crafting Daily quests for 300 skill have been updated!
- Added a new reward chest to 300 skill-level Crafting Daily quests. This Master Supply Chest has improved rewards and a chance for a Master Craftsman's Mark.
- The Planar Attunement experience crystal reward will now only be available to level 50 characters.
- Adjusted material costs for the 300 skill-level Crafting Daily quests. In general, they've been reduced. Material requirements now have more variety and variance between different quests.
* Salvaging items now takes 75% less time per item.
* Weekly Quest item recipes now sort under the Quest category on the Crafting window.
* Costume item recipes now sort under the Costume category on the Crafting window.
* Apothecary: Items in Apothecary Daily reward bags have been adjusted to better match ingredient demand.
* Fishing: The Rare Artifact Attractor now works in Hammerknell instances.


UI/SETTINGS

* In-Game Mail: Removed the subject text auto-complete suggestions since they generally weren't very useful. Sending items will still generate a mail subject for you.
* In-Game Mail: Fixed a bug where mail with an invalid destination would sometimes give a conflicting error message and deduct postage.
* Several interactions that didn't display text on the cast bar now do.
* Soul Vitality at 0% now displays a pulsing animation on the portrait Soul Vitality icon. The hover tooltip on the icon now also describes the negative results of dying while at 0% Soul Vitality - stats will be penalized until you visit a Healer.
Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/public-te...6-15-12-a.html