All U.S. servers will come down on Friday, December 9, 2011 at 7am PST for a hotfix. The expected downtime is one hour. EU servers will have their update at 5am BST on Saturday, December 10, 2011. Estimated downtime is two hours. This hotfix includes the race and class grandfathering for characters created before December 6, 2011. 

See the full patch notes after the jump.

GENERAL

• Characters created before 12/6/2011 no longer have class or race pack restrictions.  Characters created after that date are still subject to your current membership restrictions, if applicable.
• Fixed a crash that could be caused by doing a raid with a large number of mercenaries.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing mentoring on PvP servers.
• Dungeon maker items in the marketplace that contain house items will now display previews in the paperdoll window.
• Fixed issues with Shader 3.0 causing client crashes.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

• Tradeskill Apprentices should now offer their daily quests more reliably.
• Tradeskill Apprentices should now be coachable once per day.

ABILITIES

Fixed a bug where the availability of character traits was not updating until you zoned or leveled again.

Warlock:

• Absolution should no longer have such a fast cast time and reuse.

ITEMS

• Nizaran Assassin Armor should now be usable by beastlords.
• The Jagged Scale charm should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.
• The Darkened Caertaxian Blood Ruby charm should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.
• Grim Belt of the Ruthless should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.
• Grim Chain of the Ruthless should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.
• Brute's Prodigious Hand Wraps should now have the haste effect added to them.
• The Guise of the Deceiver is now usable by all classes.
• Gleaming Mallet of the Grandmaster should now be usable by all fighters and beastlords.

QUESTS

The City of Freeport:

• The trolls have dropped more copies of the Words of Zxrath for the quest “Follow the Leader”.  They got a good deal with the local scribe.
• Rusty Cogsprocket in Freeport should no longer disappear after first speaking to him while on the quest “Nobody Expects It”.

BATTLEGROUNDS

Fixed a client crash related to dying in battlegrounds.