"How is the Profession Balancing Act coming along? Any eta?"

Early plans and proposals are being drawn up. But there is no immediate ETA. Any large scale changes are going to be discussed in the forums here before implementation...no "suprise! Huge changes!" Issues like Aimed Shot are going to finally be addressed.

"When are are you going to let meta get stuck in to new main pets for all 3 pet clsses? We have had the same pets now since the launch of SL and to a pet class, pets are the same as a weapon."

Soon.

"How is Instanced Pande coming along?"

This will be coming soon after the release of the 12-Man instance and likely before 18.1.

"Is there a possibility of significant changes to the Xan weapons in the next patch or two or are they basically frozen?"

Nothing is ever frozen. We'll be watching the performance of these items and making adjustments if necessary.

There were a great deal more questions than I have time to get to today...I will try to get through some more of your concerns during the week. I'm sorry if I didn't get to yours.

An 18.1 Preview from Macrosun (All Hail!):

18.1 code features sneak peak/preview:

Here's a short preview of code-related changes in 18.1:
  • Instanced cities. You can only have one city at a time (meaning you can't have both a non-instanced and instanced one), and shops will not be allowed in the instanced ones.
  • Option to hide nanos in programs window. You can add back hidden nanos using the 'show hidden' option is in the 'i' menu.
  • Map navigation will be resettable.
  • Target NCU window. See hostile nanos running on your target (with restrictions on which ones you can see).
  • Split the default new player chat window into default (system/vicinity etc) & combat tabs.
  • Right click names in chat to get a menu with the option to ignore them.
  • Mouse targetting improvements. It will now be easier to target small/fast moving things/players.
  • Hotbar timers on skill-locked items (including shadowbreed). Timers also work in the programs and controls windows.
  • Added /duel draw. Currently neither of the participants get a loss for using draw.
  • Added battlestation chat channel(s).
  • support for custom guis outside the 'Guis\Default' directory (we still don't give any customer support on third party GUIs though).
  • Improved various tools to help GMs handle chat spammers.