Breaking news!  A preview of the upcoming mage talents will be made available tomorrow on IGN's website at 9am, according to Tseric:

For the upcoming talent preview, IGN will be offering a quick preview on their website at 9am PDT, tomorrow(5/4/06). When that time approaches we will provide a more direct link to the content being previewed.

I will post the direct link in the morning, then we can hash out your thoughts and concerns and theorycraft to our hearts desire. ;)

Bad news for paladins.  There aren't any major changes coming to the paladin class in the near future, according to Eyonix:

There hasn't been any design changes discussed among the class designers concerning the Paladin since my last post in the Paladin forum. We've been focused on other areas of the game. When news of changes comes my way, I'll deliver it as a message on your boards.

Meanwhile, while apologizing for the lack of information given out to the community regarding the upcoming mage and shaman talents, Eyonix hinted that this information may be coming out soon with E3 just around the corner:

You'll know of the changes very soon. Unfortunately, with E3 approaching, my hands are tied in a way that they wouldn't normally be tied. Information flows differently, and announcements are handled with a new kind of care and strategy during this specific window of time.

When the Mage and Shaman talents are unveiled, it will be through another news source. I will be sure to direct everyone to the appropriate place when the time is right, however.

A few notes of blue posts on the Blizzard forums:

Eyonix will follow up on the "penquin situation" by campaigning for the addition of penquins as non-combat pets.

Drysc attempts to dispell the myth that outside influences such as who is master looter or who enters an instance first affect a mob's loot table.

Tseric says that the developers are unlikely to make Tactical Mastery a trainable ability, but he promises to bring up the idea with the developers yet again.

In the 1.11 patch, all druids will be able to Innervate, according to Eyonix:

When patch 1.11 releases, Innervate will become a base ability for all Druids, trainable at level 40. Once the patch is live, any Druid who formerly had the Innervate talent will instead have the "Swiftmend" talent, which has been added to the Druid Restoration tree, replacing Innervate as the 31 point talent. This new ability will consume a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect to produce an instant heal.

Discuss this change in vor_lord's Lurker Lounge thread.

Whoops!  I meant to say, "New Bug Fixes Incoming."  My mistake.  Anyway, Blizzard will be implementing a bug fix patch tomorrow, according to Tseric:

We will be extending our normal maintenance by 2 hours to implement a necessary bug fix patch. Maintenance will commence at 3am and proceed until approximately 11am.

Tseric says that the inclusion of the shaman review in 1.11 leaves open the possibility of another warrior review in a later patch.  In particular, rage management issues and techniques are said to be assigned to be looked at.

Seeing as the shaman review has moved into patch 1.11, this merely increases the possibility of bringing some more focused attention on the warrior talents. If all we are left with is Rogues in 1.12, with the strong likelyhood of a 1.13 patch, we are looking at some space for the class designers to work with.

With regards to TM, no one has forgotten about the community's desire. The idea still stands that they would like to look at more, different rage management techniques or talents, rather than making TM a trained ability. Of course, that may change, as it did with other talent/abilities. It's still on the table, your concerns and theirs.

As it stands, the devs are looking into rage generation changes in the present. I am not sure of the exact nature of the changes, but it was a task I saw assigned. If I had to guess, I would say that changes of this nature might show up in 1.12. So, versitility of rage generation might preclude the necessity of TM.

So, some stuff is on the table now and the window grows wider for future changes. That's about the long and short of it ;)

On a slow news day, while responding to a post asking about possibly adding scripted events to 5-man dungeons, Tseric revealed a tiny hint about the Hellfire Citadel, a 5-man instance that will be released in the expansion:

I imagine there will be a fair amount of scripted events and lore in a place like Hellfire Citadel. While I'm not exactly sure how this may play out, I am fairly confident the devs will apply lessons learned from other instances into new encounters.

Particularly in a place like Kharazhan. The opera house is practically begging for script :P

Eyonix writes:

Once, Kel'Thuzad was not very different from the other magi of Dalaran. Ambitious, maybe, perhaps more radical in his convictions, but certainly not more powerful than his peers. Yet it was Kel'Thuzad the Lich King made into a key figure of the Scourge's remorseless assault on the lands of the living. Now, the man named Kel'Thuzad is gone, and all that remains is Kel'Thuzad the lich, right hand of the Lich King and ruler of the necropolis Naxxramas. What evil was it that led him down this path? Learn more about the events that darkened the fate of Kel'Thuzad, and ultimately of all Azeroth, in Road to Damnation, a short story preview of the upcoming content patch for World of Warcraft.

Tseric revealed today that there will not be a new reputation set to grind with the release of Naxxramas.  The Argent Dawn will continue to be the primary anti-scourge faction.

Argent Dawn reputation will be a consideration when the scourge comes a'knockin' in 1.11. We don't have plans to implement a new reputation group for 1.11.

Can I hear an hallelujah?

Not surprisingly, after the hotfix mentioned yesterday went live, guilds from all over the world are reporting Ouro kills.  Congratulations to all involved!

After retuning C'Thun to the point where guilds all over the world are suddenly reporting C'Thun kills, Tigole has announced a soon to be released hotfix for Ouru.

We're in the process of hotfixing Ouru. We're going to make 3 changes to address tuning issues with the encounter.

--Ouru's "uptime" will be increased before submerging.

--The scarab damage is being reduced.

--The cooldown between Sandblasts has been increased.

These changes should bring the encounter closer to the intended difficulty.

Which guild will be the first to take down Ouru?

There was lots of C'Thun related news today.  First came the news that a hotfix for the C'Thun encounter was made today:

We fixed a bug which was causing the Giant Eye Tentacles to still spawn during C'Thun's weakened state in the second phase of the encounter. It's not intended for anything to be spawning during his weakened state. Please note, however, that if there are already spawns up during the weakened state, they will not despawn. This fix merely prevents *new* tentacles from spawning during that state.

Also, the duration between alternating tentacle spawns has been slightly increased.

These changes should now be live, worldwide.

Not surprisingly, a few hours later came the news of C'Thun's death.  Congratulations to all involved.  The European servers got the hotfix first, so they got the jump on their North American counterparts.  I'm sure we'll be hearing of C'Thun's death on North American servers soon.

Late edit:  I now hear that all of the servers got the hotfix at the same time but that the hotfix came after the North American maintenance but before the European maintenance.  So, the European guilds still had their instances cleared all the way up to C'Thun, while the North American guilds had to do their full clears of AQ40 again.

Finally, a change will be made in patch 1.11 that will allow raids to recover from wipes deep inside of AQ40 much faster than they had before:

In Patch 1.11 we're going to add a quicker way for players who have defeated the Twin Emperors or Ouru to get back to where they were in the case of a wipe out.

More details to follow. Patch 1.11 is still a ways off. Internal testing has begun. The next step after that will be public testing on the PTR's.

A few notable news items in brief:

The mage talent review is essentially complete, plus or minus a few tweaks, but the 1.11 patch is still "a ways off."

Rogues will get their class review in 1.12.

More patterns will be released in 1.11 that will allow players to make nature resistance items in order to make progression through AQ40 easier.

In case you hadn't already heard, keyrings will be added in 1.11.  The number of keys that the keyring holds will depend on your level.

GamingSteve.com is claiming to have inside information on some of the changes to the battleground system coming in future patches (likely 1.12).  The most immediate change would be the introduction of the long needed cross-server battlegrounds:

Well good news is coming to all you Battlegrounds veterans out there ... and a lot sooner than you think! Blizzard is hard at work right now creating new enhanced Battlegrounds servers. These servers will no longer be regulated to a single realm, but cross-linked across Realms to create an diverse PvP experience! Right now they are planning on linking 16 realms together per Battleground server for massive PvP action. You could imagine how this can really help out the Battlegrounds situation, not only will the queues go much faster but you'll finally get a chance to fight across Realms.

Additional PvP improvements are also incoming, although much of it will probably be introduced in the expansion:

Imagine the features of Battle.net combined into the world of Battlegrounds: Worldwide rankings, tournaments, ladders, and more, only for the entire world of Battlegrounds. Yes, Battlegrounds will undergo its most radical change during the release of Burning Crusade expansion with Battlegrounds becoming a true worldwide tournament! Of course with The Burning Crusade slated for release at the end of this year, if not next year, this is still a long way off. But at least the interim patch should greatly increase the Battlegrounds experience.

With Blizzard finally getting around to linking the Realms up to each other does that mean that we might actually start to see more cross-realm game features? Who's to know, but Blizzard sure didn't buy 1500 new servers just for fun!

One should keep in mind that these are not official announcements, but this information does sound in line with other things I've heard.