Diablo III will not be introduced at E3 this year, despite advertisements from IGN that implied that it would.  E3 sponsor IGN retracted its earlier statements by saying:

While certain advertisements on IGN had hinted that Blizzard Entertainment would be showing Diablo 3 at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, it's unfortunately untrue. Through a gap in communication, the IGN Insider promo mistakenly implied that the game would be part of the coverage offered at next week's convention. Sadly for us all, this was simply a production error.

Blizzard has no plans to show Diablo 3 at the conference, as they had told IGN editorial in the past. The developer is focusing all of their energy towards promotion of the first World of Warcraft expansion -- The Burning Crusade -- and will save any announcements they may or may not have planned for a later date.

IGN would like to apologize for any misunderstanding the advertisement may have caused. Look for all of the updated info on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade from E3 next week, and all new Blizzard products as they're announced in the future.

Shane Dabri (aka Drake) posted an extensive overview of Blizzard's plan to improve realm performance.  It's a detailed and well thought out letter, and I encourage everyone to read it.  Some highlights:

1. 22 new realms have been added in North America just this year, and realm transfers have been offered in order to relieve the burden on older realms.

2. A fifth World of Warcraft site (data center) was recently opened with state of the art hardware, and some older realms were transfered to this new site.

3. A sixth North American World of Warcraft site will be opened by the end of May.

4. Older realms will be gradually migrated to the newer hardware and software over the coming months.

5. When the Burning Crusade is released, player caps on all realms will be increased by approximately 25%.  The new hardware and software is expected to be able to handle this increase.

6. Blizzard will now regularly place all patches, even minor bug fix patches, on the player test realms prior to releasing them worldwide.

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.