Those still hoping to compete in the first Diablo III season just took an arrow to the knee (oops, wrong RPG), as Blizzard announces they are hotfixing out the bounties that allowed some players to race up the seasonal leaderboard. In spite of extensive beta testing, it apparently came as a surprise that some bounties were providing more experience than they wanted, so they've broken out the nerf hammer mid-season, giving up on keeping a level playing field, saying: "While we won't be removing any Conquest credit or ranking from players who chose to use this particular technique, we will be making changes to these bounties for future Seasons." Here's word on the changes:

One of our ongoing goals for Diablo III (and Seasons in particular) is to promote diversity in play styles and encourage a variety of experience whenever possible. In line with this goal, and as a direct result of your feedback from Season 1, we're in the process of implementing a series of hotfixes that will temporarily disable the following events as eligible bounties:

• The Matriarch's Bones
• The Jar of Souls
• The Miser's Will
• A Miner's Gold

This change will apply to both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games. Additionally, please note that these hotfixes will only remove the above events from the active bounty pool, not the game itself. The events can still spawn in-game and will provide rewards as normal.

We don't have an ETA at this time for when these events will be re-added to the bounty pool, but are working to have them available for Season 2.