Gary Gygax, who has long been attributed as the father of Pen and Paper roleplay gaming via the co-creation of the classic Dungeons and Dragons system alongside David Arneson, died this morning at his home in Wisconsin of an apparent heart attack.

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Although we've speculated in the past as to when Arena Season 4 will be going live, our anticipation fanned by the revelation of more and more Brutal Gladiator gear, Kalgan pops by the WoW General discussion forums to pour cold water on everyone's expectations by saying that Season 4 will start "Not very soon." He explains further that "S3 rewards have quite a bit of life left in them before they start to feel obsoleted by pve gear." Given that the Arena items uncovered so far in the PTR are only a fraction of what is supposed to be a wide collection, this sounds more than plausible.

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var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/First_WoW_Wrath_of_the_Lich_king_Inscription_spell_found'; Blizzard has included the first look at inscriptions via hidden entries in the patch 2.4 data files. Inscription will be a new profession that will be released with Wrath of the Lich King. We are treated to an early glimpse at the Demonic Runes inscription that will increase fire damage done by the Mage Fireball spell by 50 additional points. The data is courtesy of WoW Head.

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This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.

As the Worlds Turn: Get your fix
With so many games out there, presenting different worlds, different rules, different ways to play, what is it that grabs hold of players and, for some, doesn't let go?

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When Blizzard unleashes World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, it is expected that the realms in the World of Warcraft will be swarmed with players trying to get the most out of the new expansion. One player over the WoW forums has such concern, but a blue post explained how there would be some sort of population control.

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MILWAUKEE, Wis. — A sad day for fans of role-playing games: The man who co-created Dungeons & Dragons is dead.
He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

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In the wild and wooly world of WoW PvP, there's one interesting subcategory that deserves mention -- the twinks. Defined as characters who are disproportionately powerful for their level, twinks are either loved or hated. On one hand, if you have a Level 70 character (or a few max-level friends), it's rather easy to 'twink up' another toon. On the other hand, many players who are leveling for the first time may find their Battlegrounds experience diminish when they encounter (and consequently have their faces smashed in by) ridiculously-geared and enchanted opponents on the field. In fact, twinks are a subculture of their own, with more than a few guilds set up exclusively for twink PvP.

Love them or hate them, twinks are here to stay. In fact, in response to a question at last year's Blizzcon, Blizzard responded that they were actually considering Arenas for characters Levels 19 and 29 (the common twink level limits). The problem, they said, was designing rewards for them and if there was sufficient player demand. Designing rewards for twinks seems to be a hyperbolic response considering that it's likely that the only characters that will excel in those low levels are already well-geared. That said, there is a small subculture of players who enjoy PvP at low levels to the point of wanting an experience toggle to keep their toons at a comfortably low level.

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World of Warcraft players are having their fair share adjusting to all the new changes they've been seeing in the current PTR. Because of this, some posters on the WoW forums are wondering how long before the new season officially sets in.

By way of explanation, here's what Blizzard Poster Drysc had to say:

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If world PvP or looking at pretty pictures is your thing, you might want to head over to the main WoW site today, where Drysc has announced the posting of two new player submitted screen shot galleries showing world PvP action and Halaa fighting. It looks like some people had a lot of fun making these, and I have to admit, they've made me more nostalgic for the old Southshore-Tarren Mill fight days. Maybe I'll try heading out to Halaa and making some screen shots of my own. I've been meaning to get in some practice for Lake Wintergrasp anyhow, so this is as good a time as any!

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Here's your weekly sampling of our weekly content from the writers at WoW Insider. Every week we post columns about classes, guilds, addons, professions, and all aspects of this great game. Know Your Lore: Oshu'gun
KYL takes a look at the secret Naaru spaceship embedded in Nagrand. Oh, didn't know that was there? It is. Encrypted Text: Raiding as a rogue, part 1
Going instance running with your endgame rogue? Make sure to check out this guide to what to do with those daggers when you have 24 other people in the group. Insider Trader: Rounding up 2.4 profession changes, part 1
What's changing in the world of professions in patch 2.4? Let Amanda M lay it all out for you. Guildwatch: Running a Karathon
Backstabs, betrayals, and loot ninjas, oh my! It's all in your weekly look at guild drama, downed news, and recruiting from around the realms. More of our best weekly content after the jump. The Light and How to Swing It: Three easy steps to Retribution PvP
Want to lay a little Crusader Strike down on the opposing faction? Our weekly pally column shows you how. Officers' Quarters: Saving a PuG guild
Contrary to what you might believe, it's not impossible. It's not easy. But it's not impossible. Hybrid Theory: What can I do?
Because before you figure out exactly what you want to do as a hybrid, you've got to learn what you're capable of. Blood Sport: 2.4, Arena patch
Vims has a great point: patch 2.4, more than any other, is a patch that seems to be based almost completely around balancing arenas. But is that a good or a bad thing?

Here's some news from the PTR hot off the presses via MMO Champion: Shaani the jewelcrafter is now selling epic gems previously only dropped in 25-man dungeons for 15 badges apiece, and all the recipes to cut them for gold at various levels of Shattered Sun Offensive Reputation. So if you don't raid, and don't mind doing 3 or 4 heroic runs for each gem, you'll be able to socket all that new badge gear too. It looks like it was unlocked with the Razorthorn Root daily, so if you want those gems, be sure to get your friends and guildies on doing that daily once it's unlocked on your server come 2.4

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2.4 Epic gems for badges

Shaani the Jewelcrafting Supplies vendor (Isle of Quel'Danas: location is 52,33) has been updated on the PTR, she now sells Epic Quality uncut gems. 1 gem for 15 Badge of Justice.

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I guess it's worth its own news, the items sold by Shaani have been updated on PTRs, she now sells all the raw epic gems for 15 badges !

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Players have been complaining that the World of Warcraft Shaman ability Toughness is not working as intended. The tooltip states that on the highest level, the ability should reduce the duration of movement impairing effects by 50 percent. However, it does nothing when a player is hit by a Mage's Frost Nova or a Druid's Roots.

Blizzard QA Hortus replied to these comments saying that the new implementation of Toughness was not intended to affect the Druid's Roots ability.

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The Arena Tournament Test Realm (TTR) has been live for a few days now. It seems there have been some hiccups, which is to be expected during a stress test. Hortus has popped up in a few instances on the TTR forum to address some of the major concerns that players have brought up.

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More news on the PvP item front: MMO Champion has uncovered more Season 4 items on the PTR. While they're not yet available from any vendor, it seems like the first Brutal Gladiator items have been appearing in trickles, including the first and so far only weapon, a 2-handed sword. The new sword seems to be taking after the trend started by Season 3 which added Armor Penetration into the item points. It's a good bet that all other Season 4 melee weapons will also contain Armor Penetration. The weapon also seems to be a massive upgrade over the previous season's Vengeful Gladiator's Greatsword, which has a top-end of 580 while the new weapon appears to have a top-end of 624, a full 44 more than its predecessor. In contrast, the Vengeful weapon only had 31 over the Merciless Gladiator's Greatsword. The PTR files peg the Season 4 2-hander at 144.4 damage per second, a whopping 10.2 DPS over Season 3's greatsword, which in turn was only 7.3 DPS over Season 2's greatsword.

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Raid Rx is designed to encapsulate and cure the shock and horror that is 25-man raid healing. Ok, so it's mostly horror... Anyways, if you're a big fan of X-TREME Whack-A-Mole (or are being forced into it against your will) this is the column for you. I had planned to finish the title with "Not by the hair on this Dwarf's chinny chin chin!!" but I've been foiled by the T5 hood. Sad.

Many moons ago, I covered what a healing lead needed to get their 25-man off the ground and into mob-infested content. Today I'd like to look at the other side of the coin - what it takes to get into a 25-man raiding guild as a healer.

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Turpster wasn't actually around for this episode of our podcast, but just in case you really enjoy his tunes (that we usually play during music breaks on the live show), both of his albums are now available for download in the WoW Insider Show forums. Enjoy. And the latest episode of the WoW Insider Show is also up for your listening pleasure right now on WoW Radio -- in this, Episode 27, Duncor, Daniel Whitcomb, and John "BigBearButt" Petricelli and I sat down and talked about the biggest issues in the last week in Warcraft:

• We hit up reader email as usual, including whether the game is more "carebear" than it used to be, whether Blizzard should update pre-60 quests, and exactly how you can impress your guild's officers and class leads
• We chatted about the Warlock's Lifetap nerf and what it means for the rest of the game
• Does it matter to us exactly what classes the CMs or the devs play?
• And we had a small bit of commentary about the results of our patch 2.4 guess contest


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15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous.

At first glance, the tip 15 Minutes of Fame first received from Nocturne on the Khadgar realm appeared to be one of that "Interview my GM; he's the coolest evah!" kind of tips: "very helpful to all players"; "truthful"; "anxious to make compromises that suit all players"; blahblahblah ... But buried near the end of the note, we spotted this little gem: "We have a rotating GM system which sees all officers take a spot in the leader chair! Weird, huh?"

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Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, sometimes known as the Big Bear Butt Blogger, discusses the proposed changes to Lifebloom in patch 2.4 and the reaction of various members of the Druid community.

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With my move to Austin complete, all that's left is to dominate South by Southwest (SXSW) this weekend. Pure West will be premiering their MMO documentary, Second Skin, on Friday, March 7th. Yours truly will be there to get the goods on all the WoW action.

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With the Arena Tournament realms in World of Warcraft now live, Blizzard is taking the time to fix any known issues that may arise. The company has a request, though, and that's where the players come in.

Blizzard needs to know if you as a player have experienced any problems or issues while playing on the tournament realm. Blizzard blue poster Horus explained why the players' help is needed:

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As previously reported, the latest push from the notoriously progressive Patch 2.4 revealed that a Black War Elekk has been added to the game, but some more digging has also unveiled the Swift Warstrider, a PvP version of the oversized chickens that Blood Elves ride. The models for both mounts have been in the game files since The Burning Crusade was launched but were never introduced into the game, despite slavering anticipation from many players. It looks like there'll be a use for those extra Marks of Honor, after all, as the mounts are finally available on the PTR from each faction's respective Mount vendors -- Raider Bork in the Hall of Legends for the Horde and Lieutenant Karter in the Champion's Hall for the Alliance -- for 30 Marks of Honor from Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch.

Strangely enough, the current model for the actual Warstrider on the PTR seems to be the Swift White Hawkstrider which drops of Kael'thas in the Magister's Terrace, rather than the customary black mount in the game files. This can possibly change when Patch 2.4 finally goes live, or it could stay the way it is... Patch 2.3 on the PTR had one color for the Cenarion War Hippogryph while there were several models found in the game files, including a lilac one that my wife fell in love with and was prepared to pony up 2,000 gold for. The Black War Elekk also currently shows the Hawkstrider icon, rather than the normal Elekk icon. It looks like the patch isn't quite ready to go live just yet. Enjoy the mounts!

While the alien landscape of Silithus may be familiar to many of us, there are many more who are relatively new to the game and never spent time among the insect swarms and underground hives of the desert zone. Player Thirlwell of the Murder By Numbers guild on the Khadgar realm sends us this ominous shot to remind us of places yet unexplored by many on their race to cross through the Dark Portal.

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Twice a week, our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers.

What do you do for WoW Insider?
I write the weekly Raid Rx column every Tuesday and filled in on Ready Check for a bit. Occasionally you'll see me put up a post about something I've come across or make a guest appearance on another column, but between work and WoW, Raid Rx is plenty for me.

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With Patch 2.4 comes a brand new combat log and logging system, with tons of new features and capabilities. As a side effect of this, any mod or addon that uses the combat log to gather information will need to be rewritten, including the raiders' sidekick Omen.

Good news! The author has not been idle since the patch 2.4 test realms have gone up. Luckily for all of you, I have the pleasure of raiding with Antiarc(that little screenshot you've seen so often on WoW Insider is my raid group), so I've been able to get a little bit of a preview. You see that Omen screenshot on the right side there? That's us. In the coming weeks, columnist Sean Forsgren will have something more in-depth and technical for you, but for now, I'm going to walk you through the basics.

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So... how is Blizzard doing on Lore?

Ever since the Burning Crusade came out, the battle cry of many a disgruntled fan has been "lollore," a cry which signifies a disgust with the direction the story has taken and a belief that many of the twists have betrayed the previous feel of the world or fallen short of some expected level of quality. Now honestly, There have been some lore twists I haven't really liked. Certainly, there were ways to give us the Draenei besides besides massively retconning the back story of the Burning Legion and making Sargeras corrupt them instead of the other way around. That said, I don't really mind that the Draenei came to us on a space ship. After all, the Orcs came to us through a Stargate!

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If you've been having problems with the Sunwell Raid on Blizzard's World of Warcraft Public Test Realm, you're not the only one. Apparently, the raid is not working as intended and will be shut down until further notice.

According to World of Warcraft lead encounter designer Daelo, a bug involving the Lady Sacrolash and Grand Warlock Alythess encounter is making it much more difficult than the developers intended.

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We at WoW Insider like our titles. Mike once made a little rant about how he would've liked to see the return of the old PvP ranks. Having no Blood Elf High Warlords or Draenei Grand Marshals make me a little sad on the inside. Although Bornakk has already stated that they would like to keep titles "rare", it seems like we're getting a few more really cool titles with the juiciest patch to date. For example, even though attunement to the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal will be removed in Patch 2.4, players who have completed the quest line will be honored with the title "Hand of A'dal" just as players who completed the Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep attunement are called "Champion of the Naaru".

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Demoneye from the Hakkar realm and an Undead Warlock in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, was able to encounter a bug regarding the Ritual of Summoning.

He discovered that it nows uses two soul shards, instead of just one. Demoneye added that whenever they would do raids, he'd have to bring two to three shards for his pet, soulwell, and soul stone.

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As far as we know, the city of Stormwind has always been a city above ground. A screenshot sent in by EU World of Warcraft player, Bashfullsson of the Dragonblight realm, to WoW Insider seems to indicate otherwise.

It also gives the idea that the city has another side that players of Blizzard's MMORPG haven't quite seen before. As you can see from the picture above, the angle makes Stormwind look as if it's floating in the sky.

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World of Warcraft players are currently feeling confused by the latest notes released for the MMORPG's patch 2.4 over at the Public Test Realm.

Here's the said notes with the highlighted one being the most problematic:

• You can now inspect members of the opposite faction.
• No matter where you are you can now choose if you want to play EU (PVP/PVE), U.S. (PVP/PVE) or Korea.
• A new PTR just opened up, and it's an arena tournament server where you can create level 70 characters and equip them with gear from the vendors, so you can fight with each other.

According to some players, this could mean that when the changes go live, players anywhere in the world can access any set of realms. However, Community Manager Nethaera dropped by the thread and provided some clarifications.

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Season 4 - Preview
We're still waiting for most of the item stats but it's a good time for a recap. This time I also included screenshots of the arena weapons, keep in mind that they're not confirmed yet and only based on information we can find in the game files, however they should be fairly accurate. By popular demand, I also added a female version of armor screenshots.

Item stats
Weapons
[Brutal Gladiator's Greatsword]

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How would you feel about a chef designing landscapes for your World of Warcraft players to explore? That's exactly what Aussie Julian Morris is doing for Blizzard Entertainment. As a former chef, Mr. Morris has seemingly traded in his kitchen implements and oven for virtual design and editing software.

According to Morris, it all began when he discovered just how much fun it was to play around with the WoW game editors. Morris' passion for creating virtual landscapes got to the point wherein he was brainstorming with his brother and creating level layouts on white boards at work. Not surprisingly, he eventually considered a career in the gaming industry. After a brief stint with a game development studio in Sydney, Blizzard noticed Morris' talent and ended up hiring the former chef.

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Although Blizzard has just announced the activation of the new Season 4 items, the weapon and armors won't be available to players as of the moment.

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Good morning everyone! It's Tuesday, and you know what means - at least most weeks. Scheduled downtime is upon us. It looks like 3am-11am PST is the target window this morning for the US Servers, so if that's when you usually play, you'll have to find something else to do for a bit. Allow me to make a few suggestions.

• Browse WoW Insider. You can check out some of the most popular tags or the various categories off to the left there,or click on one of the feature banners. If you're hungry for PTR news, the patch 2.4 banner will lead you to a handy page that breaks down all of our various 2.4 reports. I'm also a pretty big fan of our Know Your Lore section. If you're not sure why we're going after Kil'jaedan in 2.4, see what he did before he showed up the Blood Elves' doorstep. Get a head start on understanding WoTLK lore with articles about the lore behind the Death Knights and Arthas. If all else fails, open your favorite article, click some of the tags just below it, and see where those lead to. You might find some hidden gems you didn't know about.
  
• Start making your 2.4 plan of attack. This is where WoW Insider can help you again. Check out the new fishing dailies and see if they inspire you to grab your fishing pole once the servers come back up. Figure out how you're going to get all those Badges of Justice for the new badge gear.
  
• Play another game for a while! It's heresy, I know, but they exist. I'm addicted to Audiosurf at the moment, myself.
  
• Watch what happens when Jaina Proudmoore goes on the road.
  
• If you're registered to vote in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, or Vermont, consider voting.
  


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While it looked like the new 25 man on the PTR, the Sunwell Plateau, was going to be staying open after a few closures in the recent weeks, luck would have that it's not.

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