Welcome to another installment of Hybrid Theory, wherein columnist Alex Ziebart assures the world that he does not, in fact, hate Retribution Protection Paladins. In fact, he raids with a Retribution Protection Paladin. Really. He does. Pinky swear.

Nearly every hybrid has felt the sorrows of lacking itemization at one time or another. Every hybrid has seen its ups and its down, has watched class balance fall into and out of order, and embraced their spec through the good and the bad. Throughout all of this, though, there has always been one ever-present issue. Completely unchanging. Viability and acceptance? Oh, no no no.

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Last week reader Jay sent me a screen shot of something I hadn't seen in a while – a gold seller using /tell to spread their wares. For a long time Blizzard has maintained this is illegal activity, and has taken substantial steps to negate the spammers ability to do this. In game spam protection done behind the scenes has been working well. However it looks like the gold spammers have found a way around this.

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Zanzer of Mal'Ganis posted on the World of Warcraft test realm forum that he is displeased with the user interface change that shows hunter traps in the combat log. Obviously this is a PvP related change, as PvE mobs probably don't care if a hunter sets traps or not. The ability to trap is one of the most important features of the Hunter class.

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In the shadow of an ominous sense of addon doom, I wanted to talk about a problem that some of you may relate with. I have issues with cluttered user interfaces, specifically a messy minimap. I should really consider myself blessed that this one can be near the top of my list. Either my life is boring or I am very much a control freak.

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Another bug has once again popped up on World of Warcraft's Public Test Realm and has recently been plaguing the community, in particular the Rogue-playing half. Several posters on the WoW forums noted a bug occurring with one of the "bread and butter" skills available to high-level Rogues.

Poster Somedank first noticed the bug related to the Rogue's Shiv ability and opened a new thread on the forums. He posted an image of the combat log he took while using the skill and complained about the normally unavoidable skill suddenly missing its target. This led him and several others to believe this was another oversight made by the developers regarding the skill.

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Patch 2.4 and Season 4 in the arena are two highly anticipated events right now in World of Warcraft. Some gamers have even become a little edgy while waiting for them. Here are a few more clarifications on both events you may want to know.

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Daniel discussed the removal of the Essence of Immortals from the PTR and the progressive content of Quel'Danas awhile ago, and it led me to think a little about progression.

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Dear Blizzard,

First of all, I really do have to thank you for changing the name of that guy called Longjohnson. Yeah, He sent us this pretty long rant about how it was unfair his name was changed, but honestly, it was a pretty clear violation of the naming policy against inappropriate references to bodily parts or functions (Sorry Jason, I'm only siding with you to a point here. Your character's name needed to be changed). That said, I'll give him this: It is pretty annoying that he was able to then proceed to the Armory and find 19 characters named Longjohnson and 60 characters named Bigjohnson. If a name is impermissible because of being profane or inappropriate on one server, it should count on them all, right? Every server has the same set of naming rules, except for RP servers, which have the extra "appropriate for an RP server" qualifier, so this shouldn't be a problem. Mike has actually observed that enforcement tends to be a bit lax in the past regarding both the naming policy and RP server policy, but I figured it was worth bringing up again.

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Corrosiveaffy on WoW LJ wants to know if there are any good ideas out there for guild ranks, and I can tell her that there are tons. There's the standard "rookie," "officer," "raider," and "veteran," but it seems like some guild ranks are even more creative than the guilds they're named after. I've seen all kinds of stuff, from "larva," "pupae" and "queen," to the old "padawan," "jedi" and "master" mentioned in the comments. One guild I was in way back just had two ranks: most people were "peons," and the GM was the only "king."

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It's been a while since we featured a video on Tempest Keep. Unfortunately, the movie featured last year was removed from YouTube. However, Maëvah, the 22nd highest ranking Warcraftmovies user, has us covered.

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Frostmourne Replica for sale

The legendary rune blade Frostmourne was immortalized in Warcraft III, in which it was taken up by Prince Arthas Menethil, corrupting him and leading to his transformation into the Lich King. We've partnered with EPIC Weapons to create a limited edition replica of the blade in all its horrific glory. This artifact of ancient evil is over 47" long and 12.5" wide, weighing a massive 16 lbs., and is now available for pre-order. For more information, please visit the Frostmourne replica site.

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If you wanted to spring an ambush on someone in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, how would you go about it and where would you hide? Player Gloop, member of the Silent Minority Guild on the Hakkar Server, shows us one modus operandi.

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Thank you all for the encouragement I received in response to my recent keylogging experience. As a whole the experience was just dreadful. As I mentioned on last week's WoW Insider Show podcast, I am still afraid every time I log in that I will get the "The information you have entered is not valid" error. For the most part things have settled down, but the fear remains.

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You all remember Sleepy Willy? He was one of the three pet rewards for doing the Children's Week quests. Show the Outland orphans all the war and carnage that infests the lands and in exchange for that touching moment, they give up their prize pet. I guess you never thought to ask where they got that pet, now did you? Dopervius of Impulse Raiders on the Stormrage realm has provided us the answer.

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Those of you who are fanatics of the WoW TCG have probably heard of the new Servants of the Betrayer expansion already, but even if you have, it's worth checking out this new article on the official Upper Deck TCG site. It goes into greater length about the philosophy behind the new cards, and introduces the basic ideas, mechanics, and lore behind the new Traitor Heroes. While "Servants of the Betrayer" rightly assumes you'll be able to control Vashj and Kael, they decided that they did not want to make those two central to deck building, since they already plan to release a new Black Temple raid deck later on. Instead, they will be possible allies of a new series of "Traitor Heroes."

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I remember the night of January 15, 2007. I stood outside a game store in the bitter cold anxiously awaiting the doors opening so we could get our hands on a shiny new copy of the freshly launched Burning Crusade. There were probably thirty people there, and of course the conversation was all about World of Warcraft. The air was tense between proud members of the Alliance and the Horde. Most players identify strongly with one faction or the other. It was strange to me how the faction rivalry crossed over into the real world.

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Heads up, World of Warcraft players in Europe! While we've had Central American connection issues before, we suppose it was high time that Europe get its own problematic connection. We've just found out that players whose ISP connections rely solely on Cogent may be having problems logging in. Luckily, Thundgot and the rest of the Blizzard team are already on the case.

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Season 4 items changes
During one of the latest PTR Build (I don't know how old this is to be honest, but I don't think it's been reported yet), items from the season 4 got their stats changed.

• The ilvl of the only known weapon, the Brutal Gladiator's Greatsword (Old stats) had its ilvl reduced from 159 to 154. The DPS and a few stats have been lowered.
  
• The armor on the only known set, the Brutal Gladiator's Vindication (Old stats) has been increased !
  
  

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World of Warcraft may have surpassed the 10 million subscriber mark, but that doesn't mean that everyone is satisfied with the way that Blizzard has been running the game.

Player Weathers, for instance, believes that the company has seriously neglected it. It turns out that Weathers' complaints were mostly PvP-related.

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