We already know that Blizzard is tweaking arena rules to make it much tougher to artificially inflate your rating by win trading or buying high ranked teams in Season 4, but it looks like they're starting to take it one step further, by cracking down on people who indulge in it.

Reports are coming in from the official forums and from other spots around the web of people getting bans or suspensions (generally 72 hours in length) and having their Season 3 arena gear stripped. The bans are even permanent in some cases, such as that of Sinther of Stormscale, whose account was permanently banned when his friend used it to do some win-trading, with the win trading given as the specific reason for his banning. You can read many of these stories and reports in this forum thread.

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All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening. Except for this week, when it is more like the early afternoon.

Your usual AtWaS columnist, David Bowers, has found himself a tad busy this weekend. Due to this, I'll be nosing in on his territory for a day. Don't worry ladies and gentlemen, I'll take good care of you. Just yesterday we discussed a little about RP descriptions. That is, the physical descriptions you can give your character via addons such as FlagRSP2 or MyRoleplay. David seemed to think this was a pretty good topic, so we're going to go a little more in depth into the right and wrong way of writing these.

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Sean is diving, sunning himself and trying to drink all the cervezas in Cozumel this week, so don't feel bad if he doesn't respond to emails and comments. He'll be back in action next week, fresh and ready to re-join the Addon Army's battle for the perfect User Interface!

Welcome to this installment of Addon Spotlight! Today, we're going to take a look at another of Tekkub's addons. I've being singing his praises for weeks now, but don't worry, he's not paying me to do this. I enjoy his addons as they are simple, sleek and highly functional. Besides, eventually I will have written about all of his work, or perhaps not.

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Reminder: Feel free to check our WotLK info summary to make sure you did not miss anything.

You have probably already seen the Wrath of the Lich Preview Movie that Blizzard gave to fansites to feed us with. However not everyone know what they are seeing on that trailer, that's why we came up with that guided tour idea so you can put names on the things you will see. We first though of doing it with multiple screenshots taken from the movie, but we don't want to force players to click on xxx image links, it's just not user friendly, so instead we will use a time stamps list (provided by Worldofwar). Each time stamp has a description of what you will see in the new WotLK trailer.

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As was pointed out yesterday, quite a few old faces are returning in Wrath of the Lich King. The Scarlet Crusade, The Venture Company, Arugal, etc. Most of them make sense in the context of the events in Northrend, but on the other hand, a couple of them might be inspired by pure fan service. That's totally okay, don't get me wrong. I loves me some fan service. If simple worgen love is what brought back Arugal, I most certainly will not complain.

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From the training of a rat to a meeting of the altaholics, to a little bit of man lovin', this week's comics progress storylines, provide gaming commentary, and bring out the laughs.

This week, The Scout Report teaches us a bit more about Ogre culture.

On Teh Gladiators, Trevor tries to train his hunter pet, the valiant rat.

Monkey Punchers goes all-out for the Man Love this week!

This week's LFG was definitely hilarious. I won't even comment, so as not to spoil it.

Shakes and Fidget are out for Rock 'n' Roll this week.

Dark Legacy's NPCs are getting Stinking Rich.

Okay so WoW isn't as customizable as the generic MMO featured in this week's NoObz, but I think we can all relate. Besides, Wrath is bringing us new hair!

Ding! talks about altoholics.

Quite probably my personal favorite this week, The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf, Episode 14: Orphan Saga, Part 1.

Click through to cast your vote for the best comic from this week's selection.

Choose your favorite comic this week:

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Whoa, we've really been laying it on thick with Wrath of the Lich King updates, but we know you guys want more. This update talks about the new raid dungeon scheme that Blizzard will employ in the upcoming expansion.

Ever missed out on some of the dungeons in World of Warcraft because the required party needs more people than you can convince to join you? WotLK provides an answer: all raid dungeons will have both 10- and 25-person versions.

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What is it about Darrowshire and stunning machinima? This is the second video in about a month to come of the Eastern Plaguelands quest line. Last month, we featured the work of Cranius and his musical talents. Now we're pleased to feature a star-studded film by Firebolt Productions, Acolyte 1.5. You may recognize them from their second place win in the Warcraftmovies Christmas Spirit Contest, Ugly Goblin's Christmas.

Acolyte 1.5 is not without faults, as it feels like half of the video has ads for websites. However, what we are finally presented with is an engaging storyline full of action and excitement. Don't miss the voice acting by Clint Hackleman, Drewbie, and Olibith, as well as the musical composition by Nathan Allen Pinard!

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Recently, we've been featuring numerous updates on World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Given this case, chances are you might be eager to know more about what can be expected from the expansion itself.

Not to worry. Blue poster Nethaera replied to a post made by Gibbson from the Mug'thol realm regarding the new models that he saw on the trailer video of the game. he said that we was unimpressed with what he saw.

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Over the past week, particularly in the last few days, the crisp Internet air has been abuzz with news from the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Fear you're out of the loop? Here's a quick round-up of all the information being released, along with analysis and opinion:

Dungeons and raids

An analysis on Arthas as a ten-manned event, including its impact on the 25-man raiding structure, as well an exploration of its consistency with the lore.

Did you know that all expansion raids will have a 10-man setting, as well as a 25-man?

Read through some of our initial impressions on the 10-man raiding set-up.

We also wrote up a concise overview of the ins and outs of dungeons post-expansion, including a new token system, similar to [Badge of Justice].

Zones, factions, and relevant lore

Alex has written an excellent overview of the Grizzly Hills, a soon-to-be zone for low to mid-seventies. With old factions reappearing, along with other surprises, it's definitely something to look forward to!

If news of the Dragonblight has intrigued you, you'll be pleased to know that more information has been made available.

While we're brushing up on our lore and learning about new areas and factions, Alex thought it fitting to illuminate the lore behind Azjol-Nerub, as the Nerubians will have their own role in the expansion.

Continue through the break for new information on Death Knights, as well as video and interviews with key people, as well as our full-range of Wrath galleries..

Gallery: What we know about Death Knights

The Death Knight

New information has surfaced on the Death Knight class, as well as some clarifications on earlier statements and community guesswork.

If you're looking for the extended version of the new Death Knight information, we wrote up a thorough post before the last round of clarifications.

If summaries are not enough for you, feel free to comb through our Death Knight directory page, featuring everything we knew, thought we knew, guessed at, and know now.

Key interviews and analysis

Check out our take on Curse's interview with Tigole and Kalgan.

We have the details on Gamespy's interview with J. Allen Brack.

Worldofwar.net hit up a recent Blizzard event, and we have all the details.

Gamespy also spoke with Jeff Kaplan about the new expansion, as well as their own hands-on with Wrath as it is so far.

We'll get new forum icons! So I'm sharing.

Video footage

Did you really think I'd end this post and leave you hanging without any eye candy? Check out actual videos of Wrath content.

Gallery: WotLK Leaks

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Hey, it's Banshih of <Paradigm> on Steamwheedle Cartel again! Not satisfied with robbing banks in our Grand Theft Azeroth competition, she's upped the ante with a more daring heist -- the heart of Hakkar the Soulflayer himself. Sure, Hakkar isn't exactly in his prime anymore, but he always appreciates having visitors talk to him, kill all his friends and rip out his internal organs. It's lonely in the jungle these days, with those damn kids and their Zul'Aman and their ... jukebox music ....

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There's more information coming in regarding Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and this time, the news is on the possibility of vehicles making it into the game.

As it happens, Eurogamer got a sneak peek at the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and they mentioned some notable things about vehicles on the second page of their hands-on article.

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We all know the major NPCs of the World of Warcraft: Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande, Saurfang, and all the others that rule the cities, have won great battles, give out the most epic of quests, and all that good stuff. They have followings, sycophants, and all that. Life is good for them.

But what about the other guys? What about the NPCs that stay with us day after day or week after week, repairing our gear or giving us all the little simple quests that help us level up or get gold or just being a little bit of flavor while we're standing around looking pretty in our favorite capital city? I know I'm not the other one who has an NPC or two that he considers to be pretty awesome.

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This post will probably be updated a few times, stay tuned. You can also check.

• Wrath of the Lich King Preview - Part 1
  
• Wrath of the Lich King Preview - Part 2
  
• Wrath of the Lich King - HD Trailer
  
  
  

Wrath of the Lich King Preview - Part 3
A few more information from the previews and interviews on Worldofwar.net and IGN.com.

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