I said it before, and I'll say it again: the new Arena maps suck. The gimmick-laden maps of the Ring of Valor and Dalaran Sewers are great fun in a Takeshi's Castle sort of way but are a bad idea in serious Arena play. You would've thought Blizzard learned their lesson with the cyclone effect in the Nagrand Arenas. The new Arena maps introduce unnecessary RNG that some high ranked Arena players don't appreciate. In fact, both of the new maps are banned from the recent ESL Arena Tournament in Germany.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products. In the Burning Crusade, an Enchanter's job in a raid or dungeon was to disenchant the boss drops that no one wanted into Large Prismatic Shards, and the entire group would roll for them. This was considered the standard, and was the fairest way to divide up the loot. Instead of rolling on the bind on pick-up items that were not wanted, in order to sell them to a vendor for profit or to help pay for the repair bill, they were turned into something more useful. Prismatics sold for more at auction than a vendor would pay, and the shards could be saved for when the characters needed something enchanted. All of this changed in Wrath of the Lich King. Suddenly, many Enchanters were acting like anyone who expected to roll for shards were selfish and clueless, and it has since become the norm for the Enchanter to keep all of the shards.

I guess the stories my mom told me about where warriors come from were true. Khàyman of on Runetotem-EU submitted this lovely picture of his hatching, including the set of armor he was born in He's a little bit difficult to see, but he's hiding right in the middle of the egg. Hmm. Does anyone know where one can buy some of these eggs? It's been a long time since I've seen a prot warrior on my server, and I fear they're in danger of extinction if we don't find some way to accelerate their breeding.

Zach covered my dereliction yesterday, so let's all peruse his analysis of the warrior changes currently on the PTR. I've tested things on the PTR when and where I could (haven't been on since the new patch, RL difficulties and in game commitments have kept me off) and I've discovered a bug with dual specs that allows a fury warrior to effectively ignore the TG nerf by simply having a second fury spec that doesn't have Titan's Grip in it at all. I'm assuming this will be fixed to unequip your weapons when you switch specs, because if it's not, I know a lot of fury warriors who will pay 1000g to avoid being nerfed. (And yes, I'm wearing leather gloves in that screenshot.)

Should be a fun episode of the WoW Insider Show this weekend -- and hopefully, Turpster's new song will be ready to play on the air for you all. Though it's not for certain, unfortunately -- I know he was planning a Wham! reunion just for the song, but you know how tough it is to get all the contracts involved on something like that. Anyway, even if the song isn't ready yet, we'll still have a show, and we'll chat about all the most popular posts of the past week, including our new Time is Money column (and how to make the most money ingame), everything we've heard and seen from Ulduar in the past week, and what else is new on the 3.1 PTR. Be sure to tune in live if you can -- it starts up at 3:30pm Eastern over on our Ustream page, or in the embedded feed on the end of this post.

Extended and updated database

Dynamic hints: when entering a move, you see arrows highlighting direct and indirect attacks and defences of each square your mouse moves over

Improved pieces for the 2D board. Highest resolution for boards of any size. Improved move entry on the 2D board: highlighted start and target squares avoid mouse slips.

New set of very high resolution, classical wood 3D-pieces

Engine animation: while the chess engine is calculating, typical elements of the calculation (e.g. frequented squares) are visualized directly on the board

Sing along to 30 songs and videos from today's top artists

Multiple gameplay modes - Solo, Freestyle, Pass the Mic, Battle and Duet

SingStar technology recognizes pitch, tone and rhythm to accurately score performances

Record your favorite performances onto Memory Card for future playback

Customize and enhance recorded playback with numerous audio effects

The tournament series are the monthly tournaments that take place in Guild Wars between eight member guild teams as well as one versus one battles. The tournaments not only pay out with recognition as being one of the best players or being a member of one of the best guilds in the game, but also with tangible rewards from the Zaishen faction. Some of the rewards include titles as well as special emotes and potions.

Choose from a variety of scenario-based missions featuring two unique campaigns-Old War and Future War-with each mission featuring its own distinctly challenging gameplay mode

Six character classes, each with its own signature weapons and abilities -- Skyjockeys, Long Rangers, Grunts, Demolishers, Thermophiles and Sneakers all have tactical advantages and implications

Online players strategize, cooperate, and communicate as a team in Campaign mode, or venture out solo against buddies in Deathmatch

Multiple missions played progressively, for a fresh approach to team-based shooters and Xbox Live

Players can earn war medals, rise through the ranks, secure unlockables, and download new map

The tournament series are the monthly tournaments that take place in Guild Wars between eight member guild teams as well as one versus one battles. The tournaments not only pay out with recognition as being one of the best players or being a member of one of the best guilds in the game, but also with tangible rewards from the Zaishen faction. Some of the rewards include titles as well as special emotes and potions.