Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. In a sign that Wrath of the Lich King is quickly moving toward release, Eyonix officially announced today that we will see a new content patch "in the coming weeks."

This patch will introduce a good portion of the old world Wrath-related content and UI improvements, and will probably start the pre-Wrath opening event (If you don't mind spoilers, you can get some info on what that event may entail from us). Check out Eyonix's list of what is being implemented and what it may mean after the break.

This installment of All the World's a Stage is the second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.

If you've seen Lord of the Rings, or read any other fantasy story in which orcs are portrayed, you probably think orcs are hideous humanoid monsters charging mindlessly forward to slaughter helpless innocents. Azerothian orcs are significantly different, however, with a shamanistic culture that prides honor above all other virtues.

But unless you've played World of Warcraft or Warcraft 3, you probably wouldn't know that. The orcs of Warcraft 1 and 2 were pretty squarely in "bad guy" territory, and it is only with the story of Thrall's rise to power and return to shamanism that we find out what the orcs' true history is.

Ironically, the story of the orcs is a bit like that of the horrors of modern Nazis and the lore of the ancient Jews mixed together. Imagine that the vast majority of your species came under the sway of a terrible and evil leader, utterly determined to commit genocide against your peaceful neighbors. After carrying out this deplorable task, your people sought a new enemy, and found a new world to destroy. In the midst of this conquest, however, your people's political leadership failed, the way back home was cut off, and you all ended up as slaves in exile, lethargic and utterly without hope. Suddenly, a hero appeared to unite your people, overcome your former masters, restore your ancient faith, reclaim your dignity, and establish a new homeland.

What follows is a brief account of the events most orcs know about or lived through, and a glimpse of the effects they would have had on your character.

Spoiler Alert! The guys over at the WotLK Information Wiki have uncovered what appears to be sound files related to the world event that will open up Northrend. There are three separate monologues that have Arthas talking in villanous tones and creepy background music. Spoiler-heavy details after the jump! You have been warned!

There are few sights more chilling than finding the throne room in Thrallmar empty... or worse, with the remains of what might be the mighty Thrall. Since Around Azeroth mistress Elizabeth Wachowski's computer is misbehaving today, I pulled this screenshot from my own coffers, taken after a massive Alliance raid on Orgrimmar that left plenty dead -- most notably the Horde's own Warchief. Now, will Achievements like Death to the Warchief! result in more scenes like this around Azeroth? Wait until Wrath and see...

Do you have any interesting World of Warcraft images hidden away in your computer somewhere? Share it with us on Around Azeroth! This should be as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with your screenshot and a few words about what we're looking at. Remember to keep those screenshots clean! That means without the UI (you can click alt-Z to remove it). Include your player name and guild if you want a shout-out. If you have Beta screenshots, send those in, too! We at WoW Insider are always yearning for Beta news.

This week I headed off to Bleeding Hollow's Horde side to talk with players about the biggest story of the past week: the opening up of the opt-in for the Wrath of the Lich King beta. The server was really busy, and in fact, someone's been busy in Orgrimmar there -- there are quite a few bits of corpse graffiti around, with names like "Pvpfails" and "Blizzsucks."

But nevertheless, I did find two willing victims interviewees for the column this week. See what we talked about after the jump.

The Midsummer Fire Festival is represented relatively equally in all capital cities, so you don't need to worry about the entire Azerothian population being packed into Ironforge and Orgrimmar. Below is a list of where, exactly, the festivities are in each of the capital cities.

Alliance

• Stormwind - Just north of the Mage District, west of the Trade District. Next to The Stockade.
• Ironforge - At the far back of the city, in the Hall of Explorers.
• Darnassus - Outside of the city proper, in Rut'theran Village, right by the dock to Auberdine.
• Exodar - In the center of the Crystal Hall, the northmost wing of the city.

Horde

• Undercity - Above ground in the courtyard, right by the city gates.
• Silvermoon City - In the Court of the Sun, just outside of Murder Row.
• Orgrimmar - In the Valley of Wisdom, just outside of Thrall's chambers.
• Thunder Bluff - On the Spirit Rise, near the northwestern edge of the bluff.

Shattrath also has some of the activities these places have, but not everything. If all you're looking for is the Maypole or the daily quest Striking Back, Shattrath will do you fine. Otherwise, head to one of the locations listed above.

While not the fastest way to earn Burning Blossoms, stealing the opposing faction's flames is the most fun way to do it, I think. How do you steal the enemy's flame, you ask? Easy! Run into the heart of their capital city and click on their bonfire. Okay, maybe that isn't very easy, but knowing where you should be going makes it less difficult, at least.

To acquire to flames, simply run up to the bonfire and click on it like you would a chest or similar item. Once the casting bar has completed, the fire will be placed in your inventory automatically. Right click on that item to begin a quest, one quest for each fire. Unfortunately, these quests require level 50 to begin.

Alliance Flames

• Exodar - The Exodar Flame is one of the more hidden simply due to the town's layout, but you'll run into the least amount of player resistance here. You'll find the Flame of Exodar in the back of The Crystal Hall, the northmost wing of the city's three wings.
• Darnassus - You will run into a little more Alliance opposition here than in Exodar, since Alliance players generally pass through here to begin the Unusual Activity chain. Luckily, you don't even need to enter Darnassus itself to reach the flame. It is in Rut'Theran Village, a few steps away from the dock to/from Auberdine.
• Ironforge - This is where you'll see the most Alliance interference, most likely. The flame is in the Hall of Explorers, far in the back of the city. If you want to avoid going through the front door and getting slammed by all of the players auctioning and banking at the front of the city, I recommend doing the Stormwind flame first and using the Deeprun Tram since it will take you pretty close to the Hall of Explorers. If Stormwind is highly populated on your server, you may want to do it the other way around.
• Stormwind - This city has become fairly popular since The Burning Crusade, so this might challenge you more than Ironforge depending on your server. The Stormwind flame is just next to the Stockade. If you don't know where the Stockade is, go west from the Trade District and across the first bridge you see. If you look north along the Canals, you'll see the Stockade Meeting Stone. Run towards that, and the flame will be on your left. If you need to make a quick getaway or drop some heat from guard aggro, pop in there for a minute or two and people will forget all about you.

Horde Flames

• Silvermoon City - If you play on an RP server, you'll probably run into a fair amount of opposition in this city. If you play on a PvP server, you'll probably skirt by without much issue. The Silvermoon flame is right on the edge of the Court of the Sun, just after you exit Murder Row. Murder Row has a distinct lack of guards, so if you need to drop some aggro, flailing wildly in this section is a good way to make the guards give up and go away. Oh, and if you play a gnome, you can hide from players under the lilypads in the fountain. I'm serious. It works.
  
• Undercity - This is one of the more populated cities, but that's balanced out by the fact that it has the most exposed flame of them all. Ride straight in the front door, enter the courtyard, and it's on your left. Easy enough.
• Orgrimmar - The flame is pretty close to Thrall's chambers in the Vallery of Wisdom, just a few steps away from the corpse of Mannoroth. There will be a lot of player interference in this area, but you can dodge and/or leash most of the guards if you enter the city from the side entrance and sneak along the back of the city. If you need to make a quick escape, dip down into the Cleft of Shadow and spend a few minutes inside Ragefire Chasm, just as Horde players can do with the Stockade.
• Thunder Bluff - Your mileage may vary as far as the opposition you run into. I got in and out pretty clean, but this city's population varies wildly per server. The flame can be found on The Spirit Rise. The easiest route is to simply take the elevator up, ride straight to the bridge across, and then go straight for the flame. The guards from the main area of the city will leash on the bridge, and you likely won't pull more than one or two guards on your way to the flame.

What does stealing these flames get you? Well, each of them gives a guaranteed 25 Burning Blossoms, for a total of 100 if you gather all four flames. In addition, each of them allows you to pick one of the following: 5 Elderberry Pies, 5 Midsummer Sausages, 5 Fire-toasted Buns, 5 Toasted Smorcs, 10 Fiery Festival Brew, or 10 Handfuls of Summer Petals. Level 70s also receive 9 gold, 10 silver per quest. If all you want from the festival are those minor goodies, completing these can actually save you a fair amount of Blossoms. If you're after things like the dress or the vanity pet, it's not as good of a deal on the currency front.

So, what happens if you turn in all four of the flames? Well, I'm glad you asked! That is where the quest A Thief's Reward comes in. You turn the flames in at any of your own capital cities, and those same people will over this to you when they've gotten all four. 5 gold, 10 silver, and the Crown of the Fire Festival is your prize for all of your hard work. Blizzard really enjoys making hats hard to get, don't they?

If you haven't read part one of the Thrall saga, you should probably do so. If you have read it, here's a quick recap of what went down so far: Thrall is the son of Durotan, former chieftain of the Frostwolves, who refused to drink the Blood of Mannoroth and was killed because he called Gul'dan a jerk. Aedalas Blackmoore, a drunkard with a lot of power, kept Thrall alive and raised him to be a tool to be used to gather more power for himself. Thrall made friends with Teretha Foxton in his days at Blackmoore's Durnholde Keep, and when Thrall escaped Durnholde many years later, Blackmoore cut off Taretha's head and threw it at the freshly-named Warchief of the New Horde. Thrall rejected this oh-so-kind gift and killed Blackmoore. If you need the details that go in between those notes, well, part one is just over there. Let's move on to the Third War and beyond, shall we?

So like Alex, I figure I probably have a few more alts than your average player. I have 3 level 70s, 3 more characters above level 60, and a few more at various levels of play. I even started a new shaman just this past week, just because I decided I had a really cool character concept for a female Orc shaman.

Anyhow, I've been playing the shaman quite a bit, and I've actually not been twinking her at all, enjoying the challenge of starting a character from scratch and making sure I still have my mojo despite getting all fat and sassy from all that easy daily money from Sunwell Isle. WoW's done a pretty decent job of keeping the lower level game easy enough for characters, but there's a couple things I've noticed while playing that still feel like they need some work. If I could highlight one, it would be the complete lack of Shaman trainers in Lordaeron.

This morning, Damian Olson writes in with a concern that not all of the major WoW cities are created equal. In fact, he goes as far as to suggest that perhaps the Horde "got the short end of the stick" in comparison to their Alliance counterparts.

For example, he points out that Ironforge has an impressive entrance and heroic theme-music, while Undercity is a broken, sad place. What do you guys think? Does the lore behind each major city justify the design, or should some of the cities have been given a little more development love?

Personally, Undercity is my favorite city in the entire game, and I find parts of the Alliance capitols to be a bit overly patriotic and proud. How do you feel about the major cities, and what would you change if you could? Where do you feel most at home, and why (the racial capitol of your main or first character, etc)?

Dipex from Goon Squad contacts us to report on the guild's having brought Jaina and Thrall together for a -- uh -- tempestuous reunion in Orgrimmar. The video above can be seen in a higher quality version here, and it's quite a sight. On occasion I've entertained thoughts of the stunts I'd pull as a GM in WoW, and high on that list would be pitting raid or faction bosses against each other for an ingame version of Two Bosses Enter. Well, Goon Squad actually pulled it off. I won't spoil the video for you, but apparently Thrall and Cairne aren't immune to Jaina's teleportation ability...

I can't begin to imagine the kite job this must've been, but if you take a look at their video of Jaina going postal on Org, you get a sense of just how many people it took. Dipex writes toward the end of the first video that this is the quest-spawned version of Jaina, which I can only assume means they were kiting her from her spawn point in Dustwallow Marsh where the Alliance quest "The Missing Diplomat" ends. This certainly would have simplified matters; getting her out of Theramore would have been significantly more difficult, and I daresay this was an elegant solution. Elegant? Do I mean elegant? Maybe I mean something else.

The Lunar Festival is in full swing, and every once in a while Omen is no where to be found. I talked about killing him earlier in the week, but there is another strategy that's been popping up. Have you ever wondered what it's like to kite something across half a continent? Well, now's your chance!

I've tried this with a few friends, and the trick is to keep Omen moving along with as many movement-impairing effects up on him as possible. We had a mage there slinging Frostbolts at him, a shaman shocking him with Frost Shock, and of course a hunter laying down his Concussive Shots and Frost Traps. I was there on my warrior issuing the occasional Taunt just in case one of the DPS made a mistake and got too close (this was never a problem).

Welcome to 2008 from WoW Insider! Most of you were probably at home or out with friends watching the new year come in, but some of you surely celebrated the new year with fireworks in Stormwind, Orgrimmar or Booty Bay, enjoying the festivities online friends as well as offline. Did you have any special new year festivities in Azeroth?

Reader Fragile sends us this interesting shot of a graphical glitch in Orgrimmar. My question, however -- is the quest just that big or is the Orc just that small? Interestingly, though I have seen several shots of this nature from the wandering quest NPCs in Ogrimmar, I've never seen the giant quest markers anywhere else. Have any of you run into this graphical bug elsewhere in the world?

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!

Blizzplanet has posted an interview with Walter Simonson, and is it me, or is it time to stop poking around for information on the new comic? Just let the nice people write and draw the thing already!

Simonson doesn't actually confirm the non-secret secret that Varian Wrynn is the amnesiac starring in the comic, but that doesn't keep Blizzplanet from prodding and poking everything they possibly can out of him. He says the comic will be set in the present, but when they nerd it up with some more lore, he admits it'll actually take place before the Burning Crusade. Simonson tries to drop a hint that the hero will end up in Orgrimmar, but then he's eventually exasperated enough to reveal that Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff and the Pools of Vision, Ashenvale, Darnassus, and the Eastern Kingdom will all make appearances inside the comic. And while Blizzplant has heard rumors that Dire Maul will be featured in the comic, they eventually get Simonson to tell them that "we're going to witness an event involving ogres (and others) that occurs regularly in a hitherto underutilized part of Dire Maul." And that sounds, of course, like a Tribute Run.

I can see how, if you're a big fan of the comic already, learning stuff like this might be fun and interesting. But at some point, you've just got to leave Simonson alone and read the comic for yourself. Enough interviews, enough hinting, enough speculation. Just let him write it so we can read it already!