Blizzard may be planning to allow players to gain experience in battlegrounds. There…I said it. We’ve all seen at least 100 threads on the subject. We’ve all heard the rumors. Apparently, during Blizzcon 2008, Blizzard hinted that they plan to make add experience gain to PvP battlegrounds.

The sky is not falling. Let’s all step back and think about this before we make another “QQ I quit” post on the forums. Blizzard has not ever said, or even implied, that they will add *mandatory* experience gain to battlegrounds.

We are not talking about Mom & Pop’s Hot Dog Stand here. We are talking about Blizzard Entertainment, producers of the most successful MMORPG of all time (by a large margin at that). Blizzard did not leap to the top of the MMO food chain by alienating pockets of their player/customer base.

They are fully aware of the number of paying customers who focus primarily, if not exclusively, on their twinks. They are also fully aware of the fact that they stand to lose roughly $16 per month for each of those players if they were to implement something like mandatory experience in battlegrounds.

Let’s set panic aside for a moment and look at what the real repercussion of what is likely to be optional experience gain in battlegrounds: an influx of lower level, poorly geared players in each bracket. We’ve all experienced it. We have all groaned after taking a queue and finding ourselves surrounded by a team full of players representing the lower end of our bracket. If Blizzard adds experience gain, you can count on seeing a lot more of them.

How many times have we all wished that we could move a character we rolled on a "carebear" PvE server over to a PvP server? Well, wish no more! Blizzard recently announced that they have opened up PvE to PvP server transfers.

In the past, it was easy to understand Blizzard's argument against allowing this type of transfer. It was much easier to level up a character on a PvE server. Therefore, allowing someone to level up their character and then simply transfer it over to a PvP server would not really be fair to those who paid their dues on PvP servers. Let's face it, anyone who leveled a character on a PvP server has more than likely taken their lumps by way of getting ganked and/or corpse camped. However, world PvP is not what it used to be in World of Warcraft. The Tauren Mill battle royales of days gone by are just that...gone. These days, if someone wants to PvP, they usually queue up for Battlegrounds or Arenas.

So you've got your fishing gear and you forked over the gold for your enchants, librams and leg armor. Perhaps you've even managed to score some Naxx enchants for your shoulders. You've racked up more than 25,000 lifetime kills in the past month. The question you have no doubt asked yourself is the same question currently perplexing World of Warcraft twinks across the globe; Now what?!?

Wrath of the Lich King Achievements, that's what!

Blizzard recently announced that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will introduce a series of new goals and rewards, many of which will be based on PvP objectives. For example, return the flag 5 times during a Warsong Gulch battle and you will receive the Frenzied Defender award. Prefer a little more PewPewPew in your stew? Get 20 Killing Blows without dying in a single battleground and you will earn the Grim Reaper award.

We are pleased to announce that Battleground Forums is now The PWN Depot! Created in January, 2006, Battleground Forums was the first website dedicated specifically to World of Warcraft’s Twink niche. We built the site so a handful of like-minded players from the Spinebreaker server would have a place to talk about twinking and exchange strategies. My how quickly things changed!

Over the years, Battleground Forums has grown into the premiere online World of Warcraft Twink community, with thousands of registered members and countless more who choose to lurk and quietly absorb the latest Twink info.

The Twink scene is no longer just about Battlegrounds. It’s about Arenas, world PvP, Battlegrounds and striving to make the best Twinks possible. Therefore, we felt it was time to broaden our horizons and become The PWN Depot – with a focus on Building Better Twinks!

What do you want first? The good news or the bad news? Let’s start with the bad news…

When Patch 2.4.3 goes live, the level 10 twink as we know it will cease to exist. Blizzard has decided to nerf Parry Rating, Block Rating, and Defense Rating- a fatal decision for our sneaky little friends that love to never get hit.

“Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.”
What does this mean? According to WoWwiki.com, the benefit you gain from a certain amount of rating is calculated by dividing the amount of rating by a certain value, depending on your level and the type of rating. For a single point of rating, the formula is:

1/(value*(level-8)/52)=benefit of 1 point of rating.
The value is 1.5 for Defense Rating, 15 for Parry Rating, and 5 for Block Rating. So what the nerf does is that the “level” number changes from whatever it was to 34, meaning you will need more rating for the same benefit.

For example, a level 19 Warrior with a shield that grants 5 Block Rating will yield:
5/(5*(19-8)/52)=4.73% block.
But after the nerf, the benefit he gains will be:
5/(5*(34-8)/52)=2% block.

Also, a level 10 rogue with a dress that grants 15 Defense Rating will yield:
15/(1.5*(10-8)/52)=260 defense.

After the 2.4.3 nerf, the benefit he gains will be reduced to:
15/(1.5*(34-8)/52)=20 defense.

Because level 10 characters used to calculate with very small amounts of rating needed to gain a large benefit (due to the 10-8, instead of 19-8), this nerf hits them the hardest. In fact, it makes it equally hard for them to gain benefit as level 19 characters.