WOW: PVP levelling in next patch

By Oli Welsh Published 19 June, 2009

Plus: turn off XP altogether!

Blizzard has confirmed that it's to introduce experience gains from playing player-versus-player battlegrounds in the next World of Warcraft content update, Call of the Crusade. This means that you'll be able to level characters entirely through PVP for the first time.

The move, hinted at during last year's BlizzCon, was confirmed in the latest test server patch notes.

XP will be awarded for any actions that yield honor points in the battlegrounds, excluding killing other players: capturing objectives, returning flags, winning and so on. It will still be a slower way to level than questing, according to lead content designer Cory Stockton: "We want Battleground experience to be rewarding, but we also don't want it to be the fastest way for players to level up."

For those fearing that this will put at end to "twinking" - the culture of keeping low-level, well-geared characters to fight in the lower battleground tiers - Blizzard has an answer. From Call of the Crusade (otherwise known as patch 3.2), it will be possible to turn off all experience gains by paying 10 gold to an NPC. Levelling can be resumed by paying the same fee again.

Non-levelling characters will be entered into separate Battleground queues, meaning that the twinks will be left to bother each other. Turning off levelling applies to all sources of XP, so it will also be possible, for example, to keep a level 60 character to enjoy the max-level dungeon and raid content from the original game.

Stockton said that there are plans to introduce equipment rewards - "mostly greens and the occasional blue item" - for players to roll on at the end of battlegrounds, but these will come after patch 3.2.

Stockton also promises that Blizzard will put more effort into creating new battlegrounds in future, after arguably focusing on arenas for the last two years. "We plan to deliver more Battlegrounds to the players as often as we can," he said. "We see Battlegrounds as a very large and important part of the World of Warcraft PvP game and we would like to expand the system as much as we can."

The Call of the Crusade patch also slashes mount requirements, adds an 80-player battleground called Isle of Conquest, substantially reduces the power of Death Knights, adds fancy new Druid animal form skins, and introduces the Crusaders' Coliseum, a new amphitheatre-style dungeon featuring five encounters covering all group sizes and difficulty settings.

Detailed on the official forum, the Coliseum will feature a 5-player dungeon with three encounters, and a 10- and 25-player raid with five encounters, each available in both Normal and Heroic modes. Heroic raids will also feature a new Tribute system, offering better rewards the fewer attempts it takes to down the final boss.

It's a huge patch with something for everyone, then, and shows promising signs of an effort from Blizzard to revive WOW's flagging PVP scene. If you're hungry for more info, try WOW.com (formerly WOWInsider).

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Hypercube #1 3 years ago

    substantially reduces the power of Death Knights

    Were they really over-powered then? I gave up WoW a while ago, but the DK did look pretty cool.

  • Derblington #2 3 years ago

    Sadly, this patch is tempting me back.

  • levitate #3 3 years ago

    It tempts me to go back too. Luckily the weather is good right now so I rather spend my time outside in the sunshine.

  • DFawkes #4 3 years ago

    I love the PvP levelling in WAR, nice that it's in WoW. Though I prefer WoW as a PvE, it's great that both are valid ways to gain power, wealth and fame!

  • Gurgeh #5 3 years ago

    "Stockton also promises that Blizzard will put more effort into creating new battlegrounds in future, after arguably focusing on arenas for the last two years"

    And the more they focused on Arenas the more the number of people playing Arenas dropped.

    "Were they really over-powered then?"

    Yes, and were so for far too long. Arguably they are still the tank of choice for Ulduar even after a series of nerfs.

  • ObiChrisKenobi #6 3 years ago

    damn you, damn you all to hell for making me even consider going back to WoW after 6 months of being clean.

  • paulf #7 3 years ago

    a measure of how over powered dk's are is that you never see anyone playing a rogue now, they have all gone to play a dk.

    It's good news about moving twinks to their own bg, they should also follow war and make it so characters at the lower level end of the bg range get a boost - so if you are level 11 for example you get the stats of a lev 18 when playing a bg for 11-19

  • makememoo #8 3 years ago

    Yeah DK's are pretty serious, I tank everything that's considered harder than normal tanking duties. Having said that I think the nerfs in first iteration of the patch notes are the most severe they ever wanted to go and after some testing I think some will go back to how they are in live, or at least have the severity of the nerf reduced.

    The saddest thing for me is the frost strike nerf, I'm already feeling rather like I've hit a threat ceiling with frost, and this will just make it worse.

  • butler` #9 3 years ago

    DKs have been buffed not nerfed! (Though more so from an Unholy perspective.) I don't know where all this substantial reduction in power is Oli!

    Also, about time! Another MMO idea poached for team Blizzard in their effort to perfect WoW.

  • MaxiSleep #10 3 years ago

    I hate the way blizzard uses the nerf bat so often. I remember pre BC they hit wariior tanking hard, by reducing aoe threat to deal with one bloody encounter in Nax. I dont think warrior tanking ever fully recovered from this.

  • LFace #11 3 years ago

    Hope these new fangled instances/raids are not heavily vehicle influenced. I hate vehicular combat in wow, you spend time getting used to your abilities and speccing up on stuff like spell power etc.. only to end up using a stupid catapult in opening of Ulduar. Its forced into the game and doesnt fit right.

    Likewise the whole argent ground thing from previous content patch; Pointless addition.

    If they make it so when you go up against the lich king your doing it on bloody horses or in siege tanks then that will be a major snooze-fest in my opinion.

  • Nephirion #12 3 years ago

    XP rate gain in the battleground, how is that determined? I imagine it will be pretty low, even in Warhammer leveling just through scenarios would be the slowest way to level. Blizzard love to make grand statements but in truth the content is nearly always diluted or in some cases event missing. Looks like Blizz are short of ideas at the moment, I mean how far can they take it before work begins to shift to WoW 2.0?

  • Liam64 #13 3 years ago

    "For those fearing that this will put at end to "twinking" - the culture of keeping low-level, well-geared characters to fight in the lower battleground tiers - Blizzard has an answer. From Call of the Crusade (otherwise known as patch 3.2), it will be possible to turn off all experience gains by paying 10 gold to an NPC."

    That's me done with PvP, then! I thought me and Blizz were on the same page with regards to twinks. :(

  • sneetch #14 3 years ago

    @ObiChrisKenobi
    damn you, damn you all to hell for making me even consider going back to WoW after 6 months of being clean.

    You're never clean! Never! I was free for 9 months now look at me!

    *coughs up potion residue*

    Spare epix?

    Hey buddy, spare Armoured Snowy Gryphon?

  • sneetch #15 3 years ago

    @Liam64
    That's me done with PvP, then! I thought me and Blizz were on the same page with regards to twinks. :(

    Surely unless you're twinking yourself it's a passing concern, they stay at 19 or 29 or whatever and you pass them by within a few hours (and a lot of the twink brackets are no longer all that great with mounts being available at level 20 with this next patch).

    This turning experience off is a good idea I think, I'm trying to level an alt with a couple of RL friends that are a few levels below me, I'd like to let them catch up before starting to earn XP again.

    Edit: I missed that Ashen-Shugar, so it's even less of a concern. That's great. Win-win. Well, except for the twinks who now will have to play against other twinks rather than levelling characters in crappy greens all the time. Hmmm, I'm expecting a huge drop in the number of twinks because it's "not fun anymore".
    Edited by 1 at 19/06/09 @ 11:29

  • ObiChrisKenobi #16 3 years ago

    I think the only way I can be clean, Sneetch, is to purge my account and sell it gold farmers! Actually, saying that, has anyone ever had gold sellers randomly add you to MSN and ask if you want to buy gold or sell your account before? Happened to me years ago, was really strange. Made a change to all the random ASL? adds I got

  • sneetch #17 3 years ago

    @LFace
    Hope these new fangled instances/raids are not heavily vehicle influenced. I hate vehicular combat in wow, you spend time getting used to your abilities and speccing up on stuff like spell power etc.. only to end up using a stupid catapult in opening of Ulduar. Its forced into the game and doesnt fit right.

    Likewise the whole argent ground thing from previous content patch; Pointless addition.

    If they make it so when you go up against the lich king your doing it on bloody horses or in siege tanks then that will be a major snooze-fest in my opinion.

    I expect the new Argent Crusade Coliseum tournament stuff will be all mounted. Personally, I love the vehicle system and the tournament especially it seems to fit snugly to me and spices up the game.

  • stevetuck #18 3 years ago

    Im fairly sure you could get XP from PVP in classic wow... so this is nothing new

  • ObiChrisKenobi #19 3 years ago

    Steve, that was for completing the quests within the BGs, wasn't it?

  • sneetch #20 3 years ago

    @stevetuck
    Im fairly sure you could get XP from PVP in classic wow... so this is nothing new

    Nope. You never could.

  • levitate #21 3 years ago

    @steve:

    No, you've never been able to receive xp in battlegrounds by capturing flags etc. Blizz has said you won't get xp from killing players so there won't be any xp gankfests either.

  • MBar #22 3 years ago

    Great patch, IMO. Awesome for the casuals and altoholics, which I am moreso now having quit raiding. The harcore raiding are already whining about everything, but they need to learn that the non-hardcores outnumber them eleventy billion to one. Being hardcore still gets you more stuff sooner, so it's not like your ridiculous raid grinding is without merit.

  • spudsbuckley #23 3 years ago

    This is why WoW is the biggest and best.

    People will still find stuff to complain about undoubtly.

  • stevetuck #24 3 years ago

    Ahhhh yes sorry my bad, it was for handing in a token from each of the 3 battlegrounds :)

  • Riggers #25 3 years ago

    I levelled my character from 20 – 50 just doing battlegrounds, pre-Burning Crusade. Can’t remember how it worked, I think you got the tokens, and when you handed three in you got XP? Can’t remember the exact details, but I definitely levelled my character through PvP. :/

    EDIT: Doh, SteveT got there first.

    I should also mention that levelling that way was very slow going! :p
    Edited by 1 at 19/06/09 @ 11:56

  • FortysixterUK #26 3 years ago

    Now how about putting Wintergrasp back to the 2 and a half hourly rewards mode rather that the weekly rewards mode ?
    That change virtually stopped me playing WG overnight and sent me off playing an alt......then of course, I rediscovered xbox 360 rpgs and haven't gone back for the last 2 weeks....you see Blizzard? you SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?

  • dingo75 #27 3 years ago


    substantially reduces the power of Death Knights

    Were they really over-powered then? I gave up WoW a while ago, but the DK did look pretty cool.

    Yes they were / still are up to raiding. Then they plateau besides some tanking situations where they still rule.
    It was a clever way of Blizzard to ensure enough DKs: Everyone rolled one and a lot leveled them to max / made them their main when they saw the power and ease in leveling them.
    Now that there are enough DKs they nerf them.

  • AOFanboi #28 3 years ago

    <em>Now that there are enough DKs they nerf them.</em>

    Well the DKs nerf themselves sometimes when newcomers to WoW create a DK as their first char; I ran into this Danish dude who asked for the Human mount seller, and later asked such basic questions like "what is Trade?" and how to get to Shattrath.

  • Dizzy #29 3 years ago

    "Well the DKs nerf themselves sometimes when newcomers to WoW create a DK as their first char"

    You can't do that... you need a level 70 char first.

  • Pirotic #30 3 years ago

    I'd re-sub if they do this! damn you blizzard

  • spudsbuckley #31 3 years ago

    All the talent has obviously moved to other projects. The team that is left is turning Warcraft into a bit of an embarrassment

    By consistently making it much better than the competition even though it's nearly 5 years old?

  • Orange #32 3 years ago

    what an uninspiring patch.

  • Shikasama #33 3 years ago

    It looks huge on paper but in practice it is ridiculous.

    Lets look at what it adds to gameplay. One new instance they want you to do 4 times a week. You will do this instance for the next three months. Then the next one instance to do forthe next three months. Because thats content right?

    Daily quests.

    A battleground that is in now way shape or form incetivised.

    Virtually deleting the most popular arena bracket because they are unable to balance it.

    I hate review sites when it comes to MMORPGs. They look at the paper and the not the substance. It might be 'huge' in terms of number of items on the patch notes, but let me assure you that warcraft is going down a narrower and narrower path and ahs absolutely zero interest in expanding or innovating as a game.

  • spudsbuckley #34 3 years ago

    And yet it still has 11 million subscribers.

    People just love to bitch.