Blizzard is about to kick off a brand-new developer spotlight, and World of Warcraft is first in line.
On January 29 at 9:00 a.m. PST, Executive Producer Holly Longdale and Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas will return live on the official Warcraft channels for a special State of Azeroth broadcast, offering a fresh look at what’s next for WoW in 2026.
This broadcast is expected to be more than a simple update. Blizzard confirmed they will share:
The 2026 roadmap for modern World of Warcraft
The upcoming roadmap for Classic WoW
A glimpse into the future of Azeroth’s next major chapter
Exclusive Housing Decor Item
One of the biggest teasers: viewers who tune in live will learn how to unlock an exclusive Housing decor reward, hinting that player housing will remain a major focus going forward.
Part of the Blizzard Showcase Event
State of Azeroth is also the first presentation in Blizzard’s new Showcase series celebrating 35 years of Blizzard, with additional spotlights coming soon for Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Diablo.
What Might Be Coming?
While Blizzard hasn’t revealed specifics yet, this broadcast could finally bring clarity on:
The next phase of The War Within
Progress toward Midnight and the Worldsoul Saga
Future Classic content beyond Anniversary realms
Housing system details, expansion timelines, and seasonal plans
If you care about WoW’s direction in 2026 — Retail or Classic — this is one livestream you won’t want to miss.
Stay tuned on WowClassicUI.com right after the broadcast — we’ll cover all major announcements, roadmaps, and rewards revealed live.
Blizzard has deployed a hotfix today to address an issue affecting Level 58 boosted characters in TBC Classic Anniversary who did not properly receive their Riding skill.
According to Community Manager Kaivax, the problem has now been corrected:
With a hotfix earlier today, we corrected the level of Riding skill for boosted characters who did not receive Riding correctly. Upon completing the first boost quest “A New Beginning”, boosted characters should now automatically receive Apprentice Riding.
What you need to do if you were affected
If you boosted a character and already completed “A New Beginning” but did not receive Apprentice Riding:
👉 Simply log out and log back in — your Riding skill should then be granted automatically.
Blizzard indicated that they are confident in the fix, but they will continue monitoring reports in case any characters are still affected.
Why this matters
This fix is important because:
Apprentice Riding is required to use most ground mounts
Many boosted players were unable to ride properly after using their Level 58 boost
This issue could have delayed players preparing for Outland
With this resolved, boosted characters should now be fully ready to step through the Dark Portal when TBC Classic Anniversary launches on February 5, 2026.
With The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition officially gearing up for launch on February 5, 2026, Blizzard has now enabled one of the most anticipated services for returning and new players alike: the Level 58 Character Boost (Anniversary).
This makes it easier than ever to step through the Dark Portal and begin your journey in Outland without having to replay the entire 1–58 leveling experience in Classic Azeroth.
Jump Straight Into Outland
The new Level 58 Character Boost (Anniversary) allows you to instantly bring a character up to level 58, fully prepared to start questing in Hellfire Peninsula and beyond.
This is especially useful for:
Players returning after a long break
Those who want to reroll a new class for TBC
Blood Elf and Draenei fans who want to dive straight into their TBC experience
Classic players who don’t want to redo the full leveling grind
Important details:
The boost is only usable on WoW Classic Anniversary realms
It is tied to the specific WoW account on which it was purchased or redeemed
Blood Elf and Draenei characters are eligible for the boost
Dark Portal Pack Still Available
Alongside the boost, Blizzard is also promoting the Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Dark Portal Pack, which includes several cosmetic rewards:
The price of the pack is dynamic, meaning it will automatically be reduced if you already own some of the included items. Each item is also available separately.
What This Means for Players
With boosts now live, we expect to see:
More players preparing characters before February 5
Increased activity on TBC realms
More players rolling Blood Elves and Draenei in advance
A smoother transition into Outland at launch
If you’re planning your return to TBC Classic Anniversary, now is a great time to decide your main, prepare your UI, and get ready for the Burning Legion.
The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary just received a new round of hotfixes on January 14, 2026, resolving several important issues affecting players since launch.
According to a blue post from Blizzard Community Manager Kaivax, the following changes are now live on TBC Classic Anniversary servers:
January 14, 2026 Hotfix Summary
Character Boost services restored after a brief outage
Arena Skirmishes enabled, as originally intended
Addon throttling issue fixed, restoring normal addon behavior
Chronoboon Displacer returned to its adjusted state:
Cost: 1 gold
Stack size: 10
These fixes address several of the most disruptive early-launch problems and should noticeably improve the overall gameplay experience going forward.
The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary realms are finally live, letting players roll their new Blood Elf Paladins and Draenei Shamans — but not without a few hiccups.
Many players quickly noticed that the $60 Character Boost they had purchased was not working after logging in. Blizzard has since confirmed that both the Character Boost and Name Change services have been temporarily disabled on the TBC Anniversary servers while engineers work on resolving the problem.
[#Warcraft] We have temporarily disabled Character Boost and Name Change services on Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary and WoW Classic while we fix an issue. Thank you for your patience.
Tom Ellis, Senior Game Producer for World of Warcraft, stated that a fix for the Character Boost should be coming later today.
For now, players can access the realms, create characters, and explore the pre-patch content — but any purchased boosts will remain unavailable until Blizzard completes the fix.
We’ll keep this page updated as soon as Blizzard rolls out the solution.
The moment many of us have been waiting for is here: The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary is officially live! Players around the world are fired up and ready to jump back into Outland — but there’s a catch.
👉 As of right now, the servers are not yet online due to ongoing technical issues. The team is actively working on resolving these problems, and we’ll update this post as soon as things are back up and running.
![Screenshot Placeholder] (add your own screenshot here)
What’s New in the Anniversary?
This Anniversary event brings a range of features, rewards, and quality-of-life enhancements to TBC Classic, including (but not limited to):
🚫 Servers are live in name only — you can’t log in yet. Technical challenges have delayed full access, and the team has indicated that more updates are coming soon.
[#WoWClassic] Current maintenance has been extended until 6:00 PM (PST), we apologize for any disruption
The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary is the next major milestone for WoW Classic players. Starting from fresh realms launched for the 20th Anniversary in November 2024, these servers now move forward into The Burning Crusade — with a structured roadmap, phase system, and some important quality-of-life changes.
This guide explains the full TBC Classic Anniversary roadmap: release dates, phase content, and what players should expect at each stage of progression.
Key Release Dates
The confirmed timeline for the start of The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary.
TBC Pre-Patch: January 13, 2026
TBC Classic Launch: February 5, 2026
Phase 1 Raids Open: February 19, 2026
The TBC Classic Anniversary realms are the same servers launched on November 21, 2024 for WoW Classic’s 20th Anniversary. These realms now progress naturally into The Burning Crusade.
What Makes Anniversary Servers Different?
Several modern improvements are included from day one.
Improved reporting system
Guild leadership dethroning system
Chronoboon Displacer with up to 10 stored buffs
Improved PvP honor system (Phase 2)
Graphics upgrades
Instant mail between characters on same account
No buff/debuff limit
Dual Spec
Pre-Patch – January 13, 2026
The Burning Crusade truly begins here.
The pre-patch is almost an expansion on its own. It introduces:
With the arrival of the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch on Anniversary realms, Blizzard scheduled an unusually long 24-hour maintenance window. For many players, that raised questions — why so long? and what are they actually doing?
This week, Blizzard developer Fwoibles (arnetHound) finally shared the story behind the scenes in a detailed forum post. You can read the original explanation directly on Blizzard’s forums here:
And honestly — the technical challenge is impressive.
🧭 Quick Summary
If you just want the short version:
Blizzard scheduled a rare 24-hour maintenance for TBC Anniversary
Anniversary realms were originally running inside Classic Era’s infrastructure
That setup could not support the transition to Burning Crusade
Engineers created a brand-new migration method called “Persistent In Place”
Account & regional data are being moved, while character data stays in place
This avoids guild breakage, character transfers, and name conflicts
When realms return, everything will look exactly the same to players
The Real Problem: Anniversary Was Never Meant to Become TBC
When Anniversary realms launched, Blizzard took a shortcut to get them online fast.
Instead of building a brand-new environment, Anniversary realms were quietly running inside the existing Classic Era infrastructure, with only a thin software layer separating them.
This worked… mostly. You might remember the hilarious moment when Season of Discovery players accidentally invaded Anniversary Alterac Valley — that was the wall cracking.
Blizzard always knew this setup wouldn’t survive TBC. At some point, Anniversary realms had to be migrated into their own full environment.
That moment is now.
Why This Migration Is So Hard
Normally, Blizzard would use their “Connected Realms” tooling to migrate data — but that system was outdated and risky.
Another option: perform millions of character transfers.
Problem? That would:
break guilds
create massive name collisions
generate a nightmare of player issues
So Blizzard’s engineers came up with something new.
The Solution: “Persistent In Place”
Instead of copying everything, Blizzard invented a new approach they call:
Persistent In Place
World of Warcraft stores data across three databases:
Database
What it stores
Persistent
Characters, guilds, items
Account
Achievements, account data
Regional
Realm lists, tokens, region-wide systems
During this maintenance:
Account & Regional data are being fully copied into the new TBC environment.
Persistent data stays exactly where it is.
That means something completely new for WoW’s infrastructure:
Two different versions of World of Warcraft will temporarily read and write to the same persistent database — safely separated by environment tags.
It’s bold. It’s risky. And testing shows… it works.
What This Means for Players
When realms come back up:
Your characters will be exactly where you left them
Your guilds, mail, items, names — unchanged
Realm names remain the same
No disruptive transfers
No guild breakage
No naming chaos
From the player side: nothing breaks, nothing changes, everything works.
Behind the scenes: one of the most complex migrations Blizzard has attempted since original Classic launch.
Final Thoughts
This is a one-time infrastructure operation — and once it’s complete, Anniversary realms will finally be standing on their own, ready for the full Burning Crusade journey.
Massive respect to the Classic & Live Ops teams for pulling this off.
The Burning Crusade Classic is officially coming to Anniversary realms, and Blizzard has now published the final timeline for the transition — including maintenance dates, pre-patch release, and important character transfer deadlines.
Here’s everything you need to know.
TBC Classic Anniversary Pre-Patch: When Does It Start?
Blizzard has confirmed a 24-hour maintenance for all Anniversary realms:
Start: Monday, January 12 at 3:00 PM PST (Americas & Oceania)
Duration: 24 hours
Result: When realms come back online, the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch will be live on Anniversary realms.
This marks the official beginning of the TBC transition for Anniversary players.
Important: Character Transfer Deadlines
Blizzard also clarified how character transfers will work around this transition — and the deadlines are strict.
Before Maintenance Begins
Until the servers go offline on January 12 at 3:00 PM PST:
Free transfers from Anniversary → Classic Era are available
Hardcore Anniversary → Normal Anniversary transfers are available (so your character continues into TBC but is no longer Hardcore)
After Maintenance Starts
Once the maintenance begins:
All free transfers to Classic Era close
Any character remaining on Anniversary realms will automatically continue into TBC Classic
Characters on Hardcore Anniversary that were not transferred will remain locked to their current ruleset
Blizzard strongly recommends transferring early, as last-minute transfers may experience delays or issues.
What This Means for Players
If you want your character to stay in Classic Era and not advance into TBC, you must transfer before maintenance.
If you want your Hardcore character to continue into TBC, you must first transfer it to a Normal Anniversary realm before maintenance begins.
After that window closes, your choices are locked.
The Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary is the next major chapter of WoW Classic, following the 20th Anniversary Edition launched on November 21, 2024. Those fresh Classic realms are now progressing toward The Burning Crusade, with the TBC Pre-Patch scheduled for January 13, 2026 and the full expansion launch expected shortly after.
If you want a strong start — fast leveling, early raid access, gold stability, and a clean UI — the real work happens before the Dark Portal opens. This guide covers everything you should prepare right now.
Roadmap & Key Dates
What’s coming and when.
Classic Anniversary Realms launched: November 21, 2024
TBC Pre-Patch: January 13, 2026
TBC Launch: Expected Winter 2025 – Spring 2026 window
The Anniversary realms are the same servers — your characters progress directly into TBC.
Anniversary Server Rules & Changes
How these servers differ from 2019 Classic.
Chronoboon Displacer (up to 10 stacks)
Improved PvP Honor System (Phase 2)
Dual Spec available
Instant mail between your characters
No buff/debuff limit
Graphics & reporting system improvements
No GDKP allowed (NA & EU)
Faction balance enforcement on PvP servers
Pre-Patch: January 13, 2026 – What You Must Prepare For
The real beginning of the expansion.
New races: Blood Elves & Draenei
New profession: Jewelcrafting (levelable to 300)
15% XP reduction (20–60) & boosted quest XP (30+)
Cheaper & earlier mounts
New cities: Silvermoon & The Exodar
What You Should Do Before Launch
Your real preparation checklist.
Lock your main & alt strategy
Plan your 60 → 70 leveling route
Prepare gold & materials
Choose professions & future specializations
Configure addons, UI, macros & keybinds
Secure your guild & raid position
Players who dominate TBC are the ones who prepared before the Dark Portal ever opens.
Launch Week Survival Checklist
Everything ready before Day One.
Bags, gold, consumables prepared
Professions mapped & materials stocked
Addons updated & UI stable
Dungeon & leveling groups organized
Server & faction decisions finalized
Preparation is the real endgame. The players who succeed in TBC Classic Anniversary are the ones who take these months seriously.
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