Welcoming the Incredible Teams and Legendary Franchises of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft Gaming

Creators of Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft and more join Team Xbox
As a team, we are on a mission to extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. We all know that gaming is the most vibrant and dynamic form of entertainment worldwide and we’ve experienced the power of social connection and friendship that gaming makes possible.

As we pursue that mission, it is incredibly exciting to announce that Microsoft has agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard.

Over many decades, the studios and teams that make up Activision Blizzard have earned vast wellsprings of joy and respect from billions of people all over the world. We are incredibly excited to have the chance to work with the amazing, talented, dedicated people across Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch and every team across Activision Blizzard.

Until this transaction closes, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will continue to operate independently. Once the deal is complete, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me as CEO, Microsoft Gaming.

Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog. We also announced today that Game Pass now has more than 25 million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add more value and more great games to Game Pass.

The fantastic franchises across Activision Blizzard will also accelerate our plans for Cloud Gaming, allowing more people in more places around the world to participate in the Xbox community using phones, tablets, laptops and other devices you already own. Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward.

As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard.

Around the world, there is no more exciting venue for fun and connection than video games. And there has never been a better time to play than right now. As we extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone, we look forward to welcoming all of our friends at Activision Blizzard to Microsoft Gaming.

As you can always count on, we’re taking care of you! We’re starting to submit author accounts to Blizzard for The Burning Crusade Classic™ Beta so that you can make sure your AddOns will be ready when it goes live.

This is not a contest! If you are an AddOn author that hosts with us and you have been keeping your AddOns current, you are eligible for a key!

As with the Legion™ beta, Blizzard will be enabling accounts directly. That means that we will have to ask you for your battlet.net email address*, which we will then send to Blizzard and they will flag your account at their discretion. When they flag your account, they will send you an email giving you information letting you know. Alternately, you can watch for the flag on your account page on the Blizzard site. We'll post the number ranges when we have sent the list to Blizzard.

Let the fun begin! Sign up now for your The Burning Crusade Classic™ Beta key.

Once you've got your addons ready for testing by other beta participants, upload to our new The Burning Crusade Classic download category.

Rules:

• You must have an active World of Warcraft account.
• You must be an addon author with one or more files on the site that are current to 9.0.x or 1.13.6+ (Compilations & "Hello world" or its equivalent do not count).
• Do not upload addons that are not your own. Anyone caught uploading someone else's work will be banned from the site. All AddOns submitted are manually checked.
• Blizzard and WoWInterface reserve the right to deny anyone access.
• Account and addon(s) must be registered before March 23rd 2021.

Edit: Tracking numbers 001 - 041 submitted to Blizzard, 31 Mar 2021
Tracking numbers 042 - 055 submitted to Blizzard, 07 Apr 2021
Tracking numbers 056 - 067 submitted to Blizzard, 14 Apr 2021
Tracking numbers 068 - 069 submitted to Blizzard, 21 Apr 2021
Tracking numbers 070 - 071 submitted to Blizzard, 29 Apr 2021
Tracking number 072 submitted to Blizzard, 5 May 2021
Tracking numbers 073 & 074 submitted to Blizzard, 12 May 2021


*We need your battle.net email addresses so Blizzard can flag your account directly. Don't give us your WoWInterface email address, it won't work.

As we enter December and look forward to the coming New Year, this is a time when many religions and cultures around the world celebrate major holidays. 2020 has been a really hard year all across the world. From pandemic to social unrest, from economic downturn to the food and housing insecurities created by all of, it has been an exceptionally trying time.

Now is when kindness, empathy, compassion, and understanding are more important than ever. We all need to try to come together, in spirit, to support one another. While most of us are having to stay physically apart to help protect each other from this deadly pandemic, it doesn’t mean that we can’t still be there to help one another. So many right now are suffering more than ever: fear of catching this horrible disease, anxiety over how to pay the bills due to lost jobs, loneliness at being isolated.

Unlike in the past, our global community is more connected than ever. Reach out to one another. Let people know that you care. Check on your family and friends. And if you’re one of the ones that is struggling, reach out to others* and ask for help. There is no shame in it. This is hard on everyone. Be kind and gentle with yourself as much as you can, because right now no one is at their best.

If you are able, donate. Donate money to your local food banks. Donate gently used items to local good works organizations. Donate your time to places that you have the ability to assist. There are many places that you can help while still remaining within your own home if it isn’t safe to go out (whether for yourself or for the community at large). Check with local volunteer organizations, they are more than happy to help match you up with somewhere that will suit your unique circumstances and abilities.

Please be kind. Be patient. Show grace. Understand that it isn’t the cashier’s fault that the store is out of the item you need. Realize that the delivery driver is just trying to survive, the same as you. Recognize that your favorite restaurant has had to pivot, and pivot, and pivot yet again to try to remain open in one fashion or another so they can continue to serve you. Support local businesses as much as possible.

Listen to the public health experts. Follow the advice of the scientists and medical personnel that are working at a feverish pace to understand and find treatments for this new disease. Yes, the advice changes from time to time. That’s because this is brand new. That’s how science works. As they learn about it, they figure out what works and what doesn’t. They are doing their best. Help them.

And please, hold a thought for our front line health care workers. They are exhausted. Please do your part. Stay home if you can. Wear a mask if you need to go out. Don’t gather in large groups. Wash your hands.

We will get through this, together. For the pandemic, hope is on the horizon. There are so many different vaccines that are showing great promise, at this point. As for the rest, if we hold to one another, if we care about each other, we can pull through. Humanity has always shown its best when things have been really tough but we’ve helped each other. Hold on. We’ll make it.

Dolby, myself, and all of our moderators, wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday season. May the new year treat us all well.

#Happy Holidays
#No School Snowdays
#Joyous Kwanzaa
#Merry Christmas
#Happy Hanukkah
#Blessed Yule
#Happy Krampusnacht
#Blessed Solstice
#Happy New Year
#Howly Wolfenoot
#Touched By His Noodly Appendage
#Joyous Saturnalia
#Happy Festivus


* If you are struggling with your mental health and feel like you don’t have anyone else you feel like you can reach out to, reach out to me (Cairenn). I am very open about my own mental illnesses (anxiety and clinical depression) and thus you needn’t worry that I will judge you for your own struggles. My PMs are always open.

To the WoW community,

I wanted to let you know that we’re delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year—and while we’re still in the process of determining the right new date to launch, we felt it was important to let you know about this change in plans as soon as we could. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the team, as we’re as eager to get the expansion into your hands as you are to play it—but ultimately, we feel it’s the right decision for the game—and for our players.

Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share. We’re excited by the Covenants at the heart of the expansion, and it’s been a thrill to see Torghast take shape into a fun new kind of WoW experience, thanks in no small part to your input.

However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame. Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.

Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13 we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options. And once we get closer to Shadowlands’ release, you’ll be called upon to defend Azeroth against a resurgence of the Scourge during our pre-launch event.

Thanks for your support and passion, and for your continued help and feedback as we head toward the finish line.

We’ll see you in the Shadowlands soon,

John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft

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