Remember The Secret World beta registration? The strange Facebook application The Secret War that would supposedly grant the coveted closed beta access? That same one that failed to launch, and then after a big community fuss, seemingly vanished without further word? A recent post from Tarib, the senior community manager indicates that they are still hard at work on this fabled minigame.

“The plan is to get The Secret War into the next phase and fire it up fully. We sometimes felt ourselves a bit like some hidden society tried to prevent us from launching it but the way it currently looks we are getting really close now. We hope to have more information and details on this very soon.”

I’ll admit I have my doubts, but I am hoping so! I’ve been watching this game for years now, it looks like everything I’ve ever wanted in a game – if they can pull it off. So here’s to hoping they really mean it this time!

It’s been a little over a month since the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I have multiple characters at level 50, have seen all 4 empire stories, and the string of colds and flu that have been kicking my ass since the holidays is finally on its last legs, so it’s time for me to blare my thoughts about this game. I had originally intended to leave it to Mike, since he’s already written up a few thoughts, and I wrote up a beta impression, but my views have changed slightly and are different than his, so I changed my mind. I’m a woman, I’m allowed to do that, right?

My overall impressions of this game do remain positive, although in many ways it’s a muddle. BioWare is new at the MMO genre, and it very much shows. I generally think ‘balanced classes’ is an MMO myth, but there is very little of it in SWTOR; classes just play unevenly in both skillsets and companion acquisition, crafting is… well, I’ll just say it’s bolluxed. Patches and updates aren’t staying long enough on the test server, BioWare isn’t listening to the testers’ feedback, and has now displayed a pattern of knee-jerk over-nerfs that have seriously hit my enthusiasm for playing. I really have to wonder if anyone at BioWare has ever played an MMO at endgame, or participated in serious pvp.

And yet, my overall impression remains positive. I’m treating this game like it’s single player, or rather, like it’s a LAN. As a single player or LAN, it is a great game.

But on to the specifics.

Continued…

A new location in The Secret World was unveiled in the wee hours of the morning: The Blue Mountains. I say ‘sort of’ because it’s another location within Solomon Island, the New England locale that has had a lot of information already provided to us. The Blue Mountain is located just west of Kingsmouth, and centers around a terrible evil that happened a long time ago. Players can explore what happened here by aiding the Wabanaki tribe, and eventually participating in rituals that will allow us to walk in the dreams of past ancestors. Somewhere in there are Mayans and Vikings, and all sorts of supernatural baddies like Wendigo, Draug, golems, and akab.

I think that sounds pretty cool myself, just think of how much content the devs can add in in future expansions when they aren’t limiting themselves to modern locations! Even with modern locations, there’s a wealth of possibilities, but dreams and memories of the past open even more. Perhaps that’s just my bias though; I studied ancient history in college so anything related to history has my complete attention.

I’ll keep you updated as more is revealed today. I’ve found this article, although it’s in French. The Secret World facebook hasn’t provided anything for us English speakers yet, other than a promise of more to come.

And of course, the moment I post, they update their page. Read the official announcement here.

*Update* Aaaand, as promised, here’s a link to the new video for Blue Mountain.

Dungeons and Dragons Online follows the announcement of the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons 5E for tabletop gamers with its own new addition; the release of its first premium expansion, Menace of the Underdark. It brings the Forgotten Realms to DDO! The Druid will finally be a playable class, the level cap will be increased to 25, and there will be adventures in the Underdark, with all its drowish goodness. I first gave this game a pass because it was set in Eberron, but nostalgia will probably tempt me into giving it a try, now that I can look forward to the Forgotten Realms. Who can pass up another sighting of Lolth?

For more info, visit the Menace website, and the official announcement.

Star Wars: The Old Republic servers are now live with the first major content update; Rise of the Rakghouls. This update brings some welcome changes – anti-aliasing is finally available! – as well as some that just make me scratch my head and wonder what BioWare is thinking. Georg Zoeller stated that,

“The design intent for the game is that your choice of crafting profession should not become a requirement or ‘gating’ mechanism for participating in competitive content (PvP) and high end endgame challenges.”

Some raiding guilds had started requiring Biochem on their raiders, so they were nerfing biochem to prevent this. But I’m left wondering how sticking a requirement that people who use high end biochem stims and medpacks actually have to have biochem to use them is going to fix this problem. Doesn’t that just make it more likely guilds will require biochem? Wouldn’t it be better to just make other crafting skills worthwhile at the end game raiding level?

Commentary aside, Rise of the Rakghouls does introduce some content that looks pretty interesting. Four new bosses have been added to Karagga’s Palace, and there’s a new flashpoint: Kaon Under Siege. Now if BioWare would only introduce UI scaling and customization…

Read the official full patch notes, sans my pithy commentary, here.

It’s holiday time again, and TERA Online is hosting a Holiday Card Contest. Create a holiday card using TERA themes, and you could win some TERA loot like a laptop bag, a hat, or a messenger bag. They’re also giving away “random TERA loot” as well – why not beta entry codes? Let’s be honest, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?

All you have to do is send an image of your work in an email to community@enmasse.com with the subject “TERA Holiday Card Contest 2011″ between now and December 31st. The image must be work safe, and be no greater than 5mb. For the full contest details, check out the official site.

Many Star Wars fans are up in arms at the discovery that despite being told in August there’d be a grace period for those who order physical copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there will, in fact, be no grace period. While any pre-order code will allow players entry into the early access, in order to keep playing come launch, you must have your actual game code. Many people made their purchasing decisions based upon the declaration of a grace period, and are understandably upset by this sudden change. There have been thousands of posts this evening on the subject, as angered fans vent their wrath upon the forums.

Although some good news, however meager it may be, has been revealed – after several hours of the posting frenzy, Stephen Reid, the Senior Online Community Manager, posted to say that sales and marketing are working to ensure that copies will be sent out prior to launch. European retailers will have the game on the 15th of December, US retailers on the 20th, and those who ordered digitally via Origin will have their game codes emailed to them on the 16th. There is still question as to how this affects those who ordered the Collector’s Edition and US customers who ordered online, but at least Reid is continuing to communicate as best he can to address concerns. He has even apologized twice – first for the ‘misunderstanding’ and then for calling this fiasco a misunderstanding.

It’s a shame, really. My guess is this was done by EA, and not Bioware, but the end result is the same for me – the trust Bioware has built over the past years has been rather badly shaken. Even if Bioware fully meant to have a grace period, and was forced by EA to renege on that intention, it’s difficult to continue to trust them when they can at any time be forced into altering their public statements like this.

Good news for sandbox and D&D/Pathfinder fans: Paizo has licensed out Pathfinder to Goblinworks for a swords and sorcery MMORPG. Announced just a few days ago, Pathfinder Online has been described by Goblinworks as a sandbox with theme-park elements, with a developing skill system rather than levels. They’re describing an open world with complex social and economic systems, where players will be able to found their own settlements and kingdoms as well as participate in more classic theme-park styled quests and scripted encounters that will build into stories and adventures that shape the course of the gameworld. Based on the Pathfinder RPG, initial races will be dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, halflings, and humans, and like any good sandbox game they’re promising a wide selection of skills that will allow the player to become a classic pen and paper RPG class or more unusual classes like merchants, farmers, spies and explorers.

As might be expected by what seems to be the current MMORPG norm; it will be a hybrid free to play and subscription model. Pay a monthly fee to access all standard game content, or buy features a la cart. They’ve stated they’ll be offering premium costumes, mounts, and adventure modules in their game store – and I’m already wondering what “standard” content means. Will subscribers have to buy adventure models as well as pay their monthly fee? In any event, this one looks like it could be interesting and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it. One of my big weakness is the promise of a sandbox game, very little will grab my attention more quickly than that magic word.

Want to know more? Visit the Goblinworks official site, read more about the pen and paper version of the Pathfinder RPG, and participate in the Pathfinder Online forums.

The first thing I should mention is that I am not a Star Wars fan. I’ve seen the movies of course – over 2 decades ago when I was a kid. I never had any of the action figures, I’ve never played a Star Wars game, and unless I hit Google I couldn’t tell you which movie features the Ewoks or which one has Luke losing his hand. You can call me an ignorant savage if you like (my fiance does), but I prefer old classic movies like The Lion in Winter or The Maltese Falcon, and as a kid I preferred Schmendrick to Luke. When it comes to MMOs, I don’t like story-driven games, I want to just go out into the wilderness and kill and kill and kill my way up the leveling ladder. Companions? If I want company, I’ll group or play a single player game like Dragon Age. Space combat? I’d rather go crawling through a deep mazelike dungeon. Jedis? Lasers are cool, but I’d prefer a nice dagger to stick into my enemy’s back after I’ve robbed him blind (I just love MMOs with pickpocketing, I get to loot my enemies TWICE!).

I thought the game was being overhyped simply because it has lightsabers, Jedis, spaceships, and Sith. So when I had the opportunity to sit down and play Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend, I expected to have a few hours of ok fun, uninstall the game and walk away.

I was wrong. Not only did I not walk away, I preordered two copies.

Continued…

A new Dragon teaser video and interview with Ragnar Tornquist was released for The Secret World’s Week of the Dragon. Nothing marvelously new for those who’ve been following The Secret World, although there are a few interesting tidbits, like shots of what looks like a train station in space. I believe that’s a closer shot of the end of Tokyo Flashback, revealed last week at NY Comic Con and available for public viewing thanks to the efforts of The Hydra Initiative, a Dragon Cabal for The Secret World.

And we get Mei Ling’s milkshake recipe. I’ve always preferred chocolate milkshakes, do you suppose I could use chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla?

• 1½ cups milk
• 2 VERY large scoops of vanilla ice cream
• 1 cup strawberries, hulled
• ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 marshmallows, cut in half