En Masse Entertainment has opened up pre-order sales on their website today for their upcoming MMORPG TERA, giving players three options to choose from, Standard $49.99, Collectors Editions Digital $59.99 and Collector’s Edition $69.99. Regardless of which you you select you’ll have access to all closed beta tests as well as a three day head start. The full beta schedule is below.

• Closed Beta Test 1: February 10 – 12
• Closed Beta Test 2: February 24 – 26
• Closed Beta Test 3: March 9 – 11
• Closed Beta Test 4: March 23 – 25
• Closed Beta Test 5: April 6 – 8
• Open Beta Test: April 19 – 22
• Head Start: April 28 – May 1

Players who pre-order will also received in-game items to help them get started, you can check out the details below.  I’m excited!  :)

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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!

ArenaNet is embracing the Lunar New Year, which is today and according to the Asian zodiac system is the first day of the Year of the Dragon. The dragon embodies passion, independence and ambition which is something that ArenaNet can related to with what they’ve accomplished with Guild Wars 2.

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, ArenaNet has revealed their plans for beta testing and has officially announced that Guild Wars 2 will be released in 2012.

We recently finished our first closed beta test, and we’re now ready to hold progressively larger events. In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year.

It seems closed beta testing will last at least to April, with open beta and the launch to follow. No hints were dropped as to when GW2 might launch, but it will definitely be in the second half of 2012. Can’t wait!

En Masse has officially opened closed beta signups for its upcoming MMORPG TERA.  Called “preview events”, each closed beta phase will require its own invitation, with the closed beta event ending in an open beta testing phase.

To signup to TERA’s closed beta, head over to the TERA website and enter your email address in the forum.

• TERA‘s closed beta tests each require a unique invitation. Each invitation will indicate which closed beta test it is valid for. Submitting your email address more than once won’t increase your chances of receiving an invitation.
• Invitations to TERA‘s closed beta test will be distributed before each event based on random selection.
• Invitations to TERA‘s open beta test will be distributed to everyone who signs up to be a TERA beta tester.
• If you participated in our TERA alpha test, your access will extend to allTERA beta tests.
• We will introduce additional methods of securing an invitation to TERA‘s closed beta tests such as official contests and giveaways.

Beta signups to SOE’s upcoming MMOFPS are now live on the new PlanetSide 2 website which launched yesterday. Players can sign-in using their SOE Station account or create a new one if they don’t have one, them opt-in forthe PS2 beta.

Along with the beta signup, the new website also has more information and updated FAQ about the game, including key features, factions and more. Check out the new site to sign-up for beta.

Trion has opened up their closed beta signups for its upcoming MMORTS game End of Nations as well as posted their inaugural webcast called Warfront.

The big news from the webcast was the announcement of the beta signups, the rest of it wasn’t really worth watching, it was basically just trying to get you to signup to their newsletter and Facebook page.

If your interested in registering for the beta, head over to the EON beta signup page.

Mythos has probably had one of the bumpiest histories of any MMO game I can remember. Originally developed by Flagship Studios, in 2008 due to financial issues while Mythos was getting ready for open beta, the game was put on hold, then scrapped when Flagship went under.

Mythos then became the intellectual property of HanbitSoft, a Korean MMO publisher, who decided they would re-create Mythos for Asia and NA markets. Frogster would become the publisher in Europe. Last month Frogster announced Mythos EU would be closing its doors due to a lack of interest.

Which brings us to today where HanbitSoft and T3Fun have announced that the North America version will be going into a 4-day closed beta test on Dec 1st.

Now I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but how many times can a game fail before they give up? To signup for the Closed beta, head over to the Mythos Global website.

The final scheduled Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend is scheduled to being the day after Thanksgiving, Nov 25th until Nov 28th.

The last beta test will be by far the biggest as anyone who registered for the beta before Nov 11 will be accepted, plus BioWare is giving away thousands of keys to those that didn’t, 400,000 keys to be exact. You can get one from BioWare’s Facebook page. This last best test will really test the servers ability to handle massive server loads and to prepare for the official launch which is now less than a month away.

I’ll see you guys in-game

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.

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The third closed beta weekend for BioWare’s Wrath of Heroes has been announced for Thanksgiving weekend. So if football isn’t your thing and you need a reason to get away from your relatives, you can tell them it’s an exclusive beta weekend that you can miss.

The closed beta weekend will begin on Nov 24th and will end on the 27th. No info about if any new features or characters will be added for the third beta weekend, however it should be released sometime this week, so we’ll keep you posted.