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!

Rumors began spreading yesterday that THQ was planning to cancel all of its 2014 projects, including its MMORPG Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium, to position itself to be sold. The rumors began when a game industry veteran, Kevin Dent, tweeted that THQ had canceled its entire 2014 lineup.

Today THQ responded to the rumors via Gamasutra stating they are false and have made no plans to cancel War 40k: Dark Millenium.

THQ has not cancelled its 2014 line-up, and has not made any decisions regarding the planned MMO,

As part of the ongoing review of our business, we have made decisions to ensure that the company is strategically addressing the most attractive markets,

As we have previously announced, we have dramatically reduced our commitment to the kids’ boxed games sector which leads to a significantly more focused release schedule moving forward.

Good news if you’re one of the many fans, like myself, that was looking forward to Dark Millenium. Although it’s undeniable THQ is facing some serious financial troubles. This time last year their stock was hovering around $6.00 and today it sits at $0.66. So I don’t think Dark Millenium is in the clear just yet, but at least it’s still alive and kicking.

In a Tweet yesterday, Emile Gauthier posted that Ubisoft is hiring for a new AAA MMO project, linking to Ubisoft’s Facebook job listings page.

Ubisoft Quebec is working on a NEW AAA MMORPG Game and we need people to fill these very strategic positions

The page shows three new jobs were posted yesterday, which you can see in the screenshot above, two of which are for the Wii U and are AAA titles as well.

The Tweet has started rumors that Ubisoft is working on a MMO game for the Wii U, although they can very well be separate projects. However it does confirm that Ubisoft is working on a new MMO game, their second behind Ghost Recon Online which is expected to be released sometime in 2012.

In a recent video interview with the Montreal Gazette, Miguel Caron the CEO of Funcom Canada, revealed that the target release date for The Secret World open beta is “before Christmas”. Don’t get too excite though, he also mentioned that it might be after Christmas.

Caron also stated that the subscription fee would be around $15 to $17 with the actual game around $60.

If you ask me that’s a horrible date to launch open beta.  For one they’ll have to compete for attention with the release of STWOR and it’s also 4 months before the release date. Do they really need 4 months of open beta testing? I’ll be seriously surprised if Funcom announces a Dec release, I was thinking February at the earliest up until now.

Update: Funcom Responds

GameFront is reporting on a website that is know for game leaks and refers to a email sent to the website owner back in August from a Blizzard source that reveals everything that was announced at last weeks Blizzcon. The email is dated Aug 17th, which of course be photoshopped, however if you look at the image upload date, it was 2 months ago.

The email shows that Blizzard was originally supposed to announce the Diablo 3 release date during Blizzcon, however in late September it was delayed to early 2012, so that’s mostly likely why it wasn’t. The email also shows that the tentative backup date was originally set for Jan 17th. Does this date remain as the backup release date? I don’t know, but it’s a pretty good estimate at worse.

Looking at Blizzard release schedule over the last decade we can see every game and expansion has been released between Nov 14th – Jan 16th and June 29th –  July 5th. So a Jan 17th backup date is looking more and more legit. That’s enough to convince me and if it’s not exactly the 17th, I doubt it will be much further out.

Today Perfect World Entertainment officially announced their next big update or maybe expansion, Storms of War, for the popular MMORPG Forsaken World. Aside from a few screenshots, which you can view after the jump, no other information was revealed, so this could be a large update or could be the next expansion.

Being launched in Eastern markets before coming to the West, Forsaken World is quite a bit ahead in China than it is here, so a few forum members went ahead and found what they believe to be the feature list for Storms of War in China, which can be viewed below.

• Fissure instances are now event timed. You can’t just T menu whenever you feel like it or just make a party and go.
• Another slot for GT added, 0:00- 1:30 (YES THAT’S AM).
• “Happiness Boxes” that can give a card. Get enough of these cards (or maybe you just need one?) and you can turn it into a NPC to achieve V.I.P. status. Lasts 7 days.
• V.I.P. status includes (but not limited to):
• -Town Teleport has a cooldown of 5 minutes.
• -Memory Fruit are consumed once every four minutes and give 4 times their normal exp at normal intervals (sorry if I made this sound confusing). 240 fruit limit.
• -Receive MP and HP regen buff (or just a better natural healing buff).
• -Chance of receiving a different gem when recasting (not sure. May be referring to combining).
• -ALWAYS receive a positive buff when praying to the gods (no “the gods hear you, but remain silent”).
• If you don’t do World Luck/ Personal luck quests after a certain amount of time, you can stack them. Most you can do in one day is seven.
• Mentored players can pick up 30 glories instead of 20.
• More time for 3v3 and 6v6 arena slots.
• Increased difficulty of some 75-80 dungeon.
• Better or more rewards for LCS.

None of this information is confirmed, so don’t take it as fact. You can check out some screenshots below.

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While ArenaNet has not stated when closed beta will begin for Guild Wars 2, they did say it would be before the end of 2011. However today we have a fresh new rumor that closed beta testing will begin by November.

It seems a French gaming site has translated a Korean press release that was discussing the fact that ArenaNet would have a presence at G-Star, Korea’s largest gaming expo, and showing off more footage of Guild Wars 2 on Nov 10th -13th.  Mentioned in the press release was a statement that ArenaNet would be present at the expo “following the start of the Beta West“.

Keep in mind this was translated from Korean to French to English, so something could have been lost in translation.

ArenaNet has not confirmed or denied this thus far, however seeing how there’s only 3 months left in the year, this rumor has a 33.3% chance of being accurate.

Source: HunterInsight

At the recent Citi Tech Conference which took place this past Wednesday, Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown mentioned some information about the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  He states that while EA expects to launch the title before the end of 2011, EA’s ‘fiscal guidance’ may cause a delay into the first calendar year of 2012. The full quote via Gamasutra is below.

The company still expects the MMO to launch this calender year, but EA’s fiscal guidance takes into account a possible slip into first calendar quarter of 2012 (fiscal Q4) if needed, Brown said. “We have a date set internally [for calendar Q4], with a lot of assumptions around it,” he said.

“We’re not done until we’re done. … We’re not going to know with enough certainty to publicly announce a release date,” until later this month or sometime in October, said Brown of the MMO.

Not good news for fans who are awaiting the release of this highly anticipated MMORPG. This is the second indication of delay this week, with BioWare announcing on Thursday that beta weekends might be canceled for the rest of September while they prepare the next round of beta tests.

The Secret World was primed for closed beta signups yesterday, with thousands of fans hovering anxiously over the forums and website. The timer ticked down, bounced up 4 hours, then ticked down again, and lingered on 00:00 before breaking completely. Server outage or bizarre new ARG that must be solved before the actual signups can be reached? Perhaps a mix of both? There are several debates going on in the forums, as people attempt to decode this letter which can be found when clicking the broken timer on the official site and determine whether it’s a real technical outage or a new puzzle. As of this posting at 9AM PST (4PM GMT) there are approximately 20 minutes before another announcement is expected.

Anxious for the beta signups and want to keep an eye on the progress?
Go here for the official timer thread with technical information.
Go here for the official discussion thread. Although this is the fifth thread and may be outdated soon with a sixth.
Go here if you want in on the ARG discussion.

It appears the Faxion Online is pretty much dead at this point if rumors turn out to be true. Over at the Faxion Online forums, a member posted a quote stating the source was “a UTV employee (Faxion team) who just got layed off“.  The UTV employee has this to say,

It(Faxion Online) is now officially dead. They laid off the rest of the Faxion team so there is no one left to do anything.

Last month is when the UTV layoffs began and if this forum post is correct, it looks like it’s the end of the line for Faxion. No official statement has been given yet.