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!

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.

It’s Templar Week over at The Secret World website and today we have a new trailer featuring the Templar faction.

The trailer gives us a little more in-site into how the Templar faction works and shows off some new in-game scenes as well as some previously released cinematic scenes. The video ends with a bit of humor, listing a “dating” bio of sorts for the young girl with white hair from previous trailers. Seems she a big fan of “spilling the blood of evil” and “long walks in the dark”, hmm, not sure that will get her many dates, but to each his own.

Check out the new TSW Templar trailer below.

Continued…

Although initial suggestions from Funcom about an open beta for The Secret World before the holidays proved to be incorrect, Funcom has confirmed that an open beta will happen before the launch of the game in April 2012.

If you’re an obsessive type, like me, you’ll probably already have started to dive deep into the factions of The Secret World, trying to make up your mind as to whom you should throw your lot in with.

You can’t swing a pentagram in The Secret World without hitting a member of a secret society. Whether they’re mystical warrior philosophers, cold manipulating power mongers or aristocratic defenders of the old “proper” ways.

Personally, I’m all about the mongering of power, which is represented by the nefarious Illuminati faction, but both the Dragon and Templars have a lot going for them, and making a choice isn’t easy. But let’s take a closer look at them and you can make up your own mind!

Continued…

Yesterday we reported on a video where CEO Miguel Caron of Funcom Canada told the Montreal Gazette that Funcom would be trying to launch the The Secret World open beta before Christmas. Today Funcom has responded to it stating:

Open beta will not be initiated before Christmas, but will be a part of our strategy next year prior to our April 2012 launch.

Also mentioned in the video was that TSW would have a subscription fee somewhere between $15 and $17 and a response to that was given as well.

Funcom has not yet made any official announcements regarding the business model or price points for The Secret World. This is still being discussed and evaluated internally, and we will make an official announcement when this has been finalized.

So for those of you hoping for a Christmas open beta, you’re out of luck, and I guess the free-to-play model lives for another day.

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

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

Funcom is kicking off the week by announcing Week of the Dragon, a full weekdevoted to the Dragon society in their upcoming MMORPG The Secret World.

The Dragon is the least known of the three societies, being based in Seoul, Korea, it is perhaps the most mysterious. The Illuminate and Templar are much better known as their secret societies have been the subject of well known movies, books and video games in the past.

To keep off the week long event, Funcom has released 6 new screenshots featuring the Dragon society which you can view after the jump. Senior Producer and Director Ragna Tornquist has this to say about the Dragon,

Revealing new things about the Dragon is exciting for us, as the very nature of the Dragon is to stay hidden and create chaos behind the scenes to reach their ultimate goal. Not only is this a great opportunity to shed some light on the Dragon, but for a huge number of people who have already joined the Dragon through our initiation test, it’s an opportunity to find out more about their chosen secret society.

Later on this week Funcom will release additional artwork, a new video, information and will wrap things up with a Facebook Q&A session on their FB page.

Continued…

Phase one of The Secret World’s beta signup is currently underway and now more information has been revealed about phase two. The second phase will introduce a web-based community game where players will have to perform various actions on a global map in order to expand the influence of their secret society and climb within their ranks. As your rank climbs you unlock exclusive in-game items such as weapons and clothing, unique achievements and if you climb high enough, you’ll guaranteed yourself beta access. Other rewards and prizes are available as well such as the chance to visit the Funcom studio and even get your name featured in the game world.

Only one activity has been revealed so far and a pretty lame one at that, where players will have to recruit friends from Facebook to signup to beta. Hopefully the other games are a lot better.

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.