Blizzard has opened up beta signups today for Mists of Pandaria and stated that beta testing is “very close“. For those of you with a Battle.net account, all you need to do is login and check-mark the opt-in option for Mists of Pandaria.

The beta will have no non-disclosure agreement (NDA) so all participants will be able to talk and post images and videos about the game. Players who are selected will receive an email from Blizzard with instructions on how to download the game.

WoW Annual Pass holders will get special treatment, the longer your annual pass has been active, the sooner your chance to be invited to the beta and all annual pass holders will eventually receive an invite. This means if you are not an annual pass holder, your chances will be slim, as Blizzard has stated additional invites will be only sent out if there is a need for more testers.

Currently there is no end-date for the beta.

Today ArenaNet revealed more details about Guild Wars 2‘s microtransaction item-store, revealing that it will allow players to participate in real-money-trading (RMT).

The basic system works on three currencies: gold, gems, and karma. The karma currency is not trade-able, and is only used for unique in-game rewards. However, the gold and gems currencies can be traded freely; with gems being purchasable with real money, and are the only accepted currency in the item-store.  This works similar to EVE Online‘s PLEX system, but goes a bit further.

With EVE‘s system, PLEX can only be used for one thing: to add game-time to your account. Players can purchase extra PLEX, and sell it in-game to players, who can then purchase it with in-game credits. This gives players a way to play EVE Online free, if they’re good at making money in-game.

Guild Wars 2 system is similar, but instead of one purchasable item, it gives players an entire item-store to buy things with.  This also creates a dynamic between the two currencies, as gold will always fluctuate in value, while gems will not. The reason being, that the price of items in the item-store are a lot more consistent than items sold in-game by other players.

This system then creates a sub-market that will actually allow players to make, potentially, huge profits by constantly trading gold for gems. When the value of gold is high, trade it all for gems. As the value drops, trade your gems back to gold, and depending on the fluctuation, you’ll get more gold back then what you started with.

The good news is that the item-store will only sell cosmetic items and items to speed up certain in-game processes; most likely EXP boosts and things of that nature. ArenaNet made the following statement about selling items that give players any sort of advantage,

But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time

The reasoning behind this move is to prevent gold farmers from ruining the game as they’ve done with other MMORPGs. By allowing the players themselves to buy and sell gold, it destroys the RMT blackmarket.

As far as I’m concerned, ArenaNet can do no wrong. The system sounds great, and I’m even more excited for GW2; if that’s even possible.

Funcom released a new video today for The Secret World from their press presentation at GDC 2012, which was held behind closed doors, and so far unseen by the public.  The video is about 35 mins long, and walks players through the character creation process; as well as some of the early game experience, game systems, and “The Darkness War” dungeon.

In the video we see the Dragon faction’s starting area, as the female player finds a weird kid in a rain-coat standing in-front of her upon first login; then begins to follow him. The game then takes a very quick turn into a sort of lesbian-matrix reveal where a women tells you, in the same way Morphius told Neo, that what you think is true and real, really isn’t. At this point you have sex with the woman. Yes, very weird.

Up next the video skips forward to the Tokyo flashback quickly, then switches again to show combat mechanics. Here we learn that there are 500 abilities that players can use their points on, but players will have to select only 7 active abilities and 7 passive ones for their character builds.

As the video progresses we see a containment camp, where a government field team is trying to contain something called the “Filth”.  We get to learn a  little more about the Filth via the voiced cut-scene, then the video moves on to a quest in the same area.

The next part of the video takes us to Transylvania where we get to see some vampire fights.  We also hear more about the crafting system, called transcribing, where players break-down items they find in the game and rebuild them to fit their needs.

Towards the end of the video, the last 7 mins or so, we get to see one of the dungeons, called “The Darkness War”, which is a five-man dungeon. This instance sends players back to the past in England, about a thousand years, and in the video we get to see the final boss fight. The boss is a giant bore like animal with huge dragon wings.

Below you can watch the full video presentation.

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The time has finally come as ArenaNet has begun sending out its closed beta invites for Guild Wars 2.

If you didn’t get one yet, there’s still hope, as invites will be continued to be sent out over the next few days.

As with any closed beta, ArenaNet does have an active non-disclosure agreement (NDA), so there won’t be a flurry of videos and new info as there was with the press weekend last month.

I just hope WvsWvsW will be available when the beta begins.