What’s more fun than playing an MMO? Playing it with friends! If you’ve been enjoying The Secret World, there’s never been a better time than this weekend to put on those recruiting shoes. Gain bonus time for every recruit who purchases the game, or bonus points if you’re a grandmaster like me.  And to welcome all the potential new players, this weekend is a double AP weekend! Even if you’re not up for recruiting, it’s the perfect time to log a few hours to finish filling out your skill wheel, or work on an alt.

Hit the jump for the skinny. Anyone want to be recruited? :)

After the long delays of Issue 2,  I did not expect Issue 3 to be released on time this month. Color me pleasantly surprised. In a sudden ninja move, they have announced Issue 3: The Cat God will go live tomorrow during the weekly maintenance.  I’d like to give a recap of what’s expected in Issue 3, but details have been difficult to dig up. There’s been no official announcement other than it’s due tomorrow, and no mentions aside from a few hints in a press release about Joel Bylos taking the reigns of game director from Ragnar Tørnquist.

I have to admit, as disappointed as I’ve been with the Funcom layoffs and the loss of Martin Bruusgaard, this does somewhat ameliorate my skepticism at the claims that monthly updates will continue.  Now if only they’d put something good in the store, and actually fix the hideous character models. I continue to have nothing but praises to sing about The Secret World aside from its subpar character models.

Community Manager Morteia is gathering the details, so hopefully there will be an announcement sometime soon. Although admittedly at this point there’s little point, tomorrow we’ll see what’s in it firsthand.

My assumption is this cat god, whoever it is, will be Egyptian. There are any number of gods it could be, though my money is on Bast, Sekhmet, Pakhet, or Maahes. Bast is perhaps the obvious choice, but Sekhmet takes the lead for me as she already features prominently in The Secret World lore. Anyone else care to venture a guess?

It’s no secret that I absolutely despise the character models in The Secret World. I absolutely love the game, but I can’t help but cringe every time I look at my character. So it’s hardly a surprise that I’ve been desperately looking forward to Issue 2 which will include a barber and plastic surgeon. Unfortunately the layoffs at Funcom delayed the issue by 2 weeks, and this morning Tarib announced a further delay.  September 12th, only two days away…

Click the jump for a quick recap of the upcoming content in Issue 2: Digging Deeper.
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TSW Addon Spotlight is a weekly series about addons in The Secret World. Every week I will examine an addon and discuss what it brings to the game.

Thus far everything I’ve highlighted has been on the ‘large’ side in terms of additions to the game. Or perhaps major is a better word to use – a dungeon finder, a fix if not improvement to the gear management system, a better team UI, bios for roleplaying characters  - but sometime the minor cosmetic annoyances can really pile up the irritation and need to be fixed as well. I am really sensitive to color schemes; the surest way to ensure that I won’t be visiting your website is to give it a black background and put white or red text on it, or some eye blinding combination, and to make it so it can’t be customized.

I am holding my breath hoping someone will release something that lets me change the default colorscheme. But for now, the most welcome cosmetic addon is sammichofdoom’s Improved Notification Window. Click the button below for details on this little visual delight.
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