A full month has now passed since I first found myself washed up on the shores of Tortage with nothing but a trusty broken wooden oar and sheer primal instinct, and a lot has happened since then (I guess it goes without saying). This evening, as I sit in my office chair with a beer to my right and a baby monitor to the left, I've given myself the opportunity to stop and reflect on my first 30 days in Hyboria, not only as a subscriber to Age of Conan, but as a character fully-immersed in Funcom's manifestation of the world Robert E. Howard penned and coined, and along the way I'll be putting up a few pictures from my ever-growing album, depicting landscapes, important events and other shenanigans that I've managed to get myself involved in during this first cycle of the moon.

With my guildmates, I've rolled a character on "Cimmeria" server, which, for those that may not be aware, is an RP-PvP server (or PvP-RP... tom-ay-to; tom-ar-to). The guild I belong to is not a roleplaying guild per se, but we, as a guild, did decide that we were at the very least going to leave the option open to ourselves if we, at a given time, ever felt inspired to break into character and soliloquise with another thespian. What we were more attracted to on the RP-PvP server was the open world PvP, because I, for one, happen to agree with Funcom on one thing regarding RP-PvP servers: You can't roleplay in Hyboria without PvP, i.e. you can't expect to feel safe in Hyboria all the time, and as a PvPer that's something that I quite enjoy about open-world PvP: the spontaneity.

"Cimmeria" server, so far, has proven to be an exciting server to play on, and what makes being on such a server all the better is the other guilds that have also decided to make "Cimmeria" their home as well. Some guilds came in to this server with a preceding reputation and already have established why others consider them infamous. There were also guilds that came in to the server who are known better for the one or two individuals that carry their guild tag; their individual reputation(s) set a precedent for the guild as a whole (a double-edged sword, you might say). Then of course there are guilds whose sole intention it is to be ass-hats to anyone they come across in the world, and basically make life as difficult as possible for those hapless victims. Guild alliances are already forming, guilds have elected diplomats to discuss terms of agreement with other guilds, cease-fires are called, cease-fires are broken, and what was probably not intended to be a political scene by any shot, has indeed turned into one. To be perfectly honest, however, I would not personally have it any other way! It's these sorts of things that make a game fun!