As of yesterday, Funcom has released the names of the servers for Age of Conan. I count 31 servers, which seems like… a lot. How many players is a single server going to accommodate, I wonder? It is that much smaller than what one could expect on a WoW server? Or is Funcom really that confident that they will fill all these normal-capacity servers up? Possibly Funcom knows what they’re doing here, but my willingness to assume that is getting worn down to a nub. Also, a number of the names seem to lack even a superficial relationship with the source material (Deathwhisper? Bloodspire? Aren’t those WoW servers? Wildsoul? Wildsoul?) with which I am admittedly very attached to.

If you already have the client installed, by the way, you can actually get into it and view the opening cinematic – which is one we’ve seen before in Funcom’s promotional stuff. Attempting to do so yesterday, I got a dire warning that I had not installed Vista Service Pack 1. Since this was true, I took the time to not only get that installed and fully up-to-date, but my graphics, network controller and motherboard drivers as well.

For myself, I’m leaning toward playing on Set, a US PvE server, although I reserve the right to change my mind. I would like to be playing on Cimmeria, the US RP-PvP server, but I’m reluctant to do that without a guild going in. On the other hand, early access would be an opportunity to get a leg up on leveling, although I doubt seriously that I will be one of those people who’s at 30th level by Tuesday unless the leveling is faster than I think it’ll be (and I’m told it’s fairly fast at least through 20.) But while I expect to play quite a bit on Saturday, I expect to spend 5 hours in EVE as well doing a mining op, and on Sunday (on which I have other commitments for much of the day) and Monday (on which I have to work,) my available playtime will be more limited.

Now, if somebody were to, hypothetically, offer me a guild invite to a group that’s playing on Cimmeria… well, then I’d have to reconsider starting solo on Set, wouldn’t I?