Every other World of Warcraft realm asks you one question at character creation and then answers several hundred more on your behalf. Pick Mage, and the game has already decided that you will never swing a two-handed sword, never learn to stealth, and never taunt anything. Those answers arrive free, and they are permanent.
Ashmorrow asks the question and then stops answering.
The one rule
Every ability in the game is available to every character, and they all cost from the same budget.
That is the whole system. There is no class list, no spec, no "you must be level 40 in this tree before that one opens". There is a pool of skill points that grows as you level, and a very long list of things you could spend them on.
The consequence is not "everyone is powerful". The consequence is that depth costs breadth. If you want the deep end of Fire, you are paying for it with the stealth you will never have, the shield you will never carry, and the healing you will never learn. Two characters with the same points spent are not equal — they are different arguments about what matters.
What you still choose at creation
Two things, and neither of them is a class in the usual sense.
- A race. As it has always been: appearance, starting zone, faction, racial abilities.
- A chassis. The frame your character is built on — how much health it carries, what armour it can wear, whether it runs on mana or rage. This is the thing the login screen calls a "class", and on Ashmorrow it is closer to a body type. It shapes what your abilities feel like without restricting which ones you may learn.
The chassis is important enough to have its own page. It is also the part of the design we are least finished thinking about, and we would rather say so than pretend.
What it looks like in play
You learn abilities from a broker rather than a class trainer. You spend points, the ability appears in your spellbook, and it works — the same spell, with the same numbers, that a "real" one of those would cast.
Change your mind and you can unspend. A respec refunds the points and takes the abilities back. A character is not a decision you made once at level 1; it is the sum of what you are currently committed to.
What it is not
- It is not a free-for-all. The budget is the balance. If everything were free, there would be one correct build and everyone would play it.
- It is not a custom client. No patch, no launcher, no addon. Ashmorrow runs on an unmodified 3.3.5a client, and that constraint shaped the whole design — see getting started.
- It is not finished. The realm is being built in phases, in public. The roadmap says exactly where the work is.
Why bother
Because class identity in WoW was always two separate things wearing one coat: a fantasy (I am a knight, I am a warlock) and a restriction (therefore you may not do these four hundred things). The fantasy is worth keeping. The restriction is a balance tool from 2004 that has been quietly carrying the fantasy on its back ever since.
Take the restriction away and the fantasy has to be earned. Nobody is a knight because the character sheet says so. You are a knight because you spent a hundred points becoming one, and it cost you everything else.