Getting started

Nothing here needs a modified client, a launcher, or an addon. If you have a working World of Warcraft 3.3.5a install, you are four steps away.

1. You need a 3.3.5a client

Build 12340, the last Wrath of the Lich King patch. You supply it yourself. Tomorrow's Ash distributes no Blizzard files — not the client, not the data, not a "repack". That is not caution, it is the line the project does not cross.

If your client shows a different build number in the bottom-left corner of the login screen, it will not connect.

2. Make an account

Create one here. One account covers the website and the game client — they are the same credentials, stored on the same login server.

Two limits worth knowing before you pick:

• Account names and passwords are capped at 16 characters. That is the game client's limit, not ours; anything longer is silently truncated by the client and then fails to match.
• Both are case-insensitive. Emberlyn and EMBERLYN are the same account.

3. Point the client at Ashmorrow

Find realmlist.wtf in your client folder. It usually lives at Data\enUS\realmlist.wtf, where enUS is whatever locale you installed. Replace everything in it with one line:

set realmlist ashmorrow.example

The connection page always shows the current address — use that rather than copying the example above.

Some clients read WTF\Config.wtf instead. If the first one does not take effect, edit both, then launch Wow.exe directly. The Blizzard launcher will try to patch your client to a newer version and break it.

4. Make a character

At creation you pick a race and a chassis. The chassis is the thing the client calls a class — on Ashmorrow it decides your health, your armour and your resource, and nothing about what you can learn. Pick the body you want to live in, not the abilities you want; those come later and they are all available.

What to do first

Level as you always have. The classless system layers on top of the ordinary game rather than replacing it, so quests, dungeons and professions all work the way you remember.

When ability trees go live, you will spend points through a broker NPC rather than the talent window. The 3.3.5a talent frame is drawn by the client from its own local files and is locked to whatever class it thinks you are — so we cannot use it without shipping a client patch, and we are not going to. A gossip menu is plainer. It also works for everyone, on day one, with no download.

If something goes wrong

The realm status page probes both servers directly, so it can tell you whether the problem is on your side or ours.