Starting a charater...Shard/Server

[Schism]

Being as I am still awaiting my game pack from HMV - I am having some trouble in woring out which server/shard to join.
During the beta phase I made up a few charaters on my first day and got on well with them.
THe next time I logged I got a message about some high up was wanting help in such and such a shard 'would I help'? I said yes and found that all my characters that I had made the day before were gone.
I am used to Ultima online shards and having to make up new charaters for each shard but when I went back to where I started my chararters were still there - doesnt Warhammer work like this?
Or can you make up characters that can be used in which ever shard/server that has free space?

Please help me out guys.....I'm old and these new fangled games are beyond me *smiles*

[Rumbak]

Basically, you will pick a server/shard and stick with it. Ignore all those messages and what-not you get when you first log in. Hit no, and pick the place you want to go. However, if you want to play both sides you will need to have characters on diff servers/shards, as order and destruction cannot be on the same side. Being that you are "old" you may want to check out The Older Gamers @ www.theoldergamers.com. We have a Warhammer division with guilds in every time zone.

As a side note I would ask this kind of thing in a different forum, as this one is for guides.