Ryzom

all races have the same abilities, but on patch1 (wednesday?) there are supposibly starting to see differences between races..

choose whatever you think looks cool or where your friends is, i bet there gonna be 2 fractions between the 4 races... so think about what other race you want to be able to play with too...

5 characters per account but the purpose for that is to make sure that everyone in your family who plays Ryzom have their own character since you can develop whatever skills you desire in game and there is no skill cap. And you should not wait till wednesday just get into the game as soon as you can Enjoy!