The idea of being able to customize your character's look and feel beyond choosing one of 4 or 5 basic face and hairstyle choices at character creation or upgrading to a new piece of loot is one that's near and dear to me. I'm an RPer, so I like to think of each of my characters as a unique person with unique quirks, ideas, and fashion sense that I can't always express as I'd like to due to the limitations of WoW's mechanics. I've even had some very good friends quit WoW because their characters weren't customizable enough.

The idea came to the front of my mind a few weeks back when I was visiting my brother. We played EverQuest together, but when it came time to move on from that game, he (and most of our EQ guild) chose Everquest 2, and I chose WoW. So, of course, he ribs me about it quite often, and since I was visiting, he decided to load up EQ2 and show me what I was "missing."

Now to be honest, I'm still a bigger fan of WoW, but that's a subject for a different article. One thing I will say for EQ2 is that I was very impressed with the wider range of options to customize your character and show off your character's accomplishments. There's a few ideas related to character customization from EQ2 and other games that I'd really like Blizzard to continue emulating in future patches and in the WoTLK expansion that I believe would deepen the game experience for me and my friends, and for many other players as well.

When I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm forced to admit that one of the things holding my alts back is that I get dissatisfied with their appearance. Whether it's the limited number of options you get at the character selection screen, or just an overwhelming and completely inexplicable preference for a single character model, I always find myself thinking at some point in an alt's 20's or 30's that I'd take them back to the drawing board if I could. I deleted a level 30 Night Elf Druid in no small part because she bore an uncanny resemblance to Cher, and I am very uncomfortable both with the idea of playing Cher and Cher being able to kill people with Moonfire spam. I'm pretty close to deleting a level 30 Draenei Mage for the same reason. Well, not because she looks like Cher, but something about her appearance just....bugs me.

My main is the only character for whom I've never had that impulse, and I don't know why. Female Tauren don't have particularly interesting animations, jokes, or special attacks. They're less plausible (how on earth do they run like that?), less dramatic, and less impressive-looking in endgame armor than their male counterparts. Maybe it's just their distinctively awkward gait -- you can tell it's them from a mile away -- or just that so few people play a Hordeside female who's not a Blood Elf, but I find them hopelessly endearing.

So I keep rolling moo-cows. Or, to be accurate, a particular model. Call me boring, but no toon from my growing herd will ever be mistaken for Cher.

Okay, let's be brutally frank here. Some gear looks bad. Some gear looks really really bad. Last night, as an example, Zul'Aman gave to me the present of the Battleworn Tuskguard. This is one heck of a tanking hat. Take a loot, it's really sweet for a 10 man instance drop.

It also makes me look like Big Bird with tusks. Perhaps some unholy Big Bird/Snuffleupagus hybrid. (Long time experience writing for the site tells me that I need a disclaimer here saying that yes, I know Snuffy doesn't have tusks, but it's possible that the hybridization process brought the latent tusks to the fore. Also, I'm a little embarrassed for us all that we all knew that much about Snuffleupagus.) But at the same time, I'm so insanely happy with the hat that I can't bring myself to turn the thing off, so now I'm wandering around Outland as the most lethal looking hawkstrider - elekk hybrid in existence. The weirdest thing is, I really enjoy how insanely awful the hat looks. It looks like what it supposedly is, a battered relic of war ripped from the corpse of a dead troll. It even has a broken tusk.

I have a guildmate with the same hat but he never, ever leaves it turned on. This leads me to wonder: is there gear out there that's so ugly but has such nice stats that you'll never, ever turn it on? Maybe never even wear it? Perhaps I'm unusual in that, the worse my gear looks, the more I like wearing it. Considering that we loot all of this junk off of the broken and battered bodies of our enemies, shouldn't some of it look less than awesome? I actually would hope that Blizzard would design more gear in the future with a 'battle damaged' aesthetic. After all, when a big dragon drops a healing wand, it's not like he was using it. Clearly he took that off of the corpse of a foolhardy adventurer much like ourselves, only less lucky.

So I put the question to you again: is there any gear so awful looking that you won't display it or even wear it outside of encounters? Any gear so horrible that you love wearing it? I am keen to know.

All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.

The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing.

Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.

But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.

Most of us have heard by now that the next expansion will bring the ability to change your appearance somewhat, and some people out there may be thinking "What was I thinking when I created my character, Uglybub? Finally, with Wrath of the Lich King, I will at last be able to get rid of this electrfied hair and frowny face! Then I'll change his name to PrettySmoochCakeLove too!" As much as we might love to dream, it's not yet clear how much of your character's appearance you'll be able to change. Should Blizzard enable you to change everything about your character's appearance any time you might wish to?

According to Blizzard's current thinking, you will be able to go to the local barbershop and have your hairstyle changed -- probably facial hair and earrings too. You will be able to go to the local dance studio -- yes that's right, a Dance Studio in the World of Warcraft -- and learn new dances. But the devs believe that plastic surgeons just haven't caught on in Azeroth or Outland yet. "Plastic surgeons?" You cry out, "Who said anything about plastic surgeons? I just want to be able to change my facial expression! What's the big deal?" And yes, of course you are right, but your facial expression is tied to eyecolor, nose shape, and everything else about your face. Those things shouldn't be changeable ... or should they?

Is Blizzard right or wrong on this issue? Now that we've got name changes and we're getting hairstyle changes, it's got me wondering, where do you draw the line? Redoing your hair, or turning that frown upside down is one thing, but going from dark skin and brown eyes to pale skin and blue eyes (with lots of wrinkles) makes your character look like someone else altogether. Is infinite customizability something we really want? Does a certain degree of consistency offer any other advantages?

Blizzard has dropped a note on the homepage that not a week after the South Park episode, WoW is coming to TV yet again-- it's going to make a quick appearance on a new Ted Danson sitcom tonight called "Help Me, Help You." The show is about a group of people in therapy (hmm...) who, comedically, I assume, struggle to get their chaotic lives together. WoW is supposed to appear in the life of a woman who's been dealing with online dating, so I'm guessing either she meets or breaks up with (the latter would probably be more funny) a guy in the world of Azeroth.

That much you can learn from Blizzard's page, but here's what you really want to know: is the show any good? There's a short preview on the show's homepage, and I have to say that by the end, it sold me. Can't say Ted Danson makes me laugh much (excepting a few CYE appearances), but the vibe I got from the preview reminds me (and I know what you're going to think when I say this) of Arrested Development. There's some good acting, some morally questionable characters, and some good situations-- this one might turn out to have legs.

Not if you listen to the New York Times, however. They say while "HMHY" tries hard, its potential may not pan out. Then again, if you don't want to bother wasting your time checking out a Ted Danson sitcom (it's on ABC at 9:30 Eastern), rest assured the WoW footage will find its way onto the video sites (and your favorite blog) as soon as we can possibly find it.