Tabards have been a fairly frequent subject lately. There are the summer-themed tabards you get from the Shards of Ahune, which are a part of the Midsummer festivities. And, of course, there was the "glitch" that may have revealed a Legendary tabard. The World of Warcraft trading card game is getting in on the action by letting you purchase tabards with your UDE points.

The ability to purchase these tabards will be included with patch 2.4.3, according to the Upper Deck. Each of the six tabards are all variations on the same skin or pattern, with the only real difference being a change to the color pallette. This is the Tabard of the Void on the right. They don't say exactly how many UDE points each will cost yet, and ask us to stay tuned for details.

If you don't know, you get UDE (Upper Deck Entertainment) points by purchasing UDE products. I know, that's a stretch. Eeach WoW TCG pack you buy has a card with points on it. So far, you get a 100 point card with each booster pack. We'll let you know if and when we hear more about how many packs you have to buy to get a tabard.

All the red tabards on the Horde side really annoy me. How come everyone picks a red tabard? Isn't it enough that the Horde flag is red? Can't we have as much variation in our color schemes as we do in our tusk/horn/pigtail configurations? Red is so 2007.

Or maybe it's not. A study published in the Cyberpsychology & Behavior journal determined that teams who wore red while playing Unreal Tournament 2004 won 55% of the time over teams that wore blue. Another study from 2005 showed that wearing red gave an advantage to athletes in the 2004 Olympics, too. However, I'm not sure I buy the reasons given for this advantage, though. The neuroscientist who studied the Unreal Tournament matches thinks that because men turn red when they're angry this color acts as a psychological distractor. Sounds like some reaching, if you ask me.

Now, of course, in WoW we don't always wear the colors of our faction, but the predominance of red tabards on the Horde side and blue ones on the Alliance side may just put a Brutal Gladiator's Painsaw in the hands of those who claim the Horde has an advantage in the battlegrounds. But only if everyone wears red or blue. Hm. I wonder if I can change my guild's tabard color from green to red...

[Thanks, Avadann Kedeth.]

As I was perusing the very first review of Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, I noted that the "collectibles" in that game are going to be pretty intriguing. While a lot of collectible items in games (say, all the packages in the previous GTA games, or the flags in Assassin's Creed) are fairly superfluous, I find that some (like the orbs in Crackdown and the billboards and jumps in Burnout Paradise) actually make the game more fun -- while traveling through the game world, you can keep an eye out for extra stuff to do and see.

World of Warcraft has never really jumped in on that idea, however. Obviously, there are plenty of collecting quests, but usually they're for killing mobs. And there are plenty of things to collect in the game -- noncombat pets, tabards, and mounts, and so on -- but none of them really give you a reward when you find a certain number of them, or give you bonuses based on how many you've picked up.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, hiding some fun, optional collectibles (and giving small rewards based on just finding them) in a world as lush as Azeroth would make exploring an already great environment better. But I'm sure some would see it as a cheap tactic to make people hunt for widgets. What do you think?

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.

Franco on Aman'thul has a request that I wholeheartedly agree with: Bring back a way to earn the old PvP ranks and titles.

In fact, I think Blizzard has dropped the ball on titles completely. While they promised us lots of new mounts and tabards and have more or less delivered on those, where are the titles? That seems like the easiest thing to implement, and yet the only new titles I can think of are from PvP (doesn't the Skyguard confer a title as well, or am I imaging that?).

So why doesn't Blizzard get creative with titles? Every faction should have a title that goes with it, and conquering raid instances should grant titles as well ("Gruul the Dragonkiller Killer"). I'd even like to see titles for less than heroic events-- falling to your death a certain number of times should grant you a title ("Heir of Icarus"?), or even deserting a battleground a certain number of times. There are tons and tons of fun titles that Blizzard could give out, and it would add a whole new and easily implemented element to the game. There's no reason to force titles on anyone, but the way things are implemented now, people can choose to carry around any title they want (or none at all). Why didn't Blizzard go crazy with putting a ton of creative titles into the game?

As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard just plain dropped the ball here. Sure, maybe they're a little leery about bringing the old PvP ranks back so soon, but they put that title system into the game for a reason, Drysc-- use it!

Player Narci of Nordrassil thinks the game needs a little more flavor. More cool looking tabards with clickable particle effects and titles earned through means other than PvP. CM Vaneras agrees.

Vaneras confirmed that more titles will be introduced into the game, though he didn't say what titles, when or how they will be earned. He also said that older PvP titles will be reintroduced into the game, but couldn't give us a timeline on when that will happen.

As for tabards, he couldn't confirm any plans to add more to game. But he did express the personal opinion that he would like to see more. More designs, more ways to quest, craft and loot them. And, let's face it, more tabards is good thing to cover up our mismatched visible armor.

What do you think of more titles and tabards? What titles would you like to see? What tabard designs would be cool? Should you get a tabard for killing Illidan or some other large accomplishment in game?

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in our tabard design contest! We have some excellent entries, which the WoW Insider staff has combed through for the best of the best -- and now it's your turn! I know we had a tough time narrowing things down to ten finalists -- every entry would have made a lovely tabard. (If you don't believe me, check out our gallery of entries, including commentary from some of the designers.)Take a look at our finalists and pick the one you'd like to see as the official It came from the Blog tabard! Polls will be open for 48 hours, so you have until Monday at 9:00 AM EST to get your vote in. And remember, the top three winners get to take home a "I'm Only Here Because My Server Is Down" t-shirt! Voting, after the jump!

Tabards can say a lot about your character. They can be a way to show pride in your guild's ferocity or skill, or a way to show that you have a twisted, sadistic guild leader who makes everyone wear a pink fuzzy bunny tabard. They can proclaim your skill at PvP, your exalted status with certain factions, or your luck in the WoW card game. They can even show that you were a hero at the Battle of the Dark Portal or that you've earned a somewhat misleading "victory against Illidan Stormrage."

What kind of tabards can you get in WoW? Read (and look) on ...

I play on a number of servers, and a fashion is spreading through them -- players are donning new tabards everywhere from Ahn'Qiraj to Zul'Gurub. The two items, Tabard of the Argent Dawn (left) and Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade, surfaced in the last patch.

The Argent Dawn tabard is obtainable as a result of the invasion event. Initially, you have to take ten Necrotic Runes to the Argent Quartermaster at Light's Hope Chapel. Finishing this quest will activate an Argent Quartermaster, and you can then trade more Necrotic Runes for items like mana potions and Consecrated Sharpening Stones (+AP against undead). For ten runes, the tabard is yours. I found this tedious to solo, but when grouped with a mage and a couple of others the runes flow heavily.