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Part of the appeal of any rpg is the association you feel with the characters you control. While most other genre's have a central character that you manipulate as you play through the game, very few identify themselves to the same degree in the little blighter from Alien Hominid or imagine Paton Manning as an avatar of their being in an electronic world while playing the newest Madden game. Because of this deep identification, certain tensions can arise when trying to optimize your effectiveness in a game while also trying to consider the importance of the aesthetic effect you are creating.

In other words: It sucks when your stats are great (yay!) but you look like a fashion victim (boo!). My most recent experience with this is on my rogue while playing World of Warcraft. Wow is notorious for obnoxious combinations of clothing, but as you move into the higher levels you gain access to "sets" of gear that match (sort of) and make you look like less of a goober. In my case my rogue is outfitted pretty well, wearing a mix of the Tier 5 set and badge gear. After scrimping and saving for a couple months I also had enough badge (currency) to purchase some of the better daggers in the game.

"Screenshots or it didn't happen!" after the jump.

SHAZZAM! While it isn't the most awe-inspiring weapon visually, it gets the job done when I have to pierce the liver of my foes. (Mmm, liver.)

Now within a couple weeks of making my dagger purchase I was running Zul'Aman and another dagger happened to drop. Because I am a huge nerd I happen to use a spreadsheet or two to optimize my damage. (ElitestJerks ftw) and I was already aware that this second dagger was patently inferior to the one I was using currently. Out of curiosity I decided to try it on in Blizzard's dressing room and behold:

Everything a rogue could want out of a dagger! Big! Dead things on it! Double stabby's! All in all, a gorgeous piece of equipment. Except... according to the spreadsheets I run it was a 3-4 dps (damage per second) downgrade from the visually unimpressive dagger I was already stabbing things with. Naturally I did what any stat obsessed power gamer would do... I enchanted the cool looking dagger and put the other one in the bank!

Now I know this course of action would probably get me the boot in any progression obsessed raiding guild, but come on... I raid in a pug. With Beros. (gah) I am sure there are people out there with similar stories in Wow or in other games where gear choices are reflected by the appearance of your character. In my opinion the marginal dps loss was worth it in order to look that much cooler while I idle in Shattrath. If I get a larger upgrade in terms of dps I will most definitely make the switch, but for now I am stabbing in style.

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