A big part of immersing yourself in another world is the ability to customize your avatar, so the Sony team emphasized all the options available. Aside from your race and things like skin tone, eye, and hair color, what impressed us the most was the ability to 'age' your character. Simply by jiggering with a slider you could cover your face with realistic wrinkles. It was almost creepy to see the crow's feet grow around our character's eyes.

There are 16 playable races in the game. Fifteen are borrowed from the original game, including the lizard-like Iksar. The sixteenth race, "The Rotunga," looked great. Half-rat, half-human, these sinister-looking little runts make great thieves. During the demo I saw a brownish grungy looking Rotunga in a bar as well as a bright white fellow with red eyes stalking along the city streets.

"Clothes make the man," and in EverQuest, they can make the women and ogres as well. Judging by the variety we saw in the demo, there's going to be no shortage of ways to dress your character in-game. A great deal of attention was paid to the clothes. Humans walked around in flowing robes that rustled as they walked. The trim on fancy clothes shimmered in the light. The textures looked outstanding; during the character creation process, the natty homespun vest worn by the first-level character was so real you could practically see the individual threads.