Preliminaries

This is to be the story of an attempt on my part to better understand player versus player practices in the game World of Warcraft and thus the first question is immediately obvious.

The broad question: What is Player versus Player(PvP) play/content in World of Warcraft (WoW)?

The answer to this question is a lot less obvious because of the complexities of . The broad question must ultimately be broken down into component parts. Some of these questions are technical in nature (questions about game content and mechanics), others are more psychological (questions about user motivation), and yet others are more sociological (questions about social norms and values).

Technical questions(examples)

What forms does PvP content take in WoW? How does one PvP effectively in WoW? How do game mechanisms frame PvP?

Psychological questions (exampless)

What motivates players to PvP? How do player motivations inform their practices?

Social questions (examples)

How do players understand the PvP? What social conventions are associated with PvP? How do player attitudes frame PvP practices?

These questions are by no means an exhaustive list of but they provide the beginnings of a frame with which I can begin to think about my project. As I examing my fieldsite and I research my subject I should find more specific questions that I will be able to address directly in my work.

Caveat: Finding an exhaustive answer to these questions is beyond the scope of my project. As an anthropology student I know that the study of culture provides only partial truths. My project will be about what I learned in my time on the field, it will thus be a truth grounded in a very specific context.