1. I started exploring, in general, a lot more. I created several different characters, of different classes and races, and genders, and I started them all on different servers. I have also started honing the specific learning outcomes that I see as fruitful as investigating as I play further.
2. Parallel with this exploring, I starting discovering more ways that the resources for WoW were not relevant only for my investigation into this project, but I started using them for actual improved performance in the game. This was a key transition.
I began travelling back and forth between observing the play and becoming a real player.
3. As I did this, I said to myself, "Was I doing this to understand the culture and to experience full immersion? or really was it because I liked playing?" A lot. Thoughts on what this feels like: Patty Hearst, Gonzo journalism, and the documentary Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale.
4. Although I have made about four or five characters (really, I can't count someone that's only at level three a full character), I have focused down to two: Bentley, a gnome rogue, currently at level 29, and Geny (I think of also as GenY), a night elf rogue, at level 17. Here are some images of my "toons":
5. The next series of posts will attempt to organize the thoughts and documents I have been amassing as I have been "leveling" and going further into the strange World of Warcraft. Much as Cervantes enters into his Part II of Don Quixote with a new consciousness of having participated in the text of Don Quixote after its publication, I am now both a participant and a researcher. Hopefully I will be able to deconstruct the chief focus-- learning.
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