Shanel: What World of Warcraft offer to users

• According to Lau, what does World of Warcraft offer to users? What are the various ways users interface with the game? (Shanel)
• World of Warcraft is not the Utopian community that Rheingold imagined. Rather, its appeal lies in its connections to the offline world with the flexibility of a virtual space. It’s a flexible environment that allows several options for play and engagement. Players can choose to collaborate, compete, go to war, explore careers, farm, become a "boss," trade goods and gold, become collectors of virtual goods, join a guild, and more. Since it is such a popular game, there is ample opportunity for interaction with others. Players can choose to reproduce and reimagine offline relationships in a virtual space with partners and friends, but they are also able to forge new connections and relationships within the game. Lastly, the game allows a bottom-up approach for meaning making and norm creation. There are no set structures dictating the social norms of the game, and players create a culture through their individual interactions and interactions with larger groups. 

• My question came from reading Ruberg, but can be applied to both readings.
• Digital tools and communities have allowed us to be critical of institutions/individuals who are the granters of "legitimacy." How can/has this criticism translated into structural or institutional change in the offline world? Where is there potential? Where may there be more resistance?