Karen Bryan
Columnist -
Karen is a mother, guild leader, writer, podcaster, and gamer. When she’s not charging into battle with her guild, she’s usually talking about games on any podcast she can crash. She writes two weekly columns for Massively: The Tattered Notebook, which covers EverQuest II, and The Guild Counsel, which looks at common issues in guild management.
Karen Bryan's Latest Posts
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The Tattered Notebook: The passing of Ribbitribbitt
This week's Tattered Notebook started off business as usual. I was putting together part two of a look at the layers of change in EverQuest II through the years. But I was also mulling over a column about the new Hero's Edge items that arrived on the Marketplace; something I had just speculated ...
The Guild Counsel: Five ways to burn bridges with your guild
There are ways to leave a guild, and then there are cringe-worthy, horrifying ways to leave a guild, burn your bridges, and never, ever leave the door open for a possible return. We've all heard tales (and sometimes witnessed them firsthand!) of people leaving guilds in ways that defy humanity ...
Enter at Your Own Rift: Conquest PvP
RIFT fans wracked their brains trying to decipher the cryptic message on the forums a few weeks ago, and it turned out they were right: RIFT is on the verge of seeing the arrival of three faction PvP, and the game took its first step toward that with a test session on PTS last week. If you ...
Why I Play: Vanguard, Saga of Heroes
"How is Vanguard?" If there's one question that comes up time and time again, it's that one. It experienced a launch disaster, lack of content post 35+, bugs, duping, exploits, performance issues, and the sad "parking lot layoffs," yet Vanguard: Saga of Heroes always seems to generate buzz any ...
The Tattered Notebook: Peeling back the layers of time
I was watching Shrek with my kids the other day, and one of my favorite scenes is Shrek's stroll with Donkey when they first meet. Shrek tries to explain how Ogres are like onions and how both have layers. When you think about it, EverQuest II is also like an onion because it has layer after ...
The Guild Counsel: Surviving the dreaded plateau
One of the challenges of running a guild is avoiding the emotional peaks and valleys that tend to come up. In fact, one of the scariest times for a guild is when it's just accomplished something big because once the cheers stop, there's a void left and people begin to wonder what's next. It's not ...
MMO Family: The state of the game (at school)
When you think of kids and video games, the question that always comes up is this: What are they getting out of playing them? Usually, MMOs, even MMOs aimed at kids, are big on fun but light on learning. So it was refreshing to see teacher Ben Bertoli launch a Kickstarter project to promote ...
Swashbucklers, ships, and high seas hijinks: KingsIsle talks Pirate101
Recently, KingsIsle announced that the world of the Spiral was going to branch out into the high seas in the studio's newest MMO, Pirate101. There are many things about Pirate101 that will feel familiar to Wizard101 fans, but the game has several features that definitely make it stand apart as ...
The Tattered Notebook: Learning from EQII's free-to-play model
What a long way EverQuest II's come! If you had said back in 2004 that the game would not only go free-to-play but have microtransactions and emerge largely intact, I probably would have run to get my pitchfork. But here we are in 2012, and EQII's website has a huge green button that says "Play ...
The Guild Counsel: Saluting Scott Andrews on five years of valuable guild advice
This past Monday marked the fifth anniversary of Scott Andrews' Officers' Quarters, a weekly column on WoW Insider that deals with guild issues in World of Warcraft. He's also the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, which is a must-read for any guild leader. It's a terrific accomplishment to ...
