Posts tagged karen-bryan 
The Guild Counsel: Five golden rules of raid leadership
Organizing and running a raid is a weird cross between coach, playground monitor, and symphony conductor. It's challenging, but when everything is going well, it really is a fun and satisfying experience. There are a lot of little details that sometimes come up, but in general, I think there are ...
MMO Family: Jumping into learning with JumpStart
When the subject of kid-friendly MMOs comes up, it almost always ends up with a discussion about whether there's any educational value to them. Many of them are safe, provide fun, and bring families together, but actual learning doesn't seem to be the focus. And some games that do focus on ...
The Tattered Notebook: Exploring EQII's Qeynos revamp
Back when the Freeport revamp was first announced, the first question I had was when will Qeynos get a facelift? EverQuest II fans have waited patiently, but finally, this past week, Qeynos got one step closer with its arrival on the test server. The Freeport revamp was a major undertaking, ...
MMO Family: Open-world combat and old school gaming in Free Realms
There are many times lately when I've experienced the full power of the generation gap. As my kids get older and more game-savvy, I sometimes find myself trying to catch up with how the younger generation games compared to how I did it during the good old days of gaming. So it was a pleasant ...
MMO Family: Roblox first impressions
In last week's MMO Family, we had the chance to talk to Roblox CEO David Baszucki and hear how he took a physics-based simulation program and turned it into a successful game design tool that's enabled players of all ages to build and explore an endless variety of game worlds. But what exactly ...
The Tattered Notebook: Peeling back the layers of time, part II
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how EverQuest II is like an onion. It's got layers upon layers of content, and some of it has really helped the game mature, like a bottle of fine wine. In the previous column, I talked about how some of those layers have made gameplay more convoluted, but ...
The Guild Counsel: Finding the best times to recruit
When you're recruiting more members to your guild, it can sometimes seem like there are just no more fish in the pond to attract. And managing a roster can be frustrating at times because just when you think you have a healthy number of members, attrition sets in. We're all familiar with the ...
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 ...
