Rob's top 3 Free to play, MMORPG games

Alright guys, I know that I'm a little obsessive, posting three different times (so far) in a single day, but I guess I'm just in the writing mood. So far everything has gone great today, took my sister out to lunch, came home and walked the dog (i'll be sure to show you guys a little bit of him later), and now am relaxing once again.

For anyone that has time to pass by, and enjoys playing online games, mainly of the MMORPG variety, I'm going to tell you a little about my top three, and give you the pros and cons, as well as listing one or two that didn't make the cut, but are still fun nonetheless.

Atlantica Online

The Good
This game deserves mention first, because it's completely different than any other free to play mmo that I have tried (and believe me, I've tried a lot. This game is a turn based MMO, in which the player has multiple characters (up to a total of 9); your main hero and 8 mercenaries to assist you in battle. For anyone that has played the Final Fantasy series, it will bring back memories, and for anyone that hasn't, it will create new ones. With almost 2 dozen different heroes//mercenaries, there are hundreds of ways you can outfit your party, and pvp in the game becomes a bit of a chess match. I say this because it is by far the most strategy based game I've ever ventured into (other than Warhammer 40k perhaps, but that's for another time). Dueling in the game is very simple, and you can even be sorted tto fight against layers of your level//skill due to their division system, which lowers your division when you win, and increases it when you lose (div 0 is the best).
They also have a unique crafting system in which higher a skilled crafter can teach lower levels, with mutually beneficially results, as those with high skills will gain experience for their teachings. There is also a guild system in the game, and guilds are able to take over the dozens of towns in the game, imposing a tax fee and earning their guild riches.

The Bad
The game definitely becomes a grind fest as one hits the higher levels, and a majority of the quests are essentially heavy grinding as well. Although its been a few months since I last played, a glitch in the game which was exploited for about a month before it got fixed, allowed for some players to earn hundreds of millions of gold in game, thus hyper inflating the economy when it came to higher level items.
In addition, the raiding system is somewhat of an annoyance. Players must kill every creature in the dungeon to descend to the next level. After 3-4 levels of this, you will eventually enter a boss room. This is essentially how all of the dungeons work, only the creatures get harder each time. What is a pain, is when there is one monster left hiding in a corner, and you end up running out of time trying to find him (yes all dungeons are timed in this game).
Not much else bad, unless you don't like the turn based style of game play, which in that case you should have skipped down to the next game a while ago.

Last Thoughts
Atlantica online is completely unique, and with no other MMO (especially one that's free) that I know of like it on the pc, it's definitely worth a try. Also, a cash shop in the game is able to 'enhance your experience', which means that if you pay enough, you can pimp your toon out in some awesome gear.

Rappelz
For our next game, we have a much more traditional Korean MMORPG; Rappelz. This game is your normal 3rd person MMO, however some of the features packed into this game make it a top three in my book.

The Good
The first thing that I enjoy about Rappelz is the pet system. Players are able to buy pets (or capture them later on), level them and teach them different skills. Some classes (such as beastmaster) rely solely on pets, and are even able to use two pets at once.
Another great part of the game is dungeon running. All dungeons are very unique, with different bosses, and different mini bosses along the way. Guilds are able to challenge each other in 'dungeon running', in which the guild with the fastest completion time for the week controls the guild, and is able to imposed a tax on all items and gold found by whomever ventures into the dungeon throughout the entire week.
The cash shop is also abundant with items (eve free games need to make money), however I noticed that there weren't many items which completely overpowered characters that possessed the items. In addition, the cash shop items were relatively easy to obtain with in game currency, as gold farmers were somewhat scarce.

The Bad
It's your typical grind fest. You will spend hours leveling, and although being grouped together makes it much faster, as well as cash shop items such as stamina savers (2 times experience for an hour) help you a lot, it will still take a long time, as the max level in this game is 120 (it may have increased since).

The Ugly
I wasn't planning on including a section like this, but although I loved this game, it was one of the more frustrating points of the year for me. My account was hacked (I know, I should have made a better password), and all of my items were removed off of my character. Although GM (game admins) are abundant, they refused to help me, and told me to post in the forums. I posted in the forums, and forum moderators locked my post, censored what I wrote and told me to talk to game admins. The loop continued, and in the end I eventually gave up and moved on.

Final Thoughts
If you like the classic MMORPG style games, and want one for free, this is a must.

Battlefield Heroes
For our final game, I'm going to wander a little, and introduce to you a game which is very unique; it's a MMOFPS (First Person Shooter). In battlefield heroes, you take the role of a Gunner (a lot of hp, can use bazookas), a soldier (medic), or a commando (sniper). You also choose which side your character is on; either National or Royal.
The objective is to take the enemy teams flags, and kill the enemies causing them to lose points. Each death results in a point taken away from your teams score (rounds start at 50 a side), and first team to 0 loses. The more flags you have, the more points are taken away for each death. Players are awarded experience based on healing, flag captures and damage dealt. These levels allow for players to unlock new abilities, or strengthen their existing abilities. Each class has 5 skills, and each skill has 5 upgrades. With a max level of 30, and skill points given out at every even level, there are many different options to outfit each hero, making your character unique. Also, you can outfit each class with nearly a dozen different weapons, ensuring that each fight will be awesome and unique.

Well, didn't even notice the time, and now I must go to my sisters volleyball scrimmage. Will be posting pictures of the event shortly, but until then, hope that my wall of text will keep you guys interested. Please comment and let me know if you prefer a lot of pictures, or what, I aim to please!

Rob signing out.

Why 36? And LOST is an amazing show, watch it all for free too!

Well I just finished one post, and here comes another already. First, I wanted to clarify my name, rob36. NO, I am not 36 years old, and I will not become rob37 in a years time. 36 is my lucky number. Don't ask why, when or how I got that, but it just is. I can't remember when I first began using that in my nickname in games, or my email, or anything; its been with me for a while now. I do however feel that it is a pretty lucky number, and it comes up in quite a few places considering it's not a single digit like most people have as their lucky numbers (or 13, 21 or 69).

With that said, I'm going to praise a show which has one of the many plots in it based around lucky (or unlucky) numbers, LOST. This show has been around for years now, so if you haven't at least heard of it, you are either living in a hole, or Amish (in which case it's mind boggling that you're even reading my blog).

Anyways, LOST is about survivors of a plane wreck on this island, and although I'm not going to give out too many spoilers, I have to somewhat since it's 5 seasons (I think?) into it already. The survivors try and find a way to get off the island, and realize that there are others that already inhabit the island (known as 'others'). Conflict occurs between the two groups, as the survivors discover secrets about the island, and through the seasons, new people come to the island (the others have a way of getting on and off), and a few of the main characters are killed off to make way for the continuously evolving plot. Even after the survivors get off the island, not all is right, and they end up having to get back on the island to save their friends that never left; by becoming plane wrecked again.

I really suck at giving summaries of movies and shows just so you guys know, so if that confuses you, just do yourself a favor and watch the show. You can watch all of the episodes at www.abc.com for free, with only minor commercial delays that last less than a minute.

ABC also has the majority of their popular shows archived for free online, so definitely a good place to check out if you happen to miss a week (or 5 seasons), and need to catch up a bit.

Anyways, that's it for ABC, a great resource to use when wanting to watch free shows the completely legal way.

Rob signing out.

Great deals, free stuff and computer help at one single site

Hey guys, just woke up a little bit ago (had to move a stove with my dad at 3am, but that's a story you'll hear when I tell you some more about myself a little later today) I was thinking what people might be interested in, and I'm pretty sure that everybody likes free stuff, or at the very least, to save money on things they want.

www.hardforums.com is a website I've been at for years. Yes, it may sound like a porno chat (a few typos in the URL and I've been directed to one), however this site, know for its computer HARDware Forums is a valuable resource.

In terms of free items, I personally have received free t shirts, posters, mugs, hamburger helper (enough for a meal for myself), and currently see items for free lube, cereal and pet food just to name a few. Yes, you must be 18 or older for some of these deals but its worth a shot, and free is free right? To access these free deals, you'd first sign up, then go to [H]ot Deals --> Free stuff, or instead of free stuff, you can look at [H]ot Deals -->[H]ot Deals Discussion where people post great deals they find for both online and retail stores. I especially like it when people post their Black Friday deals, and know I personally saved around $100 USD last year on that day.

Well that's the free stuff and great deals part of the site, however that's only 2 out of about 2 dozen sections of their forum. If you are interested in computer hardware, they have a section for video cards, ram, motherboards, you name it (even a section for just cases, or even cooling//overclocking) If you post a question, you are almost guaranteed to have it answered by another helpful forum goer, and I haven't found a problem they couldn't help me with to date.

I could ramble for another hour or so about this site, but instead of you guys reading it here, why not go check it out? www.hardforums.com

Rob signing out.

In the beginning....

Alright guys, first and foremost, welcome to my blog! I'm new to this whole thing to be honest, but hope to have some fun, and have a place to record things I enjoy, find interesting and basically let you know a little about anything cool in my life.

My name is Rob, I'm 21 and a college student at Purdue University. I'm a gamer, a rower, a student, and really involved in the campus, as well as with friends and other organizations.

Many posts will be coming very soon, but before I wrap this one up, I need to give credit where credit is due. If you are ever interested in a site like this one, check out http://www.mooladays.com/
It was through them that I found a link for a site like this, and how I can share everything and anything with anyone that cares.

Rob signing out.