Do MMOs Need Leaderboards?

[Cody Bye]

Ever since the days of arcade gaming, high scores have dominated gamers' minds. Without fail, these game players always want to have that top spot on the leaderboard to insure their status among the geek community. In this week's In the Trenches column, Ten Ton Hammer's Cody Bye explores his own progression through leaderboards and asks some questions about their implementation into more modern MMOs.

Remarkably, the leaderboard concept seems to be an off-and-on sort of idea for developers. Although Warhammer Online implemented them for their PvP purposes and Lord of the Rings Online has dozens of achievements for players to earn, I don't know if any game has implemented leaderboards to the degree that EverQuest II did. Remarkably, even World of Warcraft has really jumped on the leaderboard bandwagon, even with all of their methods for tracking player data beyond simply PvP statistics.

To read the rest of this week's In the Trenches article, click here!

[AngryBeaver]

Do MMOs Need Leaderboards?

Sure why not. Games like WoW have progression threads in the realm forums so building that into the game might be a good idea.

[Medeor]

I'm all for leaderboards, I think it really brings another layer of investment for players.

Some classes might be hard to score like healers, but in a game about shootin' ships (Jumpgate Evolution) I can see it really working well. Of course Cody will be sad when he sees my name well ahead of his though...

[megaflux]

generally im all for this sort of thing. the only real downer i see (aside from halo 2 "keeping score" even when people were plainly cheating) is RMT. if they cant keep RMT out of the game it is totally pointless...and that in my opinion is why most mmorpg's dont bother. "most gold bought/sold" for some reason is never something they admit to keeping track of.

[huddscudd]

Stats are extremely important for mmos, certainly the ones with PVP action. If you want to see how a game does stats correctly then look no futher than Vanguard.

Warhammer should have a implemented a better stat Dbase instead of the lame top 10 players on the server. One of the reasons I left was because I did not know how well my toon stacked up against other players on my server.

The Agency, and Jumpgate Evo need to have a nice stat breakdown for its players.

[Brokain]

To me, Leaderboards are pretty much all important for a PvP style game. What's the point of being the #1 killer out there if it can't really be proven? The Leaderboards for a PvP game drive players to "go for the gold" so to speak and even make the Top folks targets for everyone else.

[RipperMcGee]

Leaderboards can be fun, since gaining achievements and notoriety can be alternatives to simply fighting and/or grinding. As an example, Badge Hunting in CoH was fun for a lot of players. Some of the badges were for exploration, some for achievements, some for special events, veterans rewards or others. Regardless, they all give players a sense of accomplishment and bragging rights. I've personally proposed badge hunting for Dungeon Runners. I think rewards and places for displaying them are a great way to keep players engaged in a game.

[Deg]

I'd rather have Achievements (unlockables) than Leaderboards, but both are nice. Leaderboards should have a strong Friends component, so you're just not comparing yourself to the masses.

Cheers,
- Deg -

[velimirius]

Leaderboards are great thing for ppl who have enough free time to stay in game and build/defend thei position on board.

that even stimulate players to be better and go higher on board.