The problem of TomeNET ladder: there is only top 100 players and most of entries are from 2012-2014 years. “Noteworthy Occurances” also don’t give any sutisfaction when you get there – because they are not permanent. TomeNET ladder are not newbie friendly and focused at ‘elitism’ atmosphere. But ladder should motivate players, and especially new players – give them feeling that they could achieve something and be inscribed to the history of the game.
Suggestions:
I really like ‘Scores’ in MAngband. They got two main ladders:
High Level Dead – which includes all chars 20+ lvl (so far it’s 2300+ chars) which are dead
High Level Alive – includes all chars 20+ who is still alive (228 chars)
Also they got such ladders specially for IDDC.
This is very friendly and newbie-orientated approach. There is, of course, top players, but at the same time newbies also could get their piece of fame after making some efforts.
Why is it fun to include more players to ladders?
– You feel your progress. Even if you are new player you could be able to achieve certain results.
– You feel competition. After each game session you see how you climb the ladder and compete with others, which greatly motivates player.
– You feel yourself part of the community. You are not just no_name player which are completely ignored by the game – your results are noted, they are public and available on the board of honour.
– You do not die in vein. You got your name written on the grave.
TomeNET should expand it’s ladder’s system to make it possible to much more players to get their names remembered.
Also it would be great to see additional ladders: ladder by race/class, for ‘soloist’, for ‘soloist IDDC’ & etc. The more ladders – the better. To make it not overload server resources – lets this ladder updated once per 24h.