D2 ladder reset frequency

You have all heard the saying "get out the vote". This is something that is usually heard during the time of a Presidential election or when we need to vote in or out Congress members, Governors, House of Representatives or whatever. But voting on something in regards to the frequency of a ladder reset for a game that is now 10+ years old? Absurd! Or at least I thought so. But the people at Blizzard didn't think it to be as absurd.

Recently we saw the new 1.13 patch come out for D2 LoD and then shortly after, six months to be exact, the ladder was reset. The mad rush was on to be the first to reach level 99 no matter what class of character it was.

It is now nearing the 6 month mark for a ladder reset and I've seen people rushing to get their end game gear, trading and rushing and talking about the next reset and the first characters they will be making. But Blizzard held a voting poll and asked players how often they would like to see the ladder reset be it 6 months or a year. Here is the results:


Official Blizzard Quote:



1 year won by a wide margin for length of time between resets. That’s what we’re planning to do unless everyone wants to change their mind. I’m willing to hold another poll, or, alternatively just say we cut it down the middle and do a reset every 9 months.

To be honest, for someone such as myself who runs a gaming clan this is actually depressing. Having a reset once a year will, hopefully, keep members active on both B.net and on their private forums for their guild. But when it does get close to the reset members activity seems to decrease and you barely see them until the rumor of another reset.

All guilds go through this time of huge activity and a major influx of members joining right before or shortly after a ladder reset. Then the numbers drop when they think the reset may be a far ways off. My guild, Brotherhood of Destruction, isn't exempt from this roller coaster effect of member activity. Especially when rumors of a 1 year reset was going around.

After the last ladder reset we saw a huge flooding of new members, and before we knew it our numbers on all three realms were increasing. But when the thought of a 6 month ladder reset was talked about some literally were upset, some went inactive, but a lot have stuck around. The up and down of new members and full members activity will always be a roller coaster. It is a trend that can be seen and read like the stock market. But no matter what, whether the influx of new members is slow or booming, Clans/Guilds will always be there. I know the Brotherhood will be.

And we'll see it again soon. This was recently released by Bashiok:


Official Blizzard Quote:



While our original poll for reset length showed a little less than 150 people wanted a reset every year, our most recent follow up poll had over 1,000 votes for 6 months: http://forums.battle...569877&sid=3000

We've heard you, so this is a one week warning that the Diablo II ladder will reset next Monday, March 28. We generally prefer to provide a two week warning for the case of resets, but to hit the exact 6 month mark we feel one week is sufficient this time.

We anticipate all Diablo II realms to be down for approximately six hours during the reset. More specific information on realm availability on the day of the reset will be posted in the Battle.net Status forum. When the ladder is reset all existing ladder characters will be converted to non-ladder. All characters and items being converted to non-ladder will remain intact, but once converted these characters will no longer have access to ladder content such as creating ladder-only rune words. For more information on ladder characters please visit the Arreat Summit Realm Character Types page at http://classic.battl...ctertypes.shtml


Quite honestly, if they had cut it down the middle and reset the ladder every 9 months it would have been their best choice and most beneficial to Guilds/Clans. 6 months is to soon and a year is to long. But if more people still want the reset to be every 6 months, I think that would work and people will still join them and maybe even at a faster pace. Keep it at a year and the member base for guilds will decrease yet pick back up shortly before the reset; the roller coaster effect. In my experience, members who join a Guild/Clan and have enjoyed the gaming experience with other members have stuck around no matter how frequently or infrequently the ladder is reset.

If you are looking for a guild to join, WE are always actively recruiting.

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