Just conversed with Rod Fergusson on Twitter, and asked for clarification on the whole ladder at launch issue and I got some, and although I find it annoying that no ladder will be present at launch, I do understand the reasons he gave, his comment below:
“We want to make sure the game is stable and ready for ladder before we turn that on. So it won’t be there for launch but will come shortly after once everything settles down”
If you want to see the thread for yourself, head over to twitter and see our discussion on his latest tweet.
Argh… they clearly didnt learn their lesson with Wc3R…
This is the first time honestly I am ticked with VV and D2R. Ill deal with it, but honestly, you put out a release date of Sept 23 for the full game, Ladder is expected with that release, otherwise, why bother starting to play until Ladder unless you really want to get a jump on your NL toons… Id prefer to build those later after I MF some gear for them but looks like I have to alter my plans.
This is exactly what I was hoping they were doing. Get the launch day hiccups out of the way and then start the ladder. Hopefully, that’ll be within the first week of launch.
This’ll give me a chance to just slow down and play through the game at my own pace and just enjoy all the new visuals in the game. But yeah, if it doesn’t start within the first week of launch, then that’s where it becomes a problem for me.
I would moderate your expectations. The qualifier is “shortly after once everything settles down”. I do not know how long this will be. A week may very well be too short of a time period.
true, but with D2R not being an always online game, I expect the servers to be stabilized faster than the D3 servers were. His wording gives me the impression that once they see the servers are stable, they’ll announce when the ladder will start.
Stability in this sense is referring to not only load quantity but to also make sure that if loads surpass expectations that the server doesn’t explode and allow crazy events like dupes to happen.
Stability is important for ladder because of the arbitrary gate lock on specific ladder only items being for… Ladder only. A precious economy is the holding point. Otherwise going live with it sooner regardless of stability wouldn’t matter… As much.
If they launch with all runewords/items available - no big deal. If not, then it is a terrible decision since almost every build requires ladder items. All of the press reports + youtubers/streamers providing free marketing will be calling it a partial launch since it basically becomes a second beta.
Real launch will be when we can create Spirit, Fortitude, Grief, etc. or find Kiras/Griffons/Gheeds, etc. Without ladder items it destroys most PVP/PVM end-game builds, and since you can’t convert non-ladder → ladder farming on these characters is pointless. You’ll need to remake your character whenever they decide to launch ladder.
They should either: (1) Scrap the leaderboard but allow ladder items at launch by making all character creations ladder-flagged, or (2) provide a hard date for ladder launch that is within 7 days of the release. Otherwise the launch is just another vaporware remaster and all of the articles will compare it to WC3 Reforged.
Yeah, this is probably a very good idea. Let any server or connection hiccups get settled first. We don’t need some sort of massive server mess due to something new like cross progression causing a debacle.
No Error37 scenario this time I hope. The Open Beta should help push the stress enough to prevent that. Fingers crossed.
It can be extracted - although vaguely - from this method of doing 4 and 5 day betas that they are confident that they’re ready for prime time and only need a short duration test to achieve their goals.
Just my two cents though. Just need to keep in mind these beta tests aren’t first and foremost for our enjoyment but to try and explode their servers to see if they need to make improvements prior to launch.
This is just bad, they should give more information on when exactly they are planning to start the ladder. I do not want to play with non ladder runewords and then also to have to start over again when ladder launches. Also already planned to take time off work with several friends so that we can all start together right from the start and grind like the good old days.
