Ladder competition

[Steel God]

The basis of all ladders at the Blitz has always been that playing is more important than winning. For that reason, our ladders are set up to reward people who play often, as opposed to play well. Now, truthfully, if you are a very good player, you do not have to play as often to keep near the top, since playing well awards more points per game; but on any given ladder you are likely to see players near the top of the ladder who have played a LOT. Again, for us, playing is held in higher esteem than just being good.

So, just to recap some of the things that have been said here (in case there are any misconceptions):

1) The overall club ladder (the one that melds all players from all ladders) will be getting scrapped when the new site is launched.

2) The overall SP ladder, started in 1999 and running through today, will never be eliminated as long as the Club exists. That's the SP community roster as a whole and if you want to reach the top, plan on investing a long time in playing.

3) When the new site is launched it will be a software change, not a new server. The new sever was already launched in the beginning of this year and we do not anticipate additional hardware changes for some time.

4) The new site software will retain the overall ladders for each ladder community, e.g. one for SP; but in addition to the view currently available (you can sort the ladder by games played, winning percentage, ELO, etc etc) you will be able to sort the ladders by calendar year. That sort will allow you to determine who was "best of 2008" for example, and Ladder Commanders can, at their discretion, issue awards and/or medals for best player of the year based on whatever criteria they choose (they run their ladders after all).

Hope that clears up things.

Good Gaming;

Paul