StarCraft II Getting an Upgrade

Beyond periodic patches and banning cheaters, Blizzard has been working on new features for its Battle.net multiplayer service. If you've ever played StarCraft II online, you should be familiar with how the game breaks up users into different tiers of leagues based on performance against opponents. At the bottom level you'll compete in the bronze leagues, all the way up the ladder to the fancy-sounding diamond league.
As it stands now the population within StarCraft II's multiplayer world is distributed with 20 percent in each league. So if you're playing in the Diamond league, that means you're in the top 20 percent of current players. Then within each league there are divisions within which you're placed you're given a placement. If you've ever browsed these ladders you might find it weird that there are people ranked above you with poorer win / loss ratios. That's not a bug. Instead, Blizzard uses the points that you earn from winning and losing that determines placement. According to Blizzard, this means if you play a harder fought match you'll earn more points, which ultimately makes sense in determining your overall placement within the division ladder.
When the leagues and ladder system is eventually moved over to Season 2, you'll still be able to go back and view your Season 1 statistics, and will also be able to get into better leagues. One is the Master League, which is comprised of about the top five percent of the Diamond league. The next is even more elite, the Grand Master League. This is limited to only the top 200 players in each region of the world. Blizzard will be making the Grand Master league available to everyone, meaning you can always check out who's on top of the competitive scene.
Also on the agenda are both public and private chat rooms, features that Blizzard has been working on and will implement within the next one to two months.
A few of us in the office are still logging on to play StarCraft II, but what about you? Are you still interested in competitive play or did you sign off after checking out the campaign?
If you need a hand check out Shokz's Starcraft 2 Guide. The Top Starcraft 2 Strategy guide with Strategies covering every aspect of Starcraft 2.
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