WarLight has just been upgraded to version 2.05.0! This update adds a forth ladder to the game, the real-time ladder. It also has a few other enhancements. This blog post describes what’s changed.

Real-Time Ladder

In addition to the 1v1, 2v2, and seasonal ladders, WarLight now as a forth ladder: the Real-Time Ladder. It’s named as such since, unlike the other three ladders, games have a 5-minute automatic boot time making them a real-time games instead of a multi-day games. The ladder is immediately available to all members and players level 45 or over.

The way the ladder rates players and matches players also works differently. Read on for the full details.

Joining and leaving the ladder

When you want to play in the real-time ladder, simply visit the ladder page (under Community -> Ladders) and click Join Ladder. Within 5 minutes, if there is a suitable opponent, a game will be created. You can only play in one game at a time. When that game finishes, a new one will be created within 5 minutes, again assuming there’s a suitable opponent. You won’t be matched with the same person more than once in a 20 hour period.

When you’re done playing games, just go back to the ladder page and click Leave Ladder. This won’t remove you from any in-progress games or stop them from counting, it will just stop you from getting new games. Therefore, it’s a good idea to leave the ladder while you’re in the middle of playing the last game you want to play. If you wait until it finishes before leaving, you might accidentally get a new one if you can’t leave fast enough.

If you get booted from a game, it will automatically remove you from the ladder so you don’t get more games. This prevents a runaway boot streak that could happen if you lost internet connectivity, for example. If you accidentally get booted but want to keep playing, just go back to the ladder page and click Join Ladder again.

The settings for each game is determined randomly from a list of templates. This list is initially seeded with some of the seasonal ladder templates, but templates will be added and removed over time based on suggestions from the community.

Ratings

Ratings for the real-time ladder are calculated in a completely different manner than the other three ladders. The real-time ladder uses the TrueSkill algorithm to determine player’s ratings.

Unlike the other ladders, ratings will update immediately after a game finishes. After every game, you can refresh your ladder page to see your new rating.

This makes the rating method much simpler than the other ladders. The ripple effect of the other ladders is not present — the rating change is affected only by the rating of your opponent when you played, not their future changes. Also, games never expire like they do in the other ladders, but the TrueSkill algorithm weights newer games more highly, so you still have the ability to move your rating over time.

It takes around 15 completed games to receive a rank. Unlike the other ladders, you get a rank even while you’re not joined to the ladder. If you don’t play a real-time ladder game for 3 days, you’ll lose your rank and revert to “Not Ranked” until you play a game again. This doesn’t affect your rating.

Also unlike the other ladders, the real-time ladder does not award points for ranks. Instead, each win gives 4x the points that the equivalent game would give if you just created it on its own.

Level Updates

A few level rewards were moved around. See the Levels page on the wiki for the new set-up.

If you are already a higher level than a reward that was moved to be a level below you, you’ll receive it at your next level up. If a level reward was moved to a level that’s higher than you, you won’t lose it (once unlocked, it never re-locks.)

Also, since there’s a new level unlockable (the real-time ladder), this shifts the max level with a reward from 52 to 53. This also has the effect of reducing the point totals of all levels above 53. If you’re already above 52, you’ll probably notice a jump in your progress towards the next level. If you were close to getting a level up, you’ll appear as over 100%. In this case, you’ll get a level up the next time you receive any points and the remaining will overflow into the next level.

Other Changes

– In non-multi-attack games, trying to issue an attack order out of a territory that you’re gifting or abandoning now gives a message explaining that it will have no effect.
– Trying to play abandon+gift cards on the same territory, or abandon+airlift cards on the same territory now gives you an error message. This helps new players understand that they can’t combine them.
– The My Games and Open Games pages got some improved colors.
– The My Games paging system has been improved so that all page links are visible even for players with a ton of games.
– The My Games page now pops up a tooltip explaining how to find finished games. It only appears if you’re on the default filter, since if you’ve changed filters you probably already know how to find finished games.
– The boxes on the My Games page now wrap when there are lots of players, ensuring that the “your turn” message is never pushed off the page.
– When the CreateGame API fails due to blacklist, it now tells you who has blacklisted you that’s causing the error.
– The chat windows no longer scroll to the bottom unless it’s already near the bottom. This allows you to scroll up and read chat without it automatically returning you to the bottom whenever someone says something.
– Fixed a bug in the bbcode markup on the forums that made the [list] tag not work properly.
– Fixed a bug that could cause authentication errors when players switched accounts.
– Fixed a bug that left the deployment slider open if you pressed a hotkey to enter history after deploying using the ctrl+click trick.