Do we have to play on the ladder?

[Leon[fp]]

Will players all go back to their non-ladder characters after the first season ends and their chars get spat back into the general pool? How will one twink or trade between old and new ladder characters? That being the case, wouldn't graduating old ladder characters inhibit trading in ladder play? People really LIKE their items, and they LIKE their finely tuned characters...I don't see a system that continually wants players to start anew as being as satisfying for those reasons.

I agree. A suggestion might be to store all the info and stats about ladder characters on www.battle.net, like all stats of all accounts on Warcraft III is also available on internet. That way you can see your and other's achievements of past ladder seasons, it'll make you feel proud ;)