Ladder season start dates and duration
1. Tuesday 28th October 2003 (254 days)
2. Thursday 8th July 2004 (396 days)
3. Monday 8th August 2005 (686 days)
4. Monday 25th June 2007 (358 days)
5. Tuesday 17th June 2008 (644 days)
-- Ladder length shortened to 6 months --
6. Tuesday 23rd March 2010 (189 days)
7. Tuesday 28th September 2010 (181 days)
8. Monday 28th March 2011 (211 days)
9. Tuesday 25th October 2011 (190 days)
10. Wednesday 2nd May 2012 (188 days)
11. Tuesday 6th November 2012 (189 days)
12. Tuesday 14th May 2013 (196 days)
13. Tuesday 26th November 2013 (182 days)
14. Tuesday 27th May 2014 (182 days)
15. Tuesday 25th November 2014 (182 days)
16. Tuesday 26th May 2015 (182 days)
17. Tuesday 24th November 2015 (175 days)
18. Tuesday 17th May 2016 (189 days)
19. Tuesday 22nd November 2016 (189 days)
20. Tuesday 30th May 2017 (n/a - in progress)
Ladder notes
Season 1
The first of the ladder seasons began with the initial release of Patch 1.10 in October 28, 2003.
Season 2
After seeing how the first season went down, Blizzard decided to perform its first ladder reset on July 7th, 2004 with a promotional contest called "When Worlds Collide," as World of Warcraft was scheduled to be released the following year. The contest began for all users that had a legitimate registered account (for recovery) for all 5 Realms, and it was a ladder race to be the first to reach level 99. The first character to reach level 99 on the ladder, regardless of being on classic or expansion, hardcore or not, would be awarded a prize containing a Blizzard T-Shirt, a signed copy of World of Warcraft Collector's Edition, a toy statue, and a Blizzard North CD Wallet. The Ruststorm program was run during this season once, and several users complained that their items had been erased unfairly. This season also introduced several new exclusive "ladder-only" Rune Words later after the ladder race had come to an end just before 2005.
Season 3
The second reset of the ladder took place on August 8th, 2005, just after patch 1.11 was released, and it also introduced the "Warden" anti-cheat system to Diablo 2. Unlike Season 2, Season 3 did not have a contest, and furthermore, thousands of accounts got permanently banned for using 3rd-party software from Maphacks to Bots. This did not stop bots indefinitely however, as programmers redesigned them to circumvent the "Warden" using different methods. There weren't any new "ladder-only" runewords during this season.
Blizzard added a new area called Über Tristram which can only be accessed on Battle.net. Players can gain access to Über Tristram by killing designated monsters and following a series of sub quests. Inside Über Tristram enemies have extremely heightened defense, damage and resistances. Three über bosses, Pandemonium Diablo, Über Baal and Über Mephisto can be found inside Über Tristram and upon killing the last of the three Über Bosses, players receive a valuable Hellfire Torch Large Charm and a Standard of Heroes, which is an ornamental trophy and nothing more. The Über bosses provide a challenge to the high level characters that face them.
Season 4
The third reset took place On June 25th, 2007, and not much changed from Seasons 3 and 4. However, an exploit was discovered that made going to the Forgotten Sands to get Baal's Eye by sending a special packet to the server. This consequently allowed non-expansion or classic characters to enter Act V provided they had a copy of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction installed. This method was patched in mid-February 2007, along with a patch that would end games if anyone's ping passed a certain threshold. This prevented a common lag-based item duplication method. This generally increased the quality of gameplay, as the number of people attempting to lag the servers to execute the method greatly reduced. However, this caused many players to drop from games unexpectedly. Even after Blizzard attempted to stop duping with the server-side patch, many people have still figured out ways to dupe. Blizzard has yet to release a patch that stops duping permanently.
Season 5
The fourth ladder reset took place on June 17, 2008, and patch 1.12 was integrated into Diablo II:Lord of Destruction. It allows the players to play without the CD if the game is "Full Installed". No other significant changes have been reported with the release of the patch at this time.
Season 6
The fifth ladder reset took place on March 23rd, 2010, and patch 1.13 was integrated into Diablo II:Lord of Destruction. It included Essences required to make a Token of Absolution and stat/skill point resets.
Season 7 - 16
No changes
Season 17
Patch 1.14 was integrated into Diablo II:Lord of Destruction. It included fuck all.