A ladder season is a fresh start, with new boards, new races and everyone from level 1. Until now a new season simply left the old season's characters behind. They could no longer post to the boards, and nothing else was ready for them.
Now they move to Non-Season, a league of their own. A moved character keeps its level, its gear and its name, stays playable, and ranks on one permanent Non-Season board that never mixes with the current season's. Its stash goes into a shared Non-Season bank. You can also start a new character in Non-Season on purpose. The create screen offers it, and it starts on the current season so nobody ends up there by accident. The roster has a tab for each league.
The testers' season opened on 9 October with version 0.2.17, and every character from before it moves to Non-Season the next time its player opens the game. When the demo opens on 19 October, its season starts fresh in the same way, and the pre-demo characters move over.
In the next update, chat follows the league too. Season players talk in the season's channel, Non-Season players in their own, and the Herald announces the season's news in the season's channel.
Two smaller changes from the same week. The game now runs without an internet connection, except for making a new Self-Found character, which needs the ladder. And the menus are capped at 60 frames a second, so they no longer run the graphics card flat out while you sit in them.
The privacy page changed on 7 October as well. It now lists the play reports the game sends while you play, the feedback reports and the chat, and it no longer calls the ladder opt-in, since every character that plays online is ranked.