New streaming launcher available soon
by Mathew McCurley 
Oct 11th 2010 at 2:00PM
If you haven't seen the new launcher yet, here's a quick rundown. The launcher allows you to download a critical set of data required to play the game, noted by the red stage. After that critical set of data is downloaded, you can play WoW but will potentially experience issues because the majority of the game content is not downloaded, noted by the yellow stage. Once a majority of the game content is downloaded, the downloader goes green, meaning you will still be downloading content but the game will be in a more stable, playable state. Hit the jump for the official announcement.
Lylirra -- New Streaming Launcher Available SoonWith patch 4.0.1, we will be introducing a new World of Warcraft launcher that will allow you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft.
Streaming Launcher Basics
We've redesigned the launcher to provide a visual update to your installation progress. You will see a new progress bar with sections (Red, Yellow, Green) that represent the amount of data you have currently installed.
There are three stages of download progress:
Setup (Red): Core game content is being prepared. You cannot enter the game at this time.
Available (Yellow): Major game content is not completely applied. You can play, but your game experience will not be ideal.
Playable (Green): Final game content is almost complete. You may experience a few issues with playing at this stage.
All World of Warcraft data will continue to download and apply whether you wait in the launcher or are playing in-game. If you find the play experience unsatisfactory, you may exit the game and allow the Launcher to continue the download. While the launcher should automatically adjust the download according to your bandwidth, this may improve the play experience for users with low bandwidth Internet connections.
Streaming Launcher FAQ
For more information, please refer to our FAQ: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27188059042&sid=1&pageNo=1#1
Streaming Launcher Basics
We've redesigned the launcher to provide a visual update to your installation progress. You will see a new progress bar with sections (Red, Yellow, Green) that represent the amount of data you have currently installed.
There are three stages of download progress:
Setup (Red): Core game content is being prepared. You cannot enter the game at this time.
Available (Yellow): Major game content is not completely applied. You can play, but your game experience will not be ideal.
Playable (Green): Final game content is almost complete. You may experience a few issues with playing at this stage.
All World of Warcraft data will continue to download and apply whether you wait in the launcher or are playing in-game. If you find the play experience unsatisfactory, you may exit the game and allow the Launcher to continue the download. While the launcher should automatically adjust the download according to your bandwidth, this may improve the play experience for users with low bandwidth Internet connections.
Streaming Launcher FAQ
For more information, please refer to our FAQ: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27188059042&sid=1&pageNo=1#1
Lylirra -- Streaming Launcher FAQQ. The new launcher streams data using Peer-to-Peer (P2P). Do I only seed when I'm also downloading something, or will I be uploading data to other players all the time?
A. As with the previous system, you will no longer seed once you've downloaded all the data.
Q. Will P2P be used to download data while in-game?
A. Eventually, yes. Not during this initial release.
Q. The background downloader currently allows me to continue downloading after exiting the game. Can you add that feature to this new system?
A. We intend to add this feature in the future. Until then, you can open your Launcher again after you exit the game if you wish to continue downloading game data.
Q. How is data assigned to each stage?
A. Data is assigned to each stage based on the relative need for that data. Red is required to get into the game, Yellow is data needed for baseline gameplay, and Green is for variants of base game data (higher-resolution graphics, alternate sounds, other flavor data).
Q. How do I know when the entire game is downloaded?
A. The progress bar will reach 100%, and then will not be shown on subsequent launches (until a new patch is released).
Q. Will I still be able to download patches from mirror sites?
A. Standalone patches will be made available again soon.
Q. Will the downloader still use P2P / BitTorrent?
A. Yes.
Q. Will large patches still be downloadable in advance through the background downloader?
A. Yes.
Q. Will it be possible to download the entire game before I begin playing it?
A. Yes.
Q. Is downloading game data in advance mandatory?
A. No. Users will have the option of playing before all game data is downloaded and applied. They may choose to enter the game, or they may choose to wait.
Q. On patch days, will I be able to start the patch download before the realms are back up?
A. Yes.
Q. Will I still be able to download a patch once and copy it to multiple machines?
A. Yes, as long as you have fully downloaded the entire patch. However, as with the prior expansions, patches from a previous major version (all patches prior to 4.0) will not work with the new major version.
Q. What if I have a low bandwidth connection?
A. Users with connections below 1 MB/sec will be required to download both Setup (Red) and Available (Yellow) data before entering the game.
A. As with the previous system, you will no longer seed once you've downloaded all the data.
Q. Will P2P be used to download data while in-game?
A. Eventually, yes. Not during this initial release.
Q. The background downloader currently allows me to continue downloading after exiting the game. Can you add that feature to this new system?
A. We intend to add this feature in the future. Until then, you can open your Launcher again after you exit the game if you wish to continue downloading game data.
Q. How is data assigned to each stage?
A. Data is assigned to each stage based on the relative need for that data. Red is required to get into the game, Yellow is data needed for baseline gameplay, and Green is for variants of base game data (higher-resolution graphics, alternate sounds, other flavor data).
Q. How do I know when the entire game is downloaded?
A. The progress bar will reach 100%, and then will not be shown on subsequent launches (until a new patch is released).
Q. Will I still be able to download patches from mirror sites?
A. Standalone patches will be made available again soon.
Q. Will the downloader still use P2P / BitTorrent?
A. Yes.
Q. Will large patches still be downloadable in advance through the background downloader?
A. Yes.
Q. Will it be possible to download the entire game before I begin playing it?
A. Yes.
Q. Is downloading game data in advance mandatory?
A. No. Users will have the option of playing before all game data is downloaded and applied. They may choose to enter the game, or they may choose to wait.
Q. On patch days, will I be able to start the patch download before the realms are back up?
A. Yes.
Q. Will I still be able to download a patch once and copy it to multiple machines?
A. Yes, as long as you have fully downloaded the entire patch. However, as with the prior expansions, patches from a previous major version (all patches prior to 4.0) will not work with the new major version.
Q. What if I have a low bandwidth connection?
A. Users with connections below 1 MB/sec will be required to download both Setup (Red) and Available (Yellow) data before entering the game.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Drakkenfyre Oct 11th 2010 2:51PM
wutsconflag,
I hear Japan has 100Mb connections.
Hanak Oct 11th 2010 3:15PM
100 MB connections is far from rare, at least in Europe. I have it (and pay close to nothing for it thanks to being a student). And that's 100 MB down / 100 MB up.
Drakkenfyre Oct 11th 2010 4:12PM
Hanak, there is a difference between MB and Mb.
MB is Megabyte. Mb is Megabit, or 1/8 of a MB. If you have a 100MB/sec connection, you are indeed fast.
Connection speeds are usually rated in Kb and Mb. This leads to confusing people who don't understand why their connection is rated at 10Mb, and their download speeds are around 1MB per second.
Malenx Oct 11th 2010 4:45PM
@Hanak
Just because you have it doesn't mean it's rare.
http://speedtest.net/global.php#0
I assume since you mentioned being a student, your speed is only at that level because your living at your school. Finding those rates outside a business or school environment is incredibly expensive unless you live in a country like Japan.
Japan is interesting because the general mindset heavily favors long term investment. The society as a whole, and thus the leading providers want to have the best possible, and they walk all over short term profit to get there. I would *LOVE* for some American providers to take that same approach, but it's useless, the mentality is just too different.
Hanak Oct 13th 2010 4:29AM
Drakkenfyre is ofc correct and I misstyped the MB when I should have typed Mb. As for the availability, quite a few of the cities here in southern Sweden have this connection available to them (I simply don't know about northern Sweden). It's provided through city fiber networks and usually costs about 250-350 SEK per month, or about 37-53 USD. As a student, I pay 50 SEK, or 7,5 USD / month (exchange rates courtesy of Google)
The point is kind of moot when it concerns WoW in any case, as the D/L speed from Blizzards servers are nowhere near that. It's mainly of interest when streaming movies or downloading multiple files simultaneously.
Oakraven Oct 11th 2010 2:40PM
Drakken if your talking about the problems with the launcher in the Cata Beta that was partly because they would sometimes go in and tweek things in zones, everything from changing wich tree was planted at a specific point to adding in a "Phased event" to Cleaning out hidden objects that were droped in accidentaly to fixing terain holes and glitches.
Nether its not quite as bad as Guildwars, That said its sometimes odd to be in a zone thats still loading and haveing Trees suddleny pop in on you or trying to figure out why you cant shoot a mob you can see, only to have a wall pop into existance, Its kind of like being in Second life all over again. That said thats why they put a Bandwidth restriction on yellow downloads,
Drakkenfyre Oct 11th 2010 2:45PM
Nope, this was with the PTR.
I remember some other people saying what some people said above, that some patch data was withheld to keep testing the streaming.
It was annoying after completely downloading and installing the client to port, and see the mini-loading bar on the loading screen, repeatedly.
Amaxe Oct 11th 2010 2:42PM
So any ideas how much download we'll need to do tomorrow if we already did 1-3?
Nathanyel Oct 11th 2010 2:51PM
Since the 4.0.1 PTR already used that system, that's no big surprise :)
Oakraven Oct 11th 2010 2:54PM
Odds are they will not be putting up the rest of the Cata files untill sometime after 4.01. to be honest I would be suprised if they did so before thursday due to all of the people who will be jumping back in to get the 4.01 files
Drakkenfyre Oct 11th 2010 3:01PM
4.0.1 contains all the world changes.
It's simple not active. We had people running around the PTR and seeind the world changes due to a glitch. We know this because they were floating in air. There is also a file that keeps you from seeing the world changes. If you delete this file, you will see them.
Of course, on the PTR this might have gotten you in trouble. On live it definitely will get your into trouble. As I warned on another post, don't delete this file.
Oakraven Oct 11th 2010 3:10PM
I dont think that all of the Cata files (the new zones and new gear for example) are avalible right now if you have 4.01(have not looked at my files for live so I dont know for sure)
Considering they were still tweeking the new zones and replaceing textures last week I would be suprised to find them there but to be honest they have done dumber things before.
kooda Oct 11th 2010 3:30PM
Soon....
James Oct 11th 2010 3:41PM
Question; due to some blurp from not playing Wrath on my laptop, I still have the ol' fashion launcher from the Vanilla/BC era. Will my launcher update itself automatically to the Cataclysm launcher, or is it permanently stuck like this?
dasho.o Oct 11th 2010 3:55PM
This isn't good news for me, I can't use the Streaming Launcher on my University's network. It's the one thing stopping me from playing the Cataclysm Beta, does this mean I'll soon be unable to play normal WoW as well?
Lemele Oct 11th 2010 3:54PM
For me, one of the main attractions of WoW was ALWAYS the fact that you never had to wait for content to load (except where going through portals, which always made sense to me). Games where you get a loading screen in between zones or through doors annoy the heck outta me, however long or short a time they make you wait! Can't stand it.
So I, for one, will be waiting for the progress bar to reach 100% every time.
Malenx Oct 11th 2010 4:46PM
*edit* - Just because you have it, doesn't mean it's not rare.
Malenx Oct 11th 2010 4:47PM
delete... .ugh... need edit... alkdjflaksjdlfkajsdlfkjawe
Apollinaire Oct 11th 2010 4:56PM
I'm actually rather surprised at all the negative sentiment towards the streaming launcher. I can't speak about the beta, but on the ptr it worked far better than I expected. I downloaded just under 300mb of files, then logged in. Some loading screens took 5+ minutes (Ironforge, Dalaran) while others (Ulduar, ToC) took at most 30 seconds longer than usual. In the world I was held up by blue walls on two occasions, both of which were very brief waits.
Low res textures were applied at first in cities, but the more detailed ones loaded quickly.
Latency was fine, at most 50ms higher than normal.
Now, this is with a hellishly slow 1.5Mbps connection in rural AZ. I can't imagine how anyone with a decent connection can have a problem with this, because it sure beat waiting for a 16gb download to finish.
shadowfire Oct 11th 2010 5:06PM
Will this launcher still use a torrent client? I can't update WoW on my university's network because I get kicked off for using a torrent client, even the Blizzard downloader.