Posts with tag background-downloader

Multiple sources are confirming that the Blizzard background downloader is now beginning to download patch data for the upcoming patch 4.3, Hour of Twilight. We have been hypothesizing a release date of the next and final Cataclysm content patch around the late November/early December mark. Having the background downloader active now means that a good portion of the content for the patch has been finalized and is loading into our games as we speak. Now it is up to Blizzard to tweak numbers and encounter design rather than add new objects, art, and so forth to the patch.

As we learn more about the patch and its release date, we will be sure to let you know.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Good news, everyone! If you open up your World of Warcraft launcher, you might notice a line at the bottom that says, "Data for the next patch is available." Yes, it looks like patch 4.0.1 will be coming really soon.

It seems like we're getting closer and closer to a release date. It looks like the first stage patch is about 1.58 GB. If you're getting ready for bed, it might not be a bad idea to open the launcher, start the game and close it in order to trigger the background download.

Zarhym (Blizzard community manager) announced in the Cataclysm forums that the launcher as well as the patch download process will be getting overhauled as well. This new system will include a color-coded progress bar similar to a stoplight system.

Zarhym

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 game issues with playing at this stage.

source

What does this mean for players? Once you're into the yellow part of the download, you can actually log into the game and play. Things that are missing will likely be along the lines of art, model and sound files. While this might cause lag or strange graphic issues, it will allow for players to get back onto their servers faster during patch days.

Those of you in the beta will see this relatively soon. However, it will require that you re-install the beta client from scratch.

The full blue post and instructions after the break.

The background downloader has gone active tonight with a 77.5 MB partial file for the Patch 3.3.3 patching process. Don't expect the patch to go live tomorrow, of course (if nothing else, scheduled maintenance isn't long enough), but it looks like we may be within a few weeks of some nice new patch goodness, including the rise of DK frost dual wielding, Frozen Orbs, and the abolishment of battleground marks.

For a round up of all of the changes, big and small, coming with the patch, be sure to check our Patch 3.3.3 Info page.

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Patch 3.3.3 brings about small but noteworthy changes to the World of Warcraft. From a faster CoT, to putting those old Frozen Orbs to better use, to changes to the auction house -- there's several things all WoW players need to know. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3.3 will keep you up to date!

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Looks like the wait for Patch 3.3 is getting even shorter now. We're getting the second chunk of data for the upcoming content patch now via our Blizzard downloader, making sure most of us are ready for patch day without having to spend the day wrangling with the downloader.

The first piece of the patch, wow-partial-1.mpq, was 459 MB, and this newest piece of the patch, wow-partial-2.mpq, is 656 MB, making the total size of the patch so far 1.1 GB. That's a pretty big patch! Fitting for the wrapup of the Wrath cycle and the culmination (and fulmination) of one of the last remaining Warcraft III storylines.

We'll keep you posted as either more parts of the patch drop or as the patch goes live, but in the meantime you can brush up on what you'll have in store when the patch hits by reading our Guide to Patch 3.3 or checking out our Icecrown Citadel coverage.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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According to Eyonix, the background downloader for patch 3.3 will begin its work soon. There were some reports that it was turned on yesterday for a short time, when it began to deliver a roughly 450mb pre-patch file. However this time, Blizzard is turning it on for good.

Eyonix points out that the background downloader should provide a faster download than normal. Go into the preferences of the downloader and check "Don't throttle background download" to see the new speed in action. However, this option has often been known to interfere with WoW and other applications accessing the intertubes, so I recommend you only turn it on when you're not going to be doing a lot of online activity.

This does point to patch 3.3 coming soon. Whether or not that soon is next week is too early to tell, but usually Blizzard runs the background downloader for a couple of weeks before rolling out a patch. But who knows -- we haven't heard anything yet on (or off) the record.

Update: Many readers are reporting that the downloader is now active.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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So as you may have seen if you follow WRUP, I've been trying on and off for months to summon up the energy to get through the tournament on my Death Knight. It's not that I don't want it, but the Argent Tournament dailies just aren't my favorite. The quests are lacking life and excitement, and the lore is sort of tepid. When it comes time to solo, I find myself retreating to a leveling alt rather than doing the same old boring dailies over and over again. I'm pretty sure it's not even the repetition of dailies that's doing it either. I used to do the Shattered Sun dailies over and over all the time without a care, just because they were so much fun.

But with the announcement of new dailies to be opened to people with enough faction in Patch 3.2, I've felt like I need to make that final push. However, it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally kicked myself into gear, and I'm now at a week and counting of doing my tournament dailies every day without fail. The reason? The background downloader went up.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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Here's another step in patch 3.2's slow march forward: the background download has begun. The first 273 MB chunk of the patch file is now available in a Blizzard Background Downloader app near you. Blizzard has been using this method to pre-distribute parts of patches as they get finalized for quite some time now, to lessen the bandwidth strain on patch day.

What does this mean for the patch's ETA? Not much, I'm afraid. All we can surmise from this is that some parts of the patch artwork are ready to go. The time between the background download becoming available and the patch going live varies widely, from less than a week to over a month. We'll just have to wait and see.

[thanks, Steve]

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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Patch 3.1 may be here sooner than we expect. As of this evening, people exiting WoW should see their background downloader start up in order to deliver patch 3.1 -- or at least parts of it.

As to whether this means we should expect the whole shebang to go live on Tuesday, I still wouldn't bet on it. Not only have there been indications that the devs are willing to delay Noblegarden if they have to to keep testing the patch, It seems like class balancing work still has a bit to go.

With this in mind, it seems most likely that what we're getting now is mostly finalized art and zone files that won't change before the patch goes live. But whether we have one more week or one more month, the preparations are underway. We're one step closer to the Argent Tournament and Ulduar!

[Thanks to everyone who gave us a heads up on this!]

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Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

Blizzard has announced that the regular Tuesday maintenance will be extended to a lengthy 12 hours, expected in anticipation of Patch 3.0.2. The new patch, dubbed the Echoes of Doom, will introduce new talents, barber shops, the new Inscription profession, as well as numerous other changes to classes and gameplay to prepare for Wrath of the Lich King in November.

The patch is a hefty one, clocking in at slightly over 1Gb, so if you haven't downloaded it yet, be sure to run Blizzard's background downloader and get all the necessary files before the big day. That way, you can hit the ground running as soon as realms come back online. Realms are scheduled to go down at 2 AM Pacific Daylight Time and should go up around 2 PM PDT. Don't worry too much about the exceptionally long 12 hour downtime. We'll keep you company.

Lots of people have been pointing out the activity of their background downloader. Yesterday Zarhym announced that the download would startup soon, delivering the first part of the 3.0.1 content patch.

The downloader is running along for many of us – both the North American and European versions. The patch files it is downloading are between 821 and 992 megs. Be sure to let it run only overnight if you don't want any problems while you run your groups or raids.

To exit the downloader, Windows users can click the Blizzard icon near the clock on the taskbar and choose "Cancel" when the window appears. Macintosh users can go to the file menu and choose "Quit" when the downloader application is in the foreground. The download will restart the next time you launch WoW.

Patch 3.0.1 will bring about a ton of changes in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King. There is no announced release date yet for WotLK, nor is there a date for when 3.0.1 will go onto the live realms. However most people expect 3.0.1 to hit the live realms in a month or so, and Wrath to be released in early November. Some of the major highlights of 3.0.1 include:

• New class spells and talents
• Stormwind harbor
• Barbershops
• New Arenas
• A built in Guild Calendar
• New Hunter pet skills
• Inscription
• No more Zul'Aman bears

Zarhym announced on the forums that the next patch is coming, and it's going to be a big one. The particular of that news, however, they're going to turn on the background downloader to start its work "shortly." Shortly, in this case, means soon enough that Zarhym supplied some tips to how to control the speed of the download.

We're expecting all that content they've already promised, which includes:

• New class spells and talents
• Stormwind harbor
• Barbershops
• New Arenas
• A built in Guild Calendar
• New Hunter pet skills
• Inscription
• No more Zul'Aman bears

There's no patch notes yet, but it definitely seems as if we should expect them within a day or two. We know that the PTR is already getting primed for the action. This could definitely explain why the Wrath splash is showing up on the Launcher. We should see the 3.0 beta build in the PTR soon, though I guess there's a chance the build will go straight from the Wrath beta forums straight to the live realms.

So, the word's pretty much out. If you have goals you want to accomplish before the content patch hits, you better get them rolling along. You don't have much longer.

Dear Blizzard,

First of all, I really do have to thank you for changing the name of that guy called Longjohnson. Yeah, He sent us this pretty long rant about how it was unfair his name was changed, but honestly, it was a pretty clear violation of the naming policy against inappropriate references to bodily parts or functions (Sorry Jason, I'm only siding with you to a point here. Your character's name needed to be changed). That said, I'll give him this: It is pretty annoying that he was able to then proceed to the Armory and find 19 characters named Longjohnson and 60 characters named Bigjohnson. If a name is impermissible because of being profane or inappropriate on one server, it should count on them all, right? Every server has the same set of naming rules, except for RP servers, which have the extra "appropriate for an RP server" qualifier, so this shouldn't be a problem. Mike has actually observed that enforcement tends to be a bit lax in the past regarding both the naming policy and RP server policy, but I figured it was worth bringing up again.

As Adam pointed out earlier this afternoon, the changes for patch 2.4 are starting to be less and less dramatic, which may indicate that the patch is nearing completion. Here's another such indication: parts of the patch (251 MB for me) are now being sent out to the background downloader. This means that some of the patch data is finalized, and we can get those parts of the patch now instead of having to get everything on patch day.

Note that the patch is not, in fact, being released today, or even necessarily next week. But I would bet that it won't be more than a few weeks until the Sunwell is upon us. And when the patch does drop, someone's going to win fabulous prizes! More importantly, I'll have some new dailies to do. Hurry it up, Blizz (but don't release it before it's ready, of course).

Edit: Patch 2.3 was on the background downloader for 12 days before it was released, and 2.1 was 11 days. But 2.2 was on for over a month, so it's hard to predict for sure how this will go.

[Thanks, Amarius (and multiple other tipsters)]