Blown away by free trial startup

[Baldrake]

I wanted to put WoW on a new machine. Since patching from my launch day CD's is hopeless, I followed my usual approach of downloading the free trial to get the client. I downloaded the downloader (less than one minute), then launched the downloader. About 2 minutes after that, I was launching the game. I was surprised to be launching so quickly, but oh ho, thinks I, here is where I get an enormous patch that pulls the real client down in its multi-gigabyte goodness. But no. There was a small download to get started, but ultimately, from clicking the first link on Blizz's page to seeing my guy in game was less than 10 minutes.


Of course, the whole client wasn't there, and I'm sure I'd have been pulling down gobs of new data whenever I zoned. But this has to set a new bar for delivery of free trials.

[fuser]

Did it punt you out of the game every time you zoned?

[Ironwood]

I'm confused.  Are you saying you got the whole game in less than 10 minutes ?

The thing is gigs and gigs and gigs.

 ? ? ?

[fuser]

I'm confused.  Are you saying you got the whole game in less than 10 minutes ?

Yep just did it...

TryWoW.exe is 1.02MB, then the first "Download" is ~92MB which gets you to the WoW login/realm selection(with full music bonus). I cannot play with it any further because my account is TBC enabled and it punts you straight out after selecting a realm.

Read more at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20590 (Look for "Streaming")

Edit: if you have TBC it recommends you grab the wowclient-downloader.exe which is None -> 2.0.0 playable client.

Edit Edit: Just some geeky stuff, the content is just a direct http download from http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net. Seems to be using Akamai mirror's for delivery which is going to be extremely fast (I'm pretty sure most ISP's are partners or you will at least have a quick hop away), my home cable service was 00:46:22 (1.33 MB/s) of a 128MB chunk 

[Baldrake]

Yeah, what fuser said. I downloaded the trial within 10 minutes. I tried logging on my guy in IF, then another guy in Astrenaar, and had no perceptible delay in either case. After that, I went ahead and d/l'd the whole client, so didn't really get to test how far this initial download would get me. But the point is, I was up and playing within 10 minutes, which is a very nice property for a free trial.

[Ironwood]

Nice.

[Calantus]

And once again Blizzard shows what a class act they are compared to the rest of the industry.

[Venkman]

Except every content patch is still a torrent. 

However, this TryWoW thing, which is really cool, isn't that just the Blizzard Downloader we all are running whenever playing WoW (unless you changed the setting)? Or this actually streaming the data you need the moment you need it?

[Mrbloodworth]

Except every content patch is still a torrent. 

However, this TryWoW thing, which is really cool, isn't that just the Blizzard Downloader we all are running whenever playing WoW (unless you changed the setting)? Or this actually streaming the data you need the moment you need it?

I would also like to know. This has me intrigued.

[Baldrake]

I think the root of this is that the big part of games is the art assets. I believe they are giving you pretty much all of the client code and enough art to do a few lowbie zones all in one chunk. I don't think they are really streaming on demand. It would be interesting to see what happened once you get to a higher-level area - I suspect it simply tells you to go download the whole thing at that point.

[fuser]

Except every content patch is still a torrent. 

However, this TryWoW thing, which is really cool, isn't that just the Blizzard Downloader we all are running whenever playing WoW (unless you changed the setting)? Or this actually streaming the data you need the moment you need it?

I would also like to know. This has me intrigued.

Nope its not like the Blizzard downloader, no P2P/Bittorrent and It pulls the moment you need it it seems. Once you fire it up it starts "streaming"(ok downloading) the data and downloading small chunks of the larger files. I'm guessing the MPQ file is contiguous like a TAR and when it runs out issues a command to the "Trial" build of wow.exe to download the next chunk and put up a splash loading screen.

Here's how my squid server was reacting to logging in:

Code:

2008.1.2 19:23:25 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/model.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:25 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/texture.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:25 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/terrain.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:26 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/wmo.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:26 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/sound.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:26 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/fonts.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:26 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/dbc.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:26 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/speech.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:27 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/interface.MPQ.0
2008.1.2 19:23:28 - - http://trial.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/Streaming/7561patch2.3.0-trial/enUS/Data/interface.MPQ.0

Pretty nifty, too bad it doesn't support TBC :(

[Ironwood]

Squid.


Cool.

[Jayce]

There's an explanation of the MPQ (MoPAQ) format out there somewhere on the intarwebs.  It's a homegrown Blizzard format that's been in use since like WC or WC2 days.

From memory, it amounts to a big binary blob that has a table of contents and extracts data via a hash lookup of some kind.

[Morat20]

Except every content patch is still a torrent. 

In Blizzard's defense, they're getting better. I've been able to actually get the patch via their downloader the last several times, rather than having to d/l the whole file from Fileplanet or something.

[fuser]

There's an explanation of the MPQ (MoPAQ) format out there somewhere on the intarwebs.  It's a homegrown Blizzard format that's been in use since like WC or WC2 days.

Indeed, MPQkit has tons of info on the file storage structure. Thanks for the search tip 

From memory, it amounts to a big binary blob that has a table of contents and extracts data via a hash lookup of some kind.

Yep looking at the file structure they just break the block sectors into multiple files.

I've been able to actually get the patch via their downloader the last several times

Whats interesting is they do a bit of direct downloads from the Akamai mirror's to supplement the P2P distribution of the patch.

Thats got me thinking that all the patches are on the Akamai cluster stored in some directory. Time to play with the torrent tonight and see if its possible to access the file directly from the cluster bypassing all the P2P download.

[Soukyan]

Squid.


Cool.

I couldn't live without my Squid server. Very cool.

[Ironwood]

I have no idea what it is, but I'm thinking along the lines of those chaps in The Matrix.

Very Cool.

[Bstaz]

A Squid Server is actually the thing that spawned the squids in the Matrix

[Paelos]

A Squid Server is actually the thing that spawned the squids in the Matrix

Then we should probably wipe them all out since we have the upper hand.

While wearing leather and sunglasses.

[Phred]

Everyone always complains about the Blizzard bittorrent downloaded but after I set my firewall to allow access to the ports they specify it always works really well for me. My latest router instructions on the Bliz web site were wrong though. They told you how to set up a dmz host on the ports not just open the ports up for everyone (maybe not wrong but personal preference.

[fuser]

Speaking of patches it is really neat, if your "bittorrent" is totally blocked some how it falls back to a direct HTTP download of the torrent chunks.

Again more squid logs :)

Code:

2008.1.2 19:16:21 - - http://dist.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/WoW-BurningCrusade-enUS-Slim-Installer.pieces/1035 *SCANNED*  GET 262144
2008.1.2 19:16:22 - - http://dist.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/WoW-BurningCrusade-enUS-Slim-Installer.pieces/1829 *SCANNED*  GET 262144

[Chenghiz]

Blizzard's patching mechanism is miles ahead of Sony's piece of shit.

[Venkman]

I'll not be using something like "miles ahead" until I can take the CD/DVDs I purchased at a game launch, install them, and patch to the full game three years later as a single operation (insert disc, install, patch once). Or once you prove you have those CDs to a website, you can download the entire game from it.

This crap about having to watch for in-story/magazine trial game copies and then having to patch/relaunch/patch/relaunch is archaic, and the single biggest thing that has kept me from going back to most MMOs I've had any resurgent interest in checking out.

One operation. Shit, if we had that genre-wide, I'd have gone back to UO, DAoC and SWG at least two or three more times each.

[MrHat]

I'll not be using something like "miles ahead" until I can take the CD/DVDs I purchased at a game launch, install them, and patch to the full game three years later as a single operation (insert disc, install, patch once). Or once you prove you have those CDs to a website, you can download the entire game from it.

This crap about having to watch for in-story/magazine trial game copies and then having to patch/relaunch/patch/relaunch is archaic, and the single biggest thing that has kept me from going back to most MMOs I've had any resurgent interest in checking out.

One operation. Shit, if we had that genre-wide, I'd have gone back to UO, DAoC and SWG at least two or three more times each.

/agree

Steam actually lets you "prove you have those CDs to a website, you can download the entire game from it".  Only works for certain games atm, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.

Jesus H. Christ I hate discs.

[Ratman_tf]

I have (near enough) release copies of WoW and Burning Crusade, and I don't remember the install and patchup to be that horrible. And I reinstalled the thing a couple weeks ago, after my last WoW break...

[Soukyan]

I have (near enough) release copies of WoW and Burning Crusade, and I don't remember the install and patchup to be that horrible. And I reinstalled the thing a couple weeks ago, after my last WoW break...

WoW tends to do rollups of their major patches, but if you were to download the "current" WoW client and install it, you would still need to patch once for 2.3 which is almost 700MB and then a second small ~5MB patch for 2.3.2. Not a big deal, but that 2.3 patch should have been rolled into the client installer already.

[tkinnun0]

I'm frankly surprised Blizzard doesn't have that already. It would only require getting torrents for all needed patches at the same time, waiting for all of them to finish downloading, then installing them in correct order. I think they just haven't thought about that, and when they do, it'll be just another bit of quiet polish.

[Chenghiz]

I agree with you Darniaq, but the degree to which SOE's launcher irritates me is hard to measure. You know, now that I think about it, EVE's patcher is pretty smooth and fast, and there isn't much hassle in installing from scratch.

[LK]

I'll not be using something like "miles ahead" until I can take the CD/DVDs I purchased at a game launch, install them, and patch to the full game three years later as a single operation (insert disc, install, patch once). Or once you prove you have those CDs to a website, you can download the entire game from it.

This crap about having to watch for in-story/magazine trial game copies and then having to patch/relaunch/patch/relaunch is archaic, and the single biggest thing that has kept me from going back to most MMOs I've had any resurgent interest in checking out.

One operation. Shit, if we had that genre-wide, I'd have gone back to UO, DAoC and SWG at least two or three more times each.

WoW isn't like this? I think they've been constantly keeping up on making their client downloads and any newly manufactured box copies contain the latest major client release within a reasonable amount of time after its release.  Besides, it would be a fuckton amount of work to create a new installer, test it for bugs and system compatibility, verify all data, and send it out for every little patch.

Also, patches that work for any client tend to take someone up to the last major content release, and extremely small, fast patches will take them to whatever subset patch there exists.  Again, a lot of work to create additional patches that would only save someone about two minutes.  Cost to produce versus benefit is extremely lopsided in that scenario.   You might not get one (though maybe future games will structure themselves differently) but you're very unlikely to get more than two.

It's been a long long time since I've patched up through others but I seem to think that Sony has to verify the integrity of every file before patching, then downloads updates which takes an extremely long time? Blizzard is of the mindset that if you are messing with files in the install directory rather than playing the game then on your own head be it if it corrupts during patching or can't work with your version of the game.

[Venkman]

Yea, SOE's verify-all-files thing is sort of annoying. But at least as far as I can remember, it does all that without you need to be at the computer. In fact, there have been a number of occasions over the last year where I've had some SOE patcher running while playing an entirely different game (usually WoW or some FPS). That of course I can be doing with the Blizzard thing too.

My beef with the WoW system is specifically if I'm going to reinstall the game from scratch. Now, I, as a PC gamer and reader of a number of magazines, have at any given time a WoW disk only a few updates old. Plus, I pay the annual fee to Fileplanet for all the first-run MMO betas, some demos (not as many as I would like) and the WoW patches if I need them. And finally, I'm in a guild with one guy who's got a crazy fast connection, gets and hosts the latest patches anyway.

But I don't consider myself a normal consumer, the very consumer that WoW reached out and grabbed, the one missed by most developers prior. To ask them to patch from launch-day CDs to today is something of a stretch. At the same time, they're also not the kind of people to reformat their computers once a year, so probably part of the one-call-away-from-Geek-Squad crowd

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor gripe. But then, this is the internet.