Pro's and Con's of downloading game client rather than installing from disc?

[Devendra]

Hey.

I don't have my discs handy as I just recently moved house. Considering downloading the game client to my new laptop, but not sure if there's any pro's and con's? Someone told me you don't get all the cutscene's, or something like, but I dunno if there's any truth to that?

[Eowenn]

Pretty sure its the exact same game either way. Only difference is you don't have a physical disk.

[Bathory]

That was a miscommunication from a while back, the no cutscenes (i think)

[Splatter]

Its exactly the same, except your downloaded copy isnt likely to get lost or scratched :P

[Sinn]

Same thing. Probably longer to install the online version, depending on your connection. Some people have ratio too and don't want to waste bandwidth.

[vesseblah]

Easiest way is to copy&paste the game via USB HDD or 32GB stick from old computer to new computer. No need to download or install anything.

If you have fast enough internet and no download caps, it will be several hours faster to get to playing compared to installing via discs. And you still need to download several gigabytes of patches after installing all discs.

You'll get to "yellow" zone in downloader and be able to play after about 1.5GB of the whole 14GB download, takes only about 15-20 minutes on my 40mbit cable.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

The only downside is a higher risk of data corruption due to things like dropped packets. If you have very fast broadband it's less likely. If your internet connection is slow, it can be a problem, though.

Longer you download the higher the risk of dropping packets, and that causes data corruption requiring yet another download (and sometimes a complete redownload).

[vicarious ink]

I always, always, download rather than install via disc. It's not worth it to actually have a physical copy on hand when you have a couple back ups of the programs and what not.

[vesseblah]

The only downside is a higher risk of data corruption due to things like dropped packets. If you have very fast broadband it's less likely. If your internet connection is slow, it can be a problem, though.

Longer you download the higher the risk of dropping packets, and that causes data corruption requiring yet another download (and sometimes a complete redownload).

There is no data corruption because Blizzard downloader uses p2p client internally with 512kb packets that are individually crc checked, and the speed of downloading makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. Installer fails because of hardware problems at players' end, usually failing or full HDD.

[Katherineseren]

see if your friend will let you copy there system files for the game to your computer including patches. its going to take some unseen amount of hours to download the game and patch it. this what i do for all my friends who have wiped there computer or uninstalled it. 20min vers 30 + hours.

[Idontlikeyou]

There is no difference between the physical and digital copies of the game.

NONE.

[Zamfix]

Pro: You don't need the discs.

Con: It will take longer.

[Erto]

Pros
Doesn't require swapping discs every 10-15 minutes, you can just leave start the download and leave it for a few hours.

Cons

... well that's it.

[Rhyseh]

There is no data corruption because Blizzard downloader uses p2p client internally with 512kb packets that are individually crc checked, and the speed of downloading makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. Installer fails because of hardware problems at players' end, usually failing or full HDD.

This. The packets are error checked. Most game downloads of this size are normally error checked in some way if downloading via UDP. If they are downloading via TCP then there is already error checking built into the protocol and thus additionally error checking shouldn't be necessary.

As stated earlier I'd try and copy it from someone if you don't have a fast connection.

[schwank05]

It much faster from the disc rather than from Online. Plus it doesn't use any of my monthly allowed data for my internet.

[Hanto]

I'm fairly certain the only couple of differences are:

1) You either have a physical copy of the game via a disc or you download it offline.
2) Installing from the disc will probably be faster, largely depending on your net speed.

Other than that, there should be no difference. I prefer to have a disc copy, as I take good care of my game discs so I don't worry about damage to them. My net speed (10mbps, which is about 1.2MB/sec download) won't come close to the speed of my DVD drive when it comes to installation.

[Tatsu]

see if your friend will let you copy there system files for the game to your computer including patches. its going to take some unseen amount of hours to download the game and patch it. this what i do for all my friends who have wiped there computer or uninstalled it. 20min vers 30 + hours.

You must some extremely slow internet. I did the download and was done in about 3 hours.

[Bwaarg]

I am curious myself about this matter - if I were to download everything right now what is the total size of all the expacs/patches?

[Descense]

The fastest way is too use USB and copy a little by little (lets say 5 giga of files). 30 giga is araund for wow. Its 10 times much faster than downloading or instal from a cd.
Or if you have a portable hard disc trow whole wow on it. And you can play it via Phd without instal on laptop.

[vesseblah]

I am curious myself about this matter - if I were to download everything right now what is the total size of all the expacs/patches?

If you use the downloader available from battle.net site it's about 14GB for full Cataclysm client including all patches up to today. It gets to yellow and playable somewhere between 1.5-2GB (can't remember exactly).


People should also note that if they use the Cataclysm install discs they will also have to download patches 4.1-4.3.3 in normal way.