WOW! Another lengthy download...

I've had a little more time to do things I want to lately, and I'm pleased about it.

One of the things I've wanted to do for a while is take a look at the new big thing going on in gaming and on the Internet in general- Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

It's huge, they say. It's amazing, they say. It's addictive as hell, they say. It also costs $20 a month if I'm not mistaken. That's a lot for a single game, but if you buy a game every other month, you can simply keep playing this one. So it's not over-pricey, especially if they keep developing the online world (moderation of the world should be implied).

So yesterday I spent forever downloading the thing onto a computer I've temporarily made a gaming machine. I think the download was just shy of 3GB. Not a huge deal, but it'd be kind of nice to play in an hour. After the download came the installation, during which I created a free account to test the game.

This morning, I was all excited to fire it up and spend an hour or two exploring the interface, character creation method, skills or magic acquisition, world physics and the dynamics of player interaction. (Have I ever mentioned that my dream is to be a game designer? Probably not...)

Anyway, so I load the game, enter my account info and I get a message telling me that the game is going to download an update. I figure no problem, but I've been waiting half an hour now, and it's only at 30%. Turns out the download is upgrading me from version 1.12 to 2.0.1 - a major upgrade. I thought Blizzard was smarter than that- if I download something one day, I shouldn't have to perform a major upgrade the next (or even on the same day). I understand that it's unavoidable when purchasing the game in a box, where it's been sitting on the shelf since before the new version was developed; but this was something they could have done for me and dozens (if not thousands) of others. Hell- the slightest bug could make me give up (has in the past, many times).

In short, a request to game developers: build smart installation tools.

My next request would be to write license agreements that people (especially gamers) can read. I've read more stupid legal documents than most, and they contain little actual information (same with the GPL, except it's a little friendlier). Keep it short, or give me a breakdown of what I should actually know I'm not allowed to do. Keep the full length on the side, and add a section in the shorter saying that it overrides the short one, yet maintains the same spirit. I'll agree to the combination of the two and will feel much better using your product.

Oh boy! It's at 49%! I think I might get to play today...


Update: Apparently 9GB isn't enough for a game. No amount of moving files around and merging partitions will get me enough on this computer. Good thing there's a Woot-off going on right now- I'll have to get me another refurb hard drive (rox0rz!).