This is just stupid.

[Thenryb]

I had the same experience as you, DeeBye, when download first started. After an hour or so, it had crept up to about 15 kps download and about the same upload. Like Bolty, I discovered the sweet spot to be the slow cable setting. My entire download took about 7 hours vs less than 3 for the first phase and I never did achieve download speeds in excess of about 50 kps vs 125 or for the first phase.

[TheDragoon]

Yeah, it might be a limit on Bit Torrent. Oh well. At least I seem to be getting 30+KB/s. That means that I might be able to play by the time I get back from the softball games this afternoon. :)

[Griselda]

I finished downloading just about in time to go to work today. I get home, and the servers are down. :(

-Griselda

[Griselda]

Actually, I'm wondering if there's something going wrong on my end here. I downloaded the new client into a "WOW2" folder that is inside my original download folder. This is not the folder where the game is actually installed.

When I run the installer, I don't get "install" as an option. The closest thing seems to be "Play World of Warcraft", so I click that. That takes me to the little login window, where I enter my name and password and am told "login failed."

Shouldn't I be able to install something or other before I have to log in? I tried waiting, but at least over the last couple of hours the same thing has been happening.

So, was the install process different for others?

-Griselda

[Nystul]

Did you completely uninstall the first phase build yet? You will probably need to do that in order to properly install the new one. This is a completely new build, not an addition to the old one.

Everything is working fine for me tonight.

[Griselda]

Thanks, that did the trick. Don't know why I didn't think of that myself.

-Griselda

[Jarulf]

Thanks, that did the trick.  Don't know why I didn't think of that myself.

-Griselda

If one reread the mail one got, it actually says one has to completely uninstall and delete the old files from first beta :)

[DeeBye]

Your cable is EXTREMELY slow. I really hope you're not paying much for it. It's probably that Rogers Lite crap isn't it?

I pay $29.95CAD (~$22USD) per month, and yes it is Rogers Lite.

Full-blown cable from Rogers would cost me $45/month, and I am unable to justify the expense. To be perfectly honest, the WoW beta client is by FAR the largest thing I have ever downloaded. In fact, I rarely download anything. I mostly use my internet connection for random forum-browsing and e-mail.

Rogers Lite, even with its crappy bandwidth, serves my purposes quite well in this regard. I used to pay $20/month for 56k dialup, and I always hated tying up my phone line while using it. With Rogers Lite I can browse the internet 3x faster (my dialup connection was very slow) and still keep my phone free.

The only thing that would prompt me to upgrade my internet connection to full-blown cable/dsl is if I had a real necessity to download large files from the internet on a regular basis. I don't have such a need (WoW is a huge exception, and I can wait a few days), so I'd rather save the extra $$ per month.

If you know of any alternatives to Rogers Lite that offers better bandwidth in the $25-$35 range, I'd love to hear about it.

[Charis]

I got home last night, after running the downloaded night and day, and after answering Mrs C "Why is the computer locked???" only to find I was getting 7KB/s and was only 1/4 done. :o

I restarted the agent several times, and it didn't seem to matter, so I went downstairs to watch a movie. When I came back a few hours later it was over 200KB/s and was 95% done, due in 15 mins! Now that's a "torrent". It finished, but so late I only had an hour and a half to play before I fell asleep in my chair :P

Tis good to be a member of the horde...
Charis

[JustAGuy]

If you know of any alternatives to Rogers Lite that offers better bandwidth in the $25-$35 range, I'd love to hear about it.

If I recall correctly, you're west of Toronto, so I'm not sure what the ISP's are like over there. Bell Sympatico High Speed and High Speed Ultra are probably too expensive (Basic DSL, which is very good, is $45 a month).

Comparable prices for more speed are available with lesser known ISPs. They all use the same network and same (or comparable) equipment, so whoever you choose to go with, you can't really go wrong. The only true monopoly is the cable company; where you are, you have Rogers and only Rogers. Bell is the other main-stream option, but other ISPs offer the same quality DSL that Bell might have but for less.

As far as other types of Internet connections are concerned, there aren't any options. IDSN is pricey and is the same speed as Rogers Lite. Fibre Optic connections run up to $2000 a month ($1000 for service, $1000 to the PUC for maintenance. Damn PUC!!!). T1's aren't available in most residential areas, and anything other than ADSL is too expensive. VDSL, SDSL, and other types, are all extremely expensive or not available.

If you want to save a little money, or pay a little more for much more in terms of quality of service, I'd suggest looking into local DSL providers. If DSL is not available in your area, or you are too far from the switching station for reliable service, then it looks like you're out of luck.

[BEEFMOTRTON]

Just to be a jerk I'd like to share that I downloaded the entire thing last night in under 2 1/2 hours at 360~kb/sec. Glad to finally be playing this thing!

[Bob]

1) I'm not in the beta (possibly because I didn't apply, I don't know the exact cause)
but
2) This post doesn't really concern the beta anyway.

This post concerns BitTorrent.

As I understand it, BitTorrent is specifically set up so that the more you put in, the more you get out.
It therefore seems strange to me that restricting your upload speed could possibly increase your download speed, unless one of the following factors comes into play:
a) A modified version of BitTorrent
B) There being A LOT of people providing a seed and not downloading. (actually, keeping BT going with no dl because you've finished for as long as you spent with it D/L'ing is apparently good BitTorrent ettiquette - Dee, don't plan on using any of your upload bandwidth for the next eon :P)
c) Something that I haven't thought of
d) Me having totaly misunderstood the way that BitTorrent works

Can anyone shed some light on this (as well as having a total bandwidth which can be split between down/up load variably [I have a cable connection, 600k down, 150{or maybe 128}k up])

-Bob

[swirly]

As I understand it, BitTorrent is specifically set up so that the more you put in, the more you get out.
It therefore seems strange to me that restricting your upload speed could possibly increase your download speed,
...
Can anyone shed some light on this

Okay, so what happens when you try to download a file with bittorrent? Well first it has to find people who have pieces of that file. This means sending out some packets, thus upload bandwidth usage. In addition to this it has to find which of those people have pieces that you don't currently have, which means more upload bandwidth usage. There are also people querying you to see if you have any files and pieces that they need. When your client replies to them it has to use upload bandwidth. So you have all this information that bittorrent has to be able to send in order to work and actually I'm sure there are lots of bits I'm not thinking of off hand.

So what happens if your upload capacity is maxed out? Well none of that information is able to be sent. Thus you can't connect to people and thus don't get any downloads. Now as somebody stops uploading there will be a bit where your upload capacity isn't maxed. So then you might get a connection to a person for a piece or somebody else might start uploading from you. In this manner you will get some small amount of downloading as the information slowly makes its way through the congestion that is your upload. If you limit your upload so that its not maxed out, then the needed information can be sent without any problem and thus you are able to get downloads going much better than you would otherwise. If you think about it in that kind of way you should be able to understand why limiting your upload can actually make you download faster.

[jerryp]

Ahoy hoy,

Long time Lurker here, just reregistered cause I am totally excited about Lurkers playing this game. Anyways I used to post here in my D2 days, my login was BadMath. Some of you may remember me, I recognize most of the names here.

About the Bit Torrent issue. The "more you put in, the more you get out" is great in theory but the problem is your download speed is entirely dependant on others upload capacity, and home connections are simply not geared for that.

I work for a computer consulting/web hosting/software development company in Buffalo, NY. This business is located in a converted house in the city of Buffalo. I rent the guest house portion of the house from my boss. I get free internet access because of this. I basically sit on a T1 by myself after 5PM. When I get on Bit Torrent I can easily eat up a full megabit on upload, while my download, which is equally fat, stays pretty much at what you guys get. Why? Because even though I am throwing out at least ten times as much as I download, no one can supply me enough upload off thier home cable or DSL connections. Simple as that.

Bit Torrent works great when the file is first seeded and downloaded by the masses because even though you are getting meager downloads from others, there is so many other people uploading to you it creates the illusion of having good download speed. If you are late to the game and try and get the huge files a couple days later you're going to suffer because there is only a few other downloading the same file simuletaneously and therefore less people to upload to you.

That's the biggest flaw in Bit Torrent, it's great when the file is released, and is terrible in the days that follow it unless you luck out and someone like me is uploading to you. But companies love it because it's cutting down on thier bandwidth costs by a lot. So don't expect a change in policy.

Also when you see your download speed just spike up it's probably someone with a fat connection like me uploading to you. (Yes, I am bragging)

About the capping upload to get more download. That will work with things like ADSL where some of the upload and download channels overlap. On an SDSL connection you should have full duplex ability, meaing download should not affect your upload and vice versa. But again, it's important to note, that freeing up bandwidth for download is not going to magically make others be able to send faster.

For those with cable try a program called DocsDiag. It will tell you what your cable modem is really capped at. Forget those websites, they are always wrong. I can garuntee you that Rogers, or Cox, or Time Warner, or Adeplphia or whoever is not giving you a fractional T1 or a full T1 for 50 bucks a month. Don't trust what Windows tells you you're downloading at either. A full T1 is 192 kilobytes a second. If you're cable is capped at 300k, thats 300,000 BITS, not BYTES. Converted to kilobytes you're cable is really good for 36 kilobytes a second. Why Windows will gladly report you are downloading at 200KB a second, I have no freaking clue.

Whew, wordy. My bad.

[--Pete]

Hi,

First, cable speeds vary. Using this benchmark, I get downloads in the 1 to 2 Mbps (comparable to a T1) and uploads of 240 kbps (capped by the cable company so that people won't run servers from home). Based on the actual download times of files, I think that the benchmark is about right.

"Bit Torrent works great when the file is first seeded and downloaded by the masses because even though you are getting meager downloads from others, there is so many other people uploading to you it creates the illusion of having good download speed. If you are late to the game and try and get the huge files a couple days later you're going to suffer because there is only a few other downloading the same file simuletaneously and therefore less people to upload to you."

Might be true, all I've got to go on is this one impression. I downloaded the file to my computer the morning after it was released. Took forever, two retries, and the rate was all over the map. Downloaded it to my wifes computer four or five days later. It came in on one try, took less than three hours.

Proving once again that any statement about networking is wrong most of the time ;)

--Pete

[Drasca]

Might be true, all I've got to go on is this one impression.  I downloaded the file to my computer the morning after it was released.  Took forever, two retries, and the rate was all over the map.  Downloaded it to my wifes computer four or five days later.  It came in on one try, took less than three hours.

Proving once again that any statement about networking is wrong most of the time ;)

--Pete

This table in the link* here is fairly typical of the Bit Torrent system, its flaws and strengths. Note it is live updated data. There are more "leechers" that simply download than "seeders" which distribute the file. The files are listed chronologically with top lists. Newer files have people distributing, while old ones can be completely abandoned. Once you're beyond the critical mass of waves of people on the same file, and lose everyone with 100% file distributing, the game's over and the BT system fails to work well. No one is a dedicated server forever. The seeded files do get taken down.

With WoW beta, I presume blizzard has a server with limited bandwidth constantly seeding the files, and there are enough people for an interesting ride flocking toward download during peak hours and renewed every so often. You lucked out on your wife's comp. I can't predict when people come online to use BT though, just demonstrate trends like in the link above.

*Edit note: Scroll down a bit for the actual table.