The reason why they don't do the download that way is to save on bandwidth, especially with trial accounts. Most new accounts will never pay for the game, and hence never get past the starting areas. For them to download Mooshu would just be a waste of bandwidth, both on KingsIsle's end, and slowing down the player wanting to play the game.
It doesn't work as well for players who switch from one computer to another, though. It would be nice to be able to download everything you have a key to all at once.
It's killing me on dialup. It initially took about 10 days of 12 hour downloads, only to find out I hadn't downloaded everything. After 3 to 4 more days I got into the trial. I subscribed and later encountered a 2 day download for firecat alley and some other things.
Whew I think...done at last.
Then I make level 12 and while doing some quests I get access to another level...I was lucky and was able to get access to broadband while out of town. I copy my C:\ProgramFiles\KingsIsle folder to a jumpdrive, and copy that to a second PC. I then let that update.
Whew I think...done at last.
I gain access to another level today...I just want to scream. The downloading begins again. I have a choice of another week or 2 of downloading for this area...or wait about a month or so before I'll have the chance to go out of town again.
They could do this better.
1. Provide a serial/product key that you get for subscribing. You can then use this to enter when clicking on the download link to get a full download option.
2. Provide the option to buy a CD or DVD for crying out loud.
3. Warn people before they subscribe.
I've played and subscribed to lots of games in the past. This is the only one that I've had that didn't allow the option to download everything.
A zipped download link would help this problem very, very much. Just click to download ALL areas and then the only time you will have to wait for the download is when things are updated. At which point they could update the zip file. It took ~3 hours for me to download enough to get to WC when I tried to look at GH and I do have broadband. Of course, I also have 4 other people in my house trying to do the same thing. lol.
- Logging into this site discerns whether the user is a subscriber or not; subscribers can have the distributable, or full, download option.
- Use P2P protocols; the community will download off of the community (WoW does this).
- Mirror sites: there are plenty of gaming sites which provide download services to users (fileplanet, gamershell, etc.).
The bottom two options provide multiple download sources...good for speed. I have a 20Mbit connection (29ms ping to Austin, presumably where the servers are) and the Marleybone download still took 20+ minutes. (In the middle of my game, I went to port to someone who asked for help and couldn't due to the long download.)
While there is no Master Download available at the moment there is still a work around for those of us you like to re-formate their computer now and then.
Here's what i did:
1) Before you re-formate, copy your whole KingsIsle file to an USB stick, or DVD or whatever medium you prefer.
2) Re-formate
3) Run the install of the core game until you would be able to log in again. (this must be done for a proper registry entry)
4) Close Wizard101
5) Copy the saved file your made earlier over the newly installed core game.
