HUGE Upate/download

It's Tuesday, August 14, and I gust started what looks like a 7 gig download.

I smell another stress test coming,...

CORRECTION: It looks more like half a gig now.

I cant imagine that they are going to have us use the same client for official launch as we have been for beta would they?

I have been wondering about that over the past few weeks. The beta client they wanted us to install outside of the C drive so it doesnt really seem like it is installed in the correct place for a full game launch. Sure hope they release the client early so we can pre-download.

Actually, no. The game did not want us to install outside the C: drive; it wanted us to install outside the download directory. Mine client has been running from C:\Guild Wars 2 since BWE1.

There is no need for an "install routine" under Microsoft operating systems, install routines access (among other things) the registry which allows a given software to be linked to .dlls and user files in a variable way. Using Windows registry allows software developers to skip that portion of their software and allow Windows to handle it as it does for everyone elses software. It also provides limited piracy protections. Guild Wars 2 does not need these services, they have written into their software the ability to variably locate stuff like screens and ohter user files, keeping that information in a dedicated .dat fil along with key-binds and so-forth. This also lets other systems like unix (with no registry) attempt to play the game, increasing the player-base.

I would not be surprised if the existing client survives launch. Account authentication (complete piracy prevention) is accomplished along with al the flexibility the game software requires. If you want to move your client to the c: drive, you can. I don't know if a simple cut-and-paste wil do the job, but if you run the downloadable client from a c: location until you finish configuring your account variables and begin the huge file download, you will then be able to stop the client and cut and paste the files that support the client to the new location andyou are done. I did it that way myself.

Good to know. I must have missed that part. I will surely do that rather than having my entire GW2 folder residing on my desktop.