Blizzard
As
previously announced, the Warlords of Draenor 6.0.2 pre-patch marks our transition to the new “Content Addressable Storage Container” (CASC) file format system. This transition is an automatic process that will occur through the Battle.net desktop app as it installs Patch 6.0.2. While it shouldn’t require any action on your part, we have a few notes on the process that can help ensure a smooth install.
- By default your Battle.net desktop app is set to download future patch data automatically. If you’ve turned yours off we recommend re-enabling it to download the 6.0.2 patch data. It’s a pretty big patch, and starting now will save you precious Iron Horde-killing time on Tuesday. Your background download settings are configurable per-game, and you can also adjust things like download speed, among other settings.
- There will be one small final patch on 6.0.2 release-day that will include the last few files to install the patch. Right now we’re expecting it to be around 100MB.
- If you’re one to leave your computer on and Battle.net desktop app running, on the morning of the patch release the install and conversion to CASC will happen automatically.
- Hard drive fragmentation can slow down just about anything you do on your computer, but especially when a program needs to move around large data files, like this patch and conversion process will need to. If you haven’t defragged your hard drive in a while, we recommend looking into it as a possible install-time saving preparation step. Note that defrags aren't typically necessary or recommended if using an SSD.
- If you’re coming back to the game and looking to reinstall from scratch, be aware that all game discs out in the world are printed using the old MPQ file format. That means that if you attempt to install from those discs after 6.0.2, the Battle.net desktop app will instead install by downloading the game. That’s of course not necessarily a bad thing, especially because downloading can actually sometimes be faster than a disc install. Discs being printed for Warlords of Draenor, and for future “Battle Chests”, will be printed in the CASC format and they’ll be able to be used to install from as before.
While we've tried to ensure as speedy a conversion as possible by using most of your existing game data, this is a complex process, and depending on your hardware, hard drive fragmentation and free space, among other factors, this still may take a bit of time to complete. We hope some of these hints help cut that down even further.
Curious about CASC - can we expect the total HD space used by WoW to go down as a result of this new file format, or will it stay about the same?
