Since this is their first expansion, you have to give Blizzard some slack. After all, unlike the famous Kunark incident, they actually had product for sale. (Ask your long time EQ playing friends about how Sony forgot to make enough product to fulfill their preorders, much less people wandering in off the street. What a kneeslapper)
However, just because you have product out there, and paid your $39.99 (or $69.99 if you want a little dragon pet), that does not mean you get entrance to said product. See, we’re having some slight techincal issues…
There’s quite a few, many of which will cause the much questioned lack of digital download question to be thrown around a lot in the next few months. From the issues of upgrade keys that don’t work, to their patcher having to repatch 3 patches back and then sticking at 72% (whoops, that whole get-content-out-early thing didn’t work out so well, huh?), to scads of actual damaged disks fresh out of the box…it’s not really going well. Myself, I have the near-legendary Error 4 problem, where every time WoW starts, it feels another file isn’t working. There’s a player workaround up, but since it actually makes things worse for most people, I’ll not point you in that direction. I used it, and now my main character is lost in space somewhere. It’s probably for the best, since my server has been down 6 times tonight anyway.
Blizzard recommends people having file issues run their repair tool. However, said tool will actually refuse to fix anything, and recommends you reinstall. There is no true way to deinstall BC without random deletion, and the Blizz reps are suggesting full reinstalls. The pain of that makes me cringe, considering how slow the current patch dribbles in. The thought of having to DL a half dozen of these gives me the screaming willies. I really hope they can fix it sooner than later, and I’m glad I’m not one of the people who expected to be 70 by now (reports of several 64’s were on the boards by lunch, and before I got lost in the twisting nether, there were at least 7 63’s on my server), as I’d have to post on the boards in full angst. As it is, I’m upset I can’t get in nor get support, especially with so many other people having the same issues. Blizzard learned one Kunark lesson, but missed all the others.
Pre-post edit: This posting had lots of linkage, however by the time I went to preview, half the threads have been nuked off the boards. I understand nuking the flaming ones, but Blizz CS is also nuking ones with actual issues, which is silly, really. Every time you delete a thread, you get a few back asking where it went…
Hi,
I’m sorry to hear so many having problems.
I received my pack from Amazon.co.uk as promised yesterday morning and installed the four disks in less than 30 mins. The disks went in very quick, but the setup needed to re-install the last two patches again.
I don’t have any Add-Ons at the moment, so perhaps that made it easier.
I took one of my 60’s to Shattrath City and created a new BE char. No problems with either.
Same here – for me, the transition went smooth, with no real problems whatsoever. i did expect worse, to be honest.
Good luck to you – hope you can enjoy BC soon :)
I was playing about 20 minutes after I bought my copy of the game. I used a mirror site to get the patch and had no problems with my installation CDs. I am hearing of some problems where people hit the OK button very quickly between installation CDs which causes a freeze.
I was up and playing in maybe 20 minutes. I play on Alleria and was fine until the local server time hit 6:30… then things went south. I guess it was everyone coming home from work. My wife and I couldn’t get ten feet w/out the server dropping hard.
My brother was 64 last night and probably 65 now.
For me it was a very smooth expansion. Compared to EoF, where I had no technical problems, yet could not play the first night because the patcher needed to run for 14 hours, it was astounding.
Got the expansion on the 16th, did not install it right away because I feared problems, went raiding with the guild.
Raid ended at 11:30pm at which time server messages began calling for players to disconnect / reconnect to activate BC.
I disconnected then, installed BC without any problem, reconnected at 11:50 with BC, went to the portal. Disconnected as told at midnight, reconnected right away, went through the portal and began questing.
Not a single trace of a problem.