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Old 12/26/06, 11:24 AM   #1
Dianora
Glass Joe
 
Human Paladin
 
Korgath
Having only downloaded 11mb in 8 hours, I decided to see whether there's a way I can not use Blizzard's downloader. I look at the \World of Warcraft\logs\BackgroundDownload.log file and find where it is getting it's torrent file, and finds this:

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# System started at 2006-12-26 12:43:06.8180
# system: (your host name)
#-----------------------------------------------------------
12:43:06.8340 Checking for background download http://12.129.232.130/background/WoW...-BKGND.torrent
12:43:06.8340 Checking download of http://12.129.232.130/background/WoW...-BKGND.torrent
You can just enter that URL into your favorite bittorent client and download. I don't guarentee it'll be any faster, but it is different.


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Old 12/26/06, 11:40 AM   #2
spronk
Don Flamenco
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Blackrock
The torrent file is actually inside the Cache directory in your WoW folder, so you can just open that up.

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Old 12/26/06, 12:17 PM   #3
Ngoni
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Priest
 
Dragonblight
Or you could follow the directions here: http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww0819p

Blizzard uses some non-standard ports you have to open up on your firewall. I've never had a problem since.

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Old 12/26/06, 12:28 PM   #4
Jeht
Von Kaiser
 
Tauren Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
I generally grab the patches from www.3dgamers.com, which is one of the faster "queued" servers. Seems most people still think fileplanet/fileshack for their patch downloading, so the lines on 3dgamers are usually pretty short.

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Old 12/26/06, 12:44 PM   #5
Wodahs
Don Flamenco
 
Human Rogue
 
Lightbringer
Well, the background downloader throttles your incoming and outgoing to a very very low amount. This is BY DESIGN, and is the result of Blizz's consumer base whining incessantly to blizz. If you just want to cownload the upcoming patch data quick, go to your cache folder, and run the torrent file in there with whatever bittorrent client you want, and appreciated fast, unthrottled speeds. But dont get annoyed with blizz that the trickle downloader is too slow, when they made it slow for a reason.

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Old 12/26/06, 12:52 PM   #6
Dianora
Glass Joe
 
Human Paladin
 
Korgath
Originally Posted by Wodahs
Well, the background downloader throttles your incoming and outgoing to a very very low amount. This is BY DESIGN, and is the result of Blizz's consumer base whining incessantly to blizz. If you just want to cownload the upcoming patch data quick, go to your cache folder, and run the torrent file in there with whatever bittorrent client you want, and appreciated fast, unthrottled speeds. But dont get annoyed with blizz that the trickle downloader is too slow, when they made it slow for a reason.
Yep. I run my download when I sleep or when I'm @ work. At that time, I usually don't care how much of my bandwidth the download is taking. I already download more in 1 hour with Azureus than with 8 hours worth of Blizzard downloader.


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Old 12/26/06, 1:50 PM   #7
Eej
Soda Popinski
 
Eej's Avatar
 
Eej
Troll Hunter
 
No WoW Account
Just popped it into uTorrent just for kicks, download completed in 20 minutes. Why leave that silly downloader on for weeks when you can just download it in a tiny fraction of that time? I still don't see why they limited the speed on the background downloader, ah well, more peers for me to leech from I guess.

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Old 12/26/06, 3:27 PM   #8
vespera
Glass Joe
 
Human Warlock
 
Hellscream
Originally Posted by Wodahs
Well, the background downloader throttles your incoming and outgoing to a very very low amount. This is BY DESIGN, and is the result of Blizz's consumer base whining incessantly to blizz.
I found this to be completely opposite of my experience. The Blizzard Downloader is a barebones bittorrent client, lacking in any throttling abilities (upload or download). When downloading the PTR data, the client consumed almost all of my bandwidth, with approx 65% devoted to upload. Other computers on my home network were unable to use the internet at all.

One of the main reasons behind using a different bittorrent client is the ability to fine tune the bandwidth usage.

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Old 12/26/06, 4:09 PM   #9
Wodahs
Don Flamenco
 
Human Rogue
 
Lightbringer
Vesp, your right, but not on precaching the patch. The downloader in question right now, is used for precaching the patch data, and therefore is throttled at very low numbers. I average 3k up/down with it. This is designed to run while your logged in and playing. The PTR client, or the patch, when its released will not be throttled, and will use all of your upload you have, while squeezing as much download as possible.

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Old 12/26/06, 5:55 PM   #10
crimsonsentinel
Bald Bull
 
crimsonsentinel's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Mal'Ganis
The design of it is that if you weren't aware that there was a background downloader, it would magically appear as if the patch has come onto your computer on patch day. That's why they have downloads starting weeks before the scheduled patch.

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Old 12/27/06, 6:26 AM   #11
Kink
King Hippo
 
Tauren Druid
 
Outland (EU)
It downloads/uploads very slowly so it can run in the background. Hence the name :Background Downloader".

The idea is that it takes a week or two to finish DLing the file, but you never notice the download as it only uses a tiny amount of your bandwidth.

Now, having said that I still download damn slow on patch day when its no longer a "background downloader" so I just find a mirror and DL my patches there =).

I will definately try to use my standard bitorrent client next time, also be a nice thing as I only need to open the one range of ports and not two.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.

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