Can I install World of Warcraft from a disc?
I live in a pretty rural area so the only way we can get internet besides dial up is with a Verizon Hotspot. The only problem is that it has a data plan on it (we only have 30 gigs) and they do not offer unlimited usage.
So I went to Walmart last night and picked up the World Of Warcraft Battle Chest 5 because it came with the install discs. When I got home and I popped in the first CD all it did was open Battle.net and started downloading the whole 25 gigabyte game.
What is the point of having two install discs if all it does is direct me to have it download it. I understand that the game is patched a lot but there is no way that it has had 25 gigs of updates since Mists of Pandaria.
Is there a way to install through the disks that I am missing or do I have to download the game?
Best Answer
Yes you do have to download it all. Even if you don't buy the latest expansion it will make you download everything, even if it won't let you see it in game. I know that they upgraded the visuals in WOD so it may be worse than usual now. The expansions in order are:
- Vanilla
- Burning Crusade
- Wrath of the Lich King
- Cataclysm
- Mists of Pandaria
- Warlords of Draenor
At 5 GB per DVD 25 GB would be at least 5 discs, are there that many in your war chest?
You could always do what I did and take your computer to a faster, unlimited connection.
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Do World of Warcraft discs still work?
The client for Classic is built on the legion client. So the old client (from the CDs) no longer works. It can't even patch up to date anymore. You'll have to digital download.Do I need a disk to play WoW?
To answer the title: No, the game is just a client. The keys are tied to your battle.net account. The game can be freely downloaded from your battle.net page.How do I install a game from a disc?
Insert your game disc into your computer's disc drive. Click Install on the game installation pop-up window. Follow any prompts to install your game.How do I install World of Warcraft?
How to Download and Install World of WarcraftDownloading And Installing World of Warcraft
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Answer 2
There are several issues with the Battle Chest CDs.
- The CDs only included content from vanilla WoW and (in later boxes) Burning Crusade, the first expansion.
- At the start of Cataclysm the game launcher was replaced with a completely new version.
- During Mists the game launcher was replaced again with the Battle.net Desktop App.
- At the start of Warlords, the on-disk format that the game data is stored in was changed.
All of this means that, even though you may have some of the necessary data on the CDs, almost none of it is usable with the game as it exists today. All the old CDs can do now is to download the current installer and then install the full game from the network. (And of course the box also provides a key which activates your account and gives you 30 days of game time.)
Your best bet is to download the game from another location with better Internet access. You can transfer the game data onto an external hard drive or USB stick and take it home.
Answer 3
I haven't tried it since WoD, but the game files used to be completely portable.
Given that is still the case, you could:
- Start the download. Up until the point where the downloader creates the WoW folder and starts downloading.
- Stop the download, but not remove the folder from your file system.
- Go to a friend, copy his WoW folder onto a USB stick
- Copy that in your WoW folder on your pc.
- Start up Battle.net again. It might have to do some checks etc, but it should prevent any downloading (other than the odd bugfix).
That's how we used to do it every time a friend would start playing (again).
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