To WOW or not to WOW

[janestarz]

Ever since last Thursday I've been preparing for the presentation I'm supposed to give Thursday next (Nov 5). I've been trying to install games, several of which have been a royal pain in the ass, others have been more than forthcoming.

Sunday afternoon Keffie came over to help me. He'd already offered me his login and password to use so that I could use his account. We logged in on the World of Warcraft Europe website and found the link 'Download a client'. I downloaded the pc version, a .exe, which then proceeded to download more stuff from the internet. Once everything was downloaded I could read the license agreement. If I would get to the bottom of the page, the agree button would be available, the program promised.
But it didn't happen.

They say that third time's a charm, so we tried again and again, but scrolling down wasn't the problem. The problem was that the agree button stayed greyed out time and again, no matter how often we scrolled up and down the license agreement.
So it was 'not to WOW'.

Stubborn as I was, I decided to go for the 10-day trial. It would look less professional, but perhaps it would work better under Wine than the client. I downloaded the trail executable and typed into my Konsole "wine TryWow.exe".
Lo' and behold, it was a different version. The license agreement was now displayed in a lovely blue skinned box, and there was a tick box to say you agreed to the terms. Lovely! Ticked the box, and started up the installation. The program downloaded more program parts from the internet and started installing.
Perhaps it would be 'to WOW' after all!

Several hours later, Keffie went home and the installer still wasn't done. *sigh* He'd said it would take long, but before he stepped outside he said if it wasn't done by now, it might not be doing anything any more. In the end I quit the installer and resigned to 'not to WOW'.
However, when I ran the TryWow.exe again, suddenly it seemed it had been done installing after all! Yay!
We made an account and got to the character creation panel. But even though our internet is fast, the program was really slow. Perhaps the buggy network card was acting up, or maybe Wine was being problematic. I got fed up with waiting for the results for a mouseclick, and quit Wow. But it was 'to WOW'! Huzzah!

Last night I tried again, right after dinner. Star Trek Voyager was still playing in the background, and I booted up the Sogeti laptop and WOW under Wine, and tried again. Initially I wanted to go for a gnome sorceror but I disliked him being bald. In the end I settled for a dwarf rogue named Wigbolt Ribberdie (which didn't fit into the name field) with fierce black braided mustaches.
Great, set me up! I clicked to connect, and there... off goes WOW into downloading, installing and whatnot since it was my first time connecting and playing World of Warcraft. This was getting old.

And what was worse: half-way through the installation/downloading process, the installer quit because it is missing one whole file. I don't recall which file, but it was missing and nothing would do but to have it. I tried re-initiating everything (luckily my character had been saved! I now understand why people get so upset when they're killed. It does take three hours to make one!) but to no avail. WOW was missing a file and it wouldn't continue.
I fear it is, and will remain 'not to WOW'.

Too bad I only have Settlers IV installed on that laptop for now, but at least I can fix that while I get to Vianen. Installing games from a cd will only take half an hour and I don't require internet for that.
And I've got a great story to tell during my presentation. Too bad I can't focus solely on the woes of installing games on linux.

I must say: the entire experience has been gruelling and it's not something I'd like to repeat doing any time soon. It will be difficult enough staying positive while talking about games on Linux, because the bad so far outweighs the good. So much has gone wrong, needed tweaking, or other things that I haven't had any time to enjoy these refound games (Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 for example!).
But I think I'll steer well clear of World of Warcraft. No game is worth this. 'Not to WOW'.

Comments

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, installing MMO games is often as difficult as this. I remember how the LotRO installer told me that is was 80% of complete after four hours, and then continued to go up to 1000% and then back down again to -300% and then it was finally done. I can imagine WoW not being totally compatible for Linux: it's an awfully bulky game with loads of add-ons and expansions. Other games should be less messy, though.

[aroka.livejournal.com]

For WoW, the easiest way to install it is just by not installing it at all. Copy the entire already installed directory tree from anybody else, and run wine wow.exe - works like a charm. :)

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

I can never get my hands on someone's already installed directory before Thursday, and even if I do I'll never get to test it. I've got Rapalje tonight, D&D tomorrownight and two and a half days of working before I have to give the presentation.

It's just not going to happen and I am really not heartbroken over it. Besides, what kind of message would it send to the people listening to my presentation?

[aroka.livejournal.com]

Oh that you're doing the smart thing ;)

Note that directly copying an installation is in this case not illegal: you have to buy & pay for the active account, and without that the installation is useless anyway.

But you're right, it's a little too late to fix this now.

[woran.livejournal.com]

I agree with Ork. Even under windows, re-installing it is a pain. I just copy/paste it, and then run the WoW repair tool to make it all smooth again.

But yeah, its frustrating. I remember when I first installed WoW and it proceeded to download all those patches. Not fun when you want to play.

[holyvirus.livejournal.com]

That's so annoying when you almost there and then it doesn't work in the end. Feels so waisted.

This makes me so glad I played WOW from the very start. No annoying patches or downloads back then, although the installer was always bitching my networkdrivers where too old. Makes me shivers to install it again on windows o_0'(*cough* Vista 64 *cough*. )

[elentirtindomeo.livejournal.com]

I still find it very brave to make an attempt running high standard games under Linux. I still have dual boot Vista/Ubuntu 9.10 to save me most of the frustration. Wine has let me down too many times in the past :(.