WotLK will only be available on DVD
by Eliah Hecht 
Sep 24th 2008 at 1:00PM
We discovered a little while back that Wrath was going to ship on DVD in both the collector's edition and the regular edition. This is great news for anyone with a DVD drive in their computer, because swapping discs is annoying. However, I'm sure there are still a few people playing WoW that don't have DVD drives; its system requirements are, after all, very forgiving. We haven't had any solid information thus far on whether the expansion will ship or be available on CD as well, like the BC collector's edition.
It turns out the answer to that is no; Vaneras states quite clearly that WotLK will "only be available on DVDs, not CDs," for both the regular and the collector's edition. This implies that those of you who don't have DVD drives may well be out of luck on launch day. I say "on launch day" because I'm assuming the expansion will be available for digital download eventually, as both classic WoW and BC are. However, it may not happen right away; the digital download for BC didn't become available until about two weeks after launch.
Now I'm curious: how many of you are going to be affected by this?
Filed under: Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
j10jep Sep 24th 2008 1:05PM
Hahaha, first "Yes" vote represent!
Matt Sep 24th 2008 1:07PM
Glad its just going to be available on DVD's. The game has to progress, cant keep limiting progress because some players have old hardware.
Damntheman Sep 24th 2008 1:30PM
WTF, but it's still coming out on floppy right!!!!!1111one!111!!1eleven
Jane Gray Sep 24th 2008 3:20PM
Where are the people complaining that installing BC using discs just doesn't work that well? I've had two different copies of wow fail at 98%, only to have the regular internet installation work fine.
I'd say the future should lean towards all internet installation anyway. I'll be upset if the internet install isn't available early on.
Kaelistes Sep 24th 2008 1:11PM
The laptop I use has a dvd drive, but I am actually building up a new gaming machine before Wrath comes out. If you dont have a dvd drive you really should consider upgrading your system.
Askawarlock Sep 24th 2008 1:08PM
I've got a dvd drive, but my girlfriend doesn't.
John Sep 24th 2008 1:13PM
Just share your DVD drive and map it from your GF's computer for the install.
Keyra Sep 24th 2008 6:11PM
That sounded kinda...erotic in a creepy way.
Adaroit Sep 25th 2008 4:52AM
Get a new girlfriend
Saelorn Sep 24th 2008 1:09PM
I guess you need to cut production costs if you want to make a profit. Lets hope that it becomes available for download after not too great of a delay.
tkc Sep 24th 2008 1:11PM
DVD drives are dirt cheap. They are super easy to install. If you don't have a DVD drive then now would be the time to get one.
Taedirk Sep 24th 2008 1:15PM
This. I paid $30 for a decent DVD-R *burner* over a year ago. If you're going to spend $40-70 on a box plus the $15/mo on the subscription, you can shell out enough to upgrade to current *millennial* technology.
emptyrepublic Sep 24th 2008 1:28PM
If someone really and truly complains about having to get a DVD drive I'll be shocked. Given how cheap and plentiful DVD drives are now there is no excuse to be paying nearly $200/year in subscription fees and then complain that Blizzard is "forcing" you to upgrade.
Eternalpayn Sep 24th 2008 8:20PM
Yeah I picked one up on sale for 20 bucks a few months ago to play Battlefield 2, because I realized it had been sitting by my computer for almost a year and a half.
SeiferTim Sep 24th 2008 1:10PM
I voted "yes", although it's a little misleading - I have 3 computers that I will be installing WotLK on - 2 of which have DVD drives, one of which has no disk drives at all (I swapped them out for more Hard drives, instead), but it won't take more than 20 minutes to make an image of the DVD and get it installed on all 3 computers simultaneously (separate keys, of course).
Jaynitan Sep 24th 2008 2:09PM
If you have 3 comps i assume you have a network, wireless or otherwise. You cna just cut the time of coping a dvd image and all that and share the DVD drive of one on the network and install from there.
A few years back my wife's comp cd/dvd drive wasn't working so I did that to install TBC. After disk one though you couldn;t continue because of the whole insert #2 and press start. . . the non drive comp didn't recognize that i had installed dis two. . .Maybe if I had edited the BIOS i coulda worked around it. .. but I opied the entire WOW folder and pasted it onto her comp and WOW worked fine,, just took an hour to xfer
Arvenis Sep 24th 2008 1:12PM
Come on, a DVD drive costs about 45 cents now and you can get a DVD burner for $1.95. It's not like they're making it so you have to buy a $200 video card just to play the game.
timmy Sep 24th 2008 1:13PM
You can also buy an external DVD drive that you plug into a usb port. =)
Keyra Sep 24th 2008 6:13PM
Just make certain that it's USB 2.0 compliant (on both ends) or you're asking for file corruption.
wondering Sep 24th 2008 1:23PM
Won't the game be available for download as well?
Maybe not the CE edition, but i think the standard one will. That would at least solve the problem if you don't have a DVD drive. Requires internet connection though, wich i would presume anyone who wanted to play WOW have.