Wrath downloadable on release day after all? [Updated]
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 7th 2008 at 4:00AM
Yesterday I reported that according to Claudiog Wrath of the Lich King would not be immediately available for digital download. An interesting thing has shown up on the European forums tonight that is worthy of bringing this topic back up.Lyonthri posts in German that Wrath of the Lich King will be available for download next Thursday.
I'm scratching my head here too. This was brought to my attention a short time ago, and has since showed up on MMO-Champion as well. So something is definitely up. We're paying attention to the Customer Service Forums tonight in hope of getting some more clarification from Blizzard.
The full German text of Lyonthri's post, along with a Google translation, appears after the break.
Update 4:40 a.m. EST: Claudiog has clarified his earlier point that he said there should be no expectation of a digital download being available on release day, not that there would not be one.
Updated 3:17 p.m. EST: Lyonthri has since updated his post informing us that he is not saying there will be a digital download available on release. He apparently misspoke.
German version:
Hallo zusammen,
ein kleines Update an dieser Stelle: Die Downloadversion von Wrath of the Lich King wird am Release-Tag zur Verfügung stehen.
Gruß, Lyonthri
ein kleines Update an dieser Stelle: Die Downloadversion von Wrath of the Lich King wird am Release-Tag zur Verfügung stehen.
Gruß, Lyonthri
Google translated English version:
Hello,
A small update at this point: The downloadable version of Wrath of the Lich King will be available on release day.
A small update at this point: The downloadable version of Wrath of the Lich King will be available on release day.
Filed under: News items, Wrath of the Lich King
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Fenom Nov 7th 2008 4:13AM
i took some german in hight school, not good at it by any stretch of the imagination, but that looks right
Eisenglut Nov 7th 2008 4:15AM
translation is pretty on spot.
kv83 Nov 7th 2008 4:14AM
The translation is more or less correct :)
But then again, this might just be for the german clients... there are far more people downloading a enUS or enGB client than a german client I guess
toxicavenger Nov 7th 2008 4:15AM
not german, but I have been stationed over here for almost 5 years. In my broken german, google translation is pretty damn good!
Sunfire Nov 7th 2008 4:18AM
I'm a German player playing on an english realm.
The translation is correct, it's not a beautiful translation, but it's accurate ;)
And for the EU, all clients are treated equally usually, meaning if the deDE-client will be available for download so will the enGB, frFR and (at least) the spanish one. If this will include the russian I can only speculate.
Tarjin Nov 7th 2008 4:20AM
Translation is fine...
What is going on? :o
Halon Nov 12th 2008 1:52PM
Translation is correct.
Actually, to be super-correct, the greeting could be translated as "Hi everybody, ..." but never mind ;-)
Fedya Nov 7th 2008 4:29AM
My guessing is that everyone who have EU account will be able to DL the game, but we on US won't.
I guess Blizz have some agreement with resellers not to offer it for download in US so they can sell more copies.
Rugus Nov 7th 2008 5:16AM
That would show some EU-customers love, finally....
Gormaggus Nov 7th 2008 4:34AM
Yep, correct, although as halon said it does say "hello everyone" xD.
Angry Joe Nov 7th 2008 4:35AM
By a blue:
"There have been no announcements made regarding the digital download release of Wrath of the Lich King (including my own). My statement simply declared there should be no expectation for it to be available on launch day. No expectation =/= "Unavailable"
My statement was made so that in order to ensure the installation of the game on launch day it is best to have a physical copy of the game in your hands. Nothing more. =)
For all information regarding the release of any of our products I would urge you to wait for announcements made by our PR or Marketing departments. "
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12357687464&sid=1&pageNo=2
Adam Holisky Nov 7th 2008 4:42AM
Many thanks Angry Joe!
Updated the post to reflect this information.
Fantômas Nov 11th 2008 2:52AM
Great news, I'd much rather download it.
In this day and age, making the expansion available through the interet seems like a more customer friendly choice.
Good work Blizzard, I'm sure you'll also save tons on packaging & shipping costs.
Pocketwar Nov 7th 2008 4:42AM
I hope so! Im from brazil and we dont have any stores selling Wotlk here.
Tenchan Nov 7th 2008 4:41AM
Man, I sure hope so. Thanks to Amazon refusing to deliver and GameStop refusing to have common sense, I had to let an American friend order the game for me, and I'd hate to burden her with the crazy international shipping prices in the USA just so I can play before Christmas.
Ed (Sindarin, Hydraxis US) Nov 7th 2008 8:15AM
I have exactly the same problem as you, so I really hope that Blizzard does this.
It would make sense account security wise, as I'm sure that many (Including me) will be tempted to download an unofficial torrent of it, which could contain anything.
Ben Nov 7th 2008 4:46AM
I so hope this is true because then we can use this as ammo.
Also, can we please stop promoting the idea that many people downloading the client would somehow kill the internet? Blizz uses bittorrent for their downloads, thus distributing the network load over the many users connections.
The proof is in the patches to WoW which also use this method and whaddaya know: the internet - she lives! If you require further proof, millions of people download Heroes every week and the internet doesn't even burp.
Ben Nov 7th 2008 4:50AM
It's less than a week until release - when do they think is a good time to let us know?
Rene Nov 7th 2008 4:52AM
As others pointed out, the translation is fine.
I think this is very promising. I myself have the "problem" (if you want to call it that way) that I am German, living in Germany, but I only play with the English (enGB) version on English speaking realms. I wanted to buy the expansion in Germany though and was a little worried that it may contain only the German client (which would not only force me into playing the game in German again, but also to reinstall everything). I was actually thinking about buying it not on release day but waiting for a downloadable English client.
I really hope this is true then (if the German client is available on release day, so will all the other European clients).
Shandrilessa Nov 7th 2008 5:45AM
As a matter of fact this is untrue, from what I've read up see: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/faq.xml#2_1
The EU version of WotLK seems to ship as a multi-language edition, so even if you bought the german version as in deDE you will still have enGB, esES and frFR language versions on the same medium (DVD). Which results in that if you have the enGB client installed it'll install WotLK enGB then.