Hi guys!
Don't know if any of you have noticed but I'm the guy that likes to write installation guides and FAQS on the various PTR's we've had. At least on wow interface that is
I've got quite a bit on my plate at the moment so I'm not sure when I will be able to sit down and whack up a proper grand ole super thread on installing the beta client , an FAQ on it , commons problems and solutions.
I haven't been around on beta since the beginning so I'm not sure what tech solutions actually work and what won't.
What I can offer you is a small quick guide , followed by a few observations based on what I did for my installation as well as a few tips for installing here and there. At least from the perspective of someone playing on a Mac.
First off once you get your key go to either us.battle.net or eu.battle.net login and go to "Add or Upgrade Game". Here you put in your beta code.
Once you do so you will have an extra "Box" under your games with a red Deathwing face going "Oh Hi". Click on that box (it may have WOW2(PTR) or WOW1(PTR) under it). This will take you to another page especially for the Cataclysm beta.
This is your account page for the Cataclysm beta. This is where you can download the client as well as copy a character over.
Secondly and this is very important (i'll even put it in bold).
Taking part in the beta requires a lot of patience especially in the installation stage. Installing the beta requires you download over 2.5 GB - 4 GBIsh of data (*). If you're not prepared at the outset to download that much data , have things crash on you and the possibility that you may have to redo some steps maybe beta is not for you.
I'm not being mean here I'm being realistic. There is a large amount of data to download and sometimes things can go wrong. Patience is a virtue
Ok back to the guidish :
Installing the client is a weeee bit complicated. If you've done other 3.x PTRs you should be able to muddle through just fine it's just that parts aren't immediately obvious
WOW_Cataclysm_Beta_enUS.zip is the first thing you download. Unzip it and you get a Downloader program with a blue Swirly logo. This kinda throw me for a loop at first as the PTRs didn't quote work this way.Personally I throw the zip file into a new folder "Cat Beta Installer" and ran everything from there.
Running the Downloader (either Downloader.app or Downloader.exe) it will ask you for a place to put the actually installer. For simplicty sake I just chose my "Cat Beta Installer". This will download some more installer files - a streaming installer to install 4.0.0.11927.
Streaming means it will be downloading and installing at the same time. There will be 2 bars - one showing you how much has been downloaded , the other showing how much you have installed so far. Now is the long wait for it to download around 2.2GB . The exact size of it can be found using a method I'll go into for the technically minded at the end of this post.
So you download and install that. What this does is install a base level of Cataclysm. Since there has been other builds pushed out to the beta as they work things out you will now need to download those as well. One by one by the Launcher looping again and again. So the installation process will repeat itself until it's at the latest build.
This is normal.
So you should now have a folder on your hard drive , in the Applications folder if on the Mac , in your Program files on Windows (unless of course you've put it somewhere else). Open the launcher program inside there.
This will trigger the launcher which will check if you are at the latest build or not. If not it will start to download it. Once the downloading has hit "10%" the Downloader button on the right becomes active. Using that you can check on how fast it is going , how many peers etc from the menu within the downloader. Once done downloading you should be able to go back to the Launcher and click the Updater button. It will install it then check if there's something else to download.
It's going to loop , loop , loop until Mr Launcher is satisfied that you are at the current build. Finding out what build that is should be fairly simple - just go to one of the fansites that put out information about the various builds and take the number of the latest one. For example on worldofraids.com the latest thread is talking about "Cataclysm Beta: Build 12479" from yesterday. The patch notes will also have a date updated.
Righto back to watching the download count down >_>
Nah just kidding I'm going to go back to doing my monthly back up :/