Cataclysm Download Testing

Ok, so lets get some testing thoughts out here, 1) like the gnome starting area is here.. (and u don't have to do special stuff to test it) so I decided to just make a gnome char to test out the download.

Basically it took the download about 10 minutes on my shitty 5MBit/s connection (at best :/) downloading at around 300kb/s to able to play, (after having to install a 600mb part, which I presume

When going to the character selection screen it took around 10-15 seconds for the character stuff to be downloaded and to see a picture of my character on the generic background, if I selected a different character and went back to that character the background would be loaded after around 5-10 seconds. Overall pretty easy. When creating a char each specific "face" or facet of the char creation process took around 1 second to be loaded, it was pretty streamlined and you couldn't really notice you weren't playing the complete game.

When loading up into the game it took around 2-3 minutes for everything to be streamed properly, I presume this was like the animations of the races and this sort of thing, so I could have a streamlined experience. However, once all that loaded and I was in the game, it ran pretty much smoothly at around 300ms. I presume this was at the cost of downloading the overall game, but tbh I couldn't notice whether it was downloaded or full ingame.

All the sound files were present, and all this jazz. I couldn't put a finger on anything i saw that was missing, other than like the FINAL POLISH, but then I play on low graphics anyway (although all my screenshots previously were on ultra settings :D) so I doubt this change really affects me at all.

I really am liking this downloader, it is very impressive to be able to play after around 5 minutes of a 15.5gb (SERIOUSLY WTF!??!!??!) download, and currently my downloader is on like 6% and I can't really notice any difference.

Going to hold off on levelling the druid until after the download is complete in case questing is actually affected in someway, like missing textures for those awesome portrait things or perhaps missing animations.

Regardless though BIG THUMBS UP for this new downloader, although having to re-install the beta is rough and annoying as hell, I much prefer being able to play with seemlessly little interruption in play (apart from world server going down :DDDD) and surprisingly little lag. Kudos tbh.