Wolfenstein: The New Order's Huge Download Frightens Pirates, Just Not Enough

hazydawn

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Jan 11, 2013
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I'm downloading 750kb/s max at Steam. If I used torrent for this it would probably be around 200-400kb/s either way a fucking long wait. For Doom-Slayer it is 1 mb/s to 1.5mb/s. Either way I think people who want it for free will be willing to wait the extra time.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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I would understand the argument if Steam offered a compressed version but you get the exact same uncompressed nonsense, so this seems more like an attempt at turning some pirates over by the community... after all most people pirate because it's the cooler thing to do.

Now if Valve was wise they would actually offer compression on Steams end to put them one step over the competing torrent download.
 

NLS

Norwegian Llama Stylist
Jan 7, 2010
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McKitten said:
How does this make any sense? It's not like it'd be smaller on steam. Heck steam even uses torrent to accelerate the dl.
Some torrent sites deal with up/down ratio. Meaning, if you only download, you get a bad ratio, and risk getting kicked out. So you would potentially have to "pay back" to the community by seeding back everything you download, hopefully at a ratio better than 1. This can take some time, and uploading 43 GB takes considerably longer time than downloading it. In the times when I was a filthy pirate, I'd carefully consider if a download was worth the potential ratio loss, and if I'd manage to regain it over time. Yeah, eventually Steam just got easier in the end. The only thing I have to worry about is my wallet.
 

nevarran

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Apr 6, 2010
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McKitten said:
How does this make any sense? It's not like it'd be smaller on steam. Heck steam even uses torrent to accelerate the dl.
Yeah, that news is kind of weird. It works if we talk about torrent dl vs retail copy.

The only potential issue I see is the disk space, because you'll need both the downloaded disk files and space to install the game. You may also want to keep it for some time and seed, if you've pirated the game from a torrent.
Other than that, the dl speed difference is hardly a reason to buy a game (if you've decided to pirate it in the first place, that is).
 

Steve the Pocket

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Mar 30, 2009
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Karloff said:
"I was gonna get this torrent but I saw the size and how long it would take me to download it, I said fuck it I'm getting it from Steam," said one pirate, a view that was echoed by many others.
Yep I'm callin' bullshit on this. If the quote had been "fuck it I'm getting it retail", that I could understand. A half hour installing all the data off however many discs it comes on plus the time to drive to the store and back is still way faster than the download is likely to be.
 

bobmd13

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Mar 28, 2010
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Just for your information.

The retail version is linked to Steam and comes on 4 DVD's.

After installing from disc, you still have a 13gig download from Steam to complete the game.

It takes about an hour to install the discs and another 30 minutes to download the Steam content.

Is it worth it?

Yep, if you like old style shooters.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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I still don't understand why this game is so massive. From what I've seen, a lot of the textures are really muddy and low res. What the fuck is taking up all that space?
 

Eiv

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Soviet Heavy said:
I still don't understand why this game is so massive. From what I've seen, a lot of the textures are really muddy and low res. What the fuck is taking up all that space?
They use a process called "mega textures" which means that every single surface is a different texture. Thats what I read anyway.
 

Kenjitsuka

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Sep 10, 2009
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"What under other circumstances might have taken a few hours instead lasted a day or more."
Really? They got all sad-faced because their FREE game would not be there *today*?
I can not understand that at ALL... I'm pretty sure you are never allowed to look a gift horse in the mouth!
If people where complaining about their bandwith caps, that I can understand, but this?

Crazy. Also crazy; the massive size *all* games are going to be now that the consoles are up to looking like PC games from a few years ago! Seriously, I just got a new 840 EVO 250 GB... That's gonna hold about 4 new games at a time, tops.
Lucky for me that I only play one game at a time, but still!
 

DrOswald

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Andy of Comix Inc said:
I wonder if anyone understands that the reason so many games are coming out at 50gb is because they no longer have to compress them on console now that every console uses Blu-ray for on-disc storage, which means large download sizes for games like this, Titanfall, and so on, is basically down to lazy ports.

There's no reason why a game like this has to be 43gb. In today's ISP climate, it's ludicrous to expect people will tolerate it; piracy or not, especially when you factor in how many people choose to game on SSDs (which uncompressed assets would benefit from running on, Gift of the Magi style, "I traded my small space for uncompressed assets!" "I traded my harddrive capacity for loading performance!")

I am not sure what you are getting at in that last comment in parentheses, it makes no sense to me, so I apologize if my response is inappropriate, but...

I wouldn't call it lazy ports. Storage space is cheap right now and processing power is expensive. The large game size is generally due to uncompressed assets which saves processing power (you do not have to uncompress the assets at run time.) Frankly it would be fairly stupid not to install the game in uncompressed format when 2 TB drives are the standard.

Also, generally speaking, the assets are compressed for delivery and uncompressed at install. The Titanfall install was around 50gb but it only took 10gb to download, if I remember correctly.
 

flying_whimsy

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Doom-Slayer said:
I know that feel. But for me, in 1 weeks time I go from 200GB split between 4 people, to getting naked broadband, ie unlimited data. I live in NZ and these plans only just have started arriving now, they probably have existed in the UK and States for years and years.

Unlimited data is the only way forward that I see.
We don't have unlimited in the States: no competition, no regulation, no investment in infrastructure, and general apathy about it all has kept us in a virtual dark age for broadband (our speeds per dollar are slower compared to most other nations of an equal industrial/economic level). I've been bumping my head on a 200gb monthly limit for years, paying extra when running over and a premium for only wanting internet and not getting television or phone service; my mother and I couldn't even watch netflix in HD because we hit our cap too fast. I generally only play single-player or offline; I can't imagine trying to get by with an mmo subspcription or massive dota addiction.

OT: That is a mighty big download, but I'm happy to see some bigger games finally making the rounds. I think Skyrim was majorly ham-stringed simply because it had to fit on the xbox 360. Speaking as someone who actually has a blu-ray drive, I wouldn't mind buying more physical pc games if it meant I could avoid that stupid bandwidth cap. Even if I had to download them, I don't think it would be an issue outside of major steam sales and whatnot.

I don't see massive download sizes being an effective deterrent, and even if it were it would only last so long as there were bandwidth caps and slower speeds.
 

Rozalia1

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Mar 1, 2014
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Like others I question that this actually made some pirates go and get it from steam instead...though it does raise an interesting question. Aren't at some point 500GB discs going to get pushed to "replace" Blue-Ray? Making games around that 500GB marker could damage people's want to download any of those games... well compression does exist granted but I'm unsure how much that would cut down on all those GBs as my experience with compression has lead to at times having little effect.
 

The White Hunter

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Oct 19, 2011
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Sgt. Sykes said:
Wait, how is this sold in retail? On 5 double-layer DVDs?

Also I wonder, is this the megatexture thing taking up so much space or were the devs just stupid and used massive video files, SWTFU-style?
4 Discs for the PC version, I have it sat on my desk.

Why physical for PC you may wonder? Simple.

£39.99 vs £26.80
 

Seracen

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Sep 20, 2009
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Andy of Comix Inc said:
I wonder if anyone understands that the reason so many games are coming out at 50gb is because they no longer have to compress them on console now that every console uses Blu-ray for on-disc storage, which means large download sizes for games like this, Titanfall, and so on, is basically down to lazy ports.

There's no reason why a game like this has to be 43gb. In today's ISP climate, it's ludicrous to expect people will tolerate it; piracy or not, especially when you factor in how many people choose to game on SSDs (which uncompressed assets would benefit from running on, Gift of the Magi style, "I traded my small space for uncompressed assets!" "I traded my harddrive capacity for loading performance!")
Agreed, I've long since loathed the lack of optimization. If Watch_Dogs tried to streamline for PC half as well as they did on PS4, PC users could probably coax better graphics from their rigs without having to take a mortgage out for an uber-rig. There is no reason that I should be able to run Witcher 2 at Ultimate Spec, but relegate Watch_Dogs to medium.

Similarly, there is no reason that data compression should be ignored. There have been a few times where I bought on console simply to avoid installing the entire damn Library of Congress on my PC. I would hope that Steam would compress it, or the sheer size would keep me from touching this game.

However, I've never been a big Wolfenstein guy. I was content to simply watch the "Movie Format" version on Youtube. I will say that I'd have been disappointed had I played this at launch. From trailers, I was expecting more of a hub-based world. You really don't get to enjoy seeing this alternate reality version of France, as most of your time is spent in bunkers and whatnot. Still, I will likely buy it for the gameplay when the price goes down.

That's one reason why I think "Let's Plays" are alright. Watching story cannot relay the true sensation of actually playing. Did the video delay my purchase? Not really, something I really want, I'll get regardless. The only "Let's Plays" that keep me from buying are on those 50/50 games that I'd ultimately regret buying anyway...but I ramble...
 

Fdzzaigl

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Once there are enough seeders for the pirated version it really won't matter.

This lack of optimization is depressing though. Yeah memory is cheap, but I'm not gonna buy a new harddrive anyhow for just a couple of games when I've cramped the old one full. Also, taking up that much bandwith on the local network is still causing troubles.
 

byte4554_v1legacy

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Feb 23, 2010
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No thank you. Our house has American internet! My average speed from Steam is 512 KB/S. And that's if it's at a not so busy time, and only one person is using the internet. No one else. At all. Period. And that just the computers. My 360 is even worse.
Seriously, not only does my computer have a limited amount of room already, but downloading something like all of GTA IV takes up most of a day. Something like this? Fucking forget it.
 

truckspond

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Oct 26, 2013
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I still cannot believe that this Australian government cancelled the FTTP network we were building here... I only get 250 KB/s on a good day and it takes me 20 hours of non-stop downloading to get Watch_Dogs (My first and last preorder through GOG) and that is just 14GB of game! 43GB would not only eat up more of my 100GB/Month data limit than I can afford to spare, it would also take the better part of a week to pull down! I think I might have to go back to physical media!
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Sep 1, 2007
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Nope, whats keeping me away is DLC. I will wait till the DLC is sold all together with the game.....
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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Leviano said:
Soviet Heavy said:
I still don't understand why this game is so massive. From what I've seen, a lot of the textures are really muddy and low res. What the fuck is taking up all that space?
They use a process called "mega textures" which means that every single surface is a different texture. Thats what I read anyway.
What this man says is correct. There are a few good details to know first.

RAGE was the first game to use Megatexture technology. What Leviano said about very huge textures is correct. Large surfaces in the game are one giant "megatexture" that is up to 256k * 256k (I think, or it could be 128k * 128k). This means no tiled textures (https://cdn.tutsplus.com/psd/uploads/legacy/001_WebDesignWeek/02_Layout/pattern_1.jpg). The result is you get a game world where the textures are mostly unique (http://www.implayin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/rage-all-high2.jpg). The game will only render the portions of the texture that it needs to (the rest is commited to a cache file). <--- This is why you see texture pop-in in Wolfenstein: The New Order. The devs need to make some tweaks and optimizations to minimize the issue. RAGE had the same issue upon release. I think John Carmack was the one who said that if they released RAGE with the higher resolution textures, the game would be close to 100GB, if not more.

Now, one of the main advantages to this type of texture mapping is that vast game worlds can look fantastic. The downside is that once you look in close, the texture quality might suffer. Now it's not all bad. This kind of texture technology is something that will only get better with time. Imagine how good Wolfenstein: The New Order would look if the texture quality was doubled?