i was going to post this in a thread already made but it has been locked so here you go..

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originally posted by Aradune Mithara.

you download it compressed, but uncompressed on your HD it's about 20 gigs now, and will probably be about 24 gigs at launch. That seems like a lot in some ways, but the world is big and we have a lot of content. Also, 24 gigs in a world with HDs selling cheap that are hundreds of gigs in capacity isn't really a huge deal, IMHO.

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wow, so i was dead wrong.... the file size will indeed be at least 20 gig at launch and that is freaking huge. looks like i will also have to add another HD to play vanguard as well as graphics card and ram upgrades.

that is truly amazing that the file is that big, even eq2 is less than 10gig...vanguard will be more than twice that size!

That'll take up about 1/8 of my remaining hard drive space so I think I'm good to go.

But yes. That is "freakin huge" to put it simply.

I am willing to wager that much of the file size increase is due to the notion that a large chunk of programming has been left "flexible" for the purpose of being easy to update with intentional features down the road. 

Two basic examples: they have left all the programming hooks in for physics to effect nearly everything, they have left in all the programming hooks for mounted combat options to be implemented and fleshed out.

Programming in all this extra code to be used and meshed in later on amounts to A LOT of inactive coding.  But it is neccesary to keep the game flexible and easily refreashable by the devs.

Things like programming in 100% seperate interaction for PVP so that it has no impact on PVE allows the devs to tune them completely independantly of each other and thus balance one without breaking the other.

Its bloody brilliant but makes for a whomping huge client.  Of course then there are massive amounts of high res textures etc. and the list goes on and on...

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Originally posted by Phoenixs
The amount of code in a game has nothing to do with the filesize. It's pure text, dude.

It's the assets that make the filesize.

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Typically true unless leaving those hooks in requires multiple dupes of files.  Enough of that going on can actually make the excess inactive programming code start to take up room. 

But additionally if they want the game to look good a long time from now it also means its likely they will have textures with much higher native resolutions than what most of us will be seeing so that 2 years down the road they will still look good etc. 

Then there is the minor detail that all of the world is hand crafted.  That means no random placement of trees etc.  Everything is invididually hard coded in.  Typically that wouldn't make much difference (at least in obvlivion it doesn't) but who knows.  It really depends on how their file system for the world is setup.

Its all speculation either way.  Regardless its a big friggin world with a ton of content, so a big friggin client isn't overly suprising.  /shrug

Will it lag due to its client footprint?  If you meat the PC requirements probably not.  If you are under the requirements, who knows?

Free Space:  121 GB (90%)

Pshaw.   20-24GB I can eat for breakfast.

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Originally posted by Spiritraiser
This is a pretty big hard disk space! I don't have a problem, got plenty spare but I really wonder how fast the communication between client and server will be if the client is that big!

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The client size has no impact in the communication between the server and the client. At most it could impact in the load of new art assets in the ram and the amount of ram needed to run the game, but the communication with the server should not be affected by the size.

Not matter how big the client is, the server will send you the same data: npcs around you and their status, pcs around you and their status, your own status, the status of the region where you are and some other data like the chat.