World of Warcraft players, come in!

idk if anyone noticed this:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/...682?page=1

With the 4.3.2 patch we’ll be testing some new file optimization tech. As you may be aware, with previous major expansion patches (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.) we’ve carried out a time-consuming process to reorganize the game files currently installed on your hard drive to integrate all previous patch files, essentially ‘cleaning up’ what’s on your computer and reducing the full installation size. This process used to require an amount of free hard drive space double that of the entire installation size to complete, which is why we’ve reserved them for large expansion-sized patches.

The new tech we’re testing with the 4.3.2 PTR will process these cleanups with no additional hard drive space required beyond what the patch is adding. Because of that you may see them appear more frequently with patches.

While the cleanup is occurring you’ll see a specific message on the launcher informing you the process is currently taking place. If you encounter any issues with the new process please be sure to visit our support site at http://www.battle.net/support/

comparision:

From what I've gathered this seems to be consolidating files more than anything else, such as increasing framerates. It may slightly improve load times or something of the sort, although the biggest thing it seems to have going for it is the large cleanup it's performing on the way the MPQs are stored.

Currently on live (excluding Data\Cache) there are 84 files and 8 folders in the Data folder totaling 15.3 GB. On the PTR the Data folder is only 47 files and 6 folders adding up to 14.7 GB (once again, these numbers exclude Data\Cache).

The Data\Cache folder on live is 10.4 GB spread across 62 files and the localization (enUS) folder. On the PTR, it's 7.23 GB with 104 files and the localization folder. It's also worth noting that on PTR most of the files are sound cache files, while on live there are many patch-base files. I'm not sure whether that would be the same for everyone, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

In the end, this "optimization" process seems to be aimed at trimming out some of the fat. Players running WoW off of solid state drives are probably the ones that will find the smaller file sizes most exciting.

looking foward for this update, since im running wow on a SSD and its already awesome

Fangs of the Father Complete
Congratulations to Имбос of Exorsus for completing Fangs of the Father. He now has both Golad, Twilight of Aspects and Tiriosh, Nightmare of Ages. We will likely start to see more of the daggers appear in the next few days.