A little on the late side compared to the blog that I got this information from, but it seems that EQ2 is about to undergo a change to reduce the download footprint for the initial download.
With 5 expansions (soon 6) the game has ballooned to around 10gb of disk space and as such it can take a fair while to download the game and all its subsequent patches.
So to alleviate the initial download pain SOE have developed streaming content as you play much like Free Realms & Guild Wars.
The initial download of the game will be approximately 60mb which is not even a hurdle for broadband these days and from then on your content will stream to you as you play the game.
You can read more @ The Joshua Tree including technical information on how it all hangs together.
Related posts:
MMOYeti:
mmosymposium:
WodgeFTW:
MMOSres:
It's a nice idea as long as the person who is playing has the bandwidth to play and download at the same time.
If you've seen Free Realms it works pretty well, once you have the content you don't get it again, I have to agree, if you are on a USB Dongle you'd be fubar.
Great idea from SOE. I wish more games would do this. Currently I'm stuck trying to download a 3GB patch for Aion at 7kbps. Awweesoome…
I've yet to try Aion, not sure I will do yet. 7k though, ouch!