World of Warcraft patches are small changes to game mechanics, additional quests, bug-fixes and other things along that nature. Most of the time, patches are to fix bugs in the code or to adjust the damage or healing certain spells do.
Patches should not be confused with expansions. World of Warcraft expansions (ie Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm) are major changes to the world and sometimes additions of classes or races (ie Dranei and Blood Elf races in BC and Death Knights in Wrath of the Lich King).
Use the wow-launcher? It auto-patches the game and it starts automatically.
Patches are downloaded to the main wow directory. After they are downloaded, they are applied. Once they are applied, they can be deleted if you want, but not deleting them makes it easier to repair/re-install should the need arise.
To find WoW patches for free try a website dedicated to files for online gaming communities, such as the fileplanet website. This website has many other game files available, trailers, mods, patches and free games are also available there.
that depends on wen u start playing it and how many patches the blizzard ppl have made u need ALL the patches installed/download in order to play WoW
Private servers are illegal, i would suggest staying away from them.
Official wow patches are applied automatically, there is no way you can NOT download the patch. If there is a patch available, the client will update itself. If you choose not to update, you will not be able to play.
you can not skip updating patches in World of Warcraft. They are incremental. You have to apply them in order. The client usually takes care of applying patches anyway so just let it do its job.
You dont need it to PLAY WoW, but to download patches and install the actual game you do.
The wow patches are compulsory. If you do not download them, you will be unable to play wow. They will automatically download themselves, and depending on the type of patch (content/bugfix) range anywhere from a few hundred megabytes to a gigabyte.
When you install WoW, it install all expansions and patches up to the current client. This is even true if you do not upgrade your account to BC or Wrath. So it will take about 15 gigabytes.
to download WoW and all the patches your looking at about 6-8 hours ish depending on your computer
No. If you mean by patches, then yes you can. But not if you are talking about expansions. you have to buy it. My friend currently plays wow because I got on my account and downloaded the expansion and stuff to his computer under my account for free. That's one of the tricks I do to get people to play wow :)