Day 4.

Step 4 — Registering, installing and the first session

DEPTH 04 of 05  ·  HAUL 9 checks  ·  CREW you, alone

Step 4 of 5

This is the doing step. The procedure below is written for any desktop game of this kind, not as a walkthrough of one product's screens, because screens change and the underlying sequence does not. It applies equally on Windows, macOS and Linux, with the platform differences noted separately.

Allow about an hour of your attention, plus however long the download takes, which is out of your hands. Nothing here is urgent and the whole thing can be stopped halfway and resumed.

Five minutes of preparation

Three things, done before you open anything, remove most of the friction.

Have your record from Step 2 in front of you, so that if the vendor's page names a requirement you can check it immediately rather than from memory. Have a password manager ready, or decide that your browser's built-in one will hold the new password. And close the other programs that are using the computer heavily, so that a slow installation is not mistaken for a slow machine.

The installation procedure

1. Open the vendor's own page in your browser. Check the address in the address bar before doing anything else. The registration and the download should both happen from the publisher's site.
2. Find the desktop version. A publisher offering several platforms will have a selector or separate buttons. Choose the one matching your operating system, not whichever is largest on the page.
3. Register the account. Enter an email address you can receive mail at, or connect an existing platform account if you decided on that in Step 3. Use a password you have not used anywhere else, and save it before submitting the form.
4. Confirm the email address if asked. Many publishers send a confirmation message. Complete it now; an unconfirmed account causes puzzling failures later.
5. Start the download and leave it alone. Note the file's name and size when the browser reports them. Do not run anything else that competes for the connection.
6. Check the downloaded file before opening it. It should be in your usual downloads folder, with the name and size the page described and the extension normal for your platform.
7. Run the installer and read each screen. Decline any additional software offered alongside, if any is offered. Accept the default installation location unless you have a specific reason, and if you choose another drive, confirm it has the space.
8. Let the first launch finish downloading its content. Games of this type usually install a small program that then fetches the bulk of the data. This second transfer is often larger than the first and the same patience applies.
9. Sign in and complete the tutorial. The tutorial is a guided opening sequence. Do it attentively rather than skipping, because it is where the game explains its own vocabulary.
10. Write down three things before you stop: the email address the account uses, the date you installed it, and the free space your drive reports now. That last figure makes the real installed size obvious.

What a trustworthy download looks like

Four signs, all of them checkable in a few seconds.

The address in the bar belongs to the publisher and the connection is https. The file name relates to the product rather than being a string of characters. The file size is in the range the page described, rather than a few hundred kilobytes, which usually indicates a small program that will fetch something else from somewhere unstated. And the file came from a page you opened deliberately, rather than from a window that appeared by itself.

If any of the four is wrong, close everything and start again from the publisher's address typed by hand. That costs five minutes and settles the question. The general patterns behind fake download pages are documented by Scamwatch if you want to understand what you are avoiding.

Platform differences worth knowing

On every platform the principle is the same: the permission prompts exist so that an installation cannot happen without your knowledge, and reading them is the point of them.

If it will not start

Work down this list in order. Each step is cheap and each rules something out.

1. Restart the computer. A pending update or a half-finished installation is the single most common cause and a restart resolves both.
2. Check free space again. An installation that filled the drive leaves the program unable to write what it needs.
3. Check that the account email address was confirmed.
4. Check whether your graphics drivers are current, through the system's own update mechanism or the hardware maker's official tool.
5. Close other heavy programs and try once more.
6. If it still will not start, use the vendor's own support channel and quote the five values from Step 2. A support request with the machine's specifications in it gets a useful answer far faster than one without.

What the first session actually holds

A first evening with a game of this kind follows a predictable shape. Knowing it in advance means the pacing does not feel like a malfunction.

Two notes about that first hour. The pace of rewards early on is a design decision and is not a guide to what the second week feels like; judge the game on week two, not day one. And the first offer to spend money typically appears during or just after the tutorial, which is precisely why Step 5 asks you to settle that question beforehand.

The example title at this step

The sequence the vendor's own programme describes for the title used as this course's example matches the general procedure above: a person registers on the landing page, installs the game, and launches the tutorial. The desktop versions are stated as Mac, Windows and Linux. Nothing further about its installer, its size or its screens is stated here, because the vendor does not state those things to us.

Paid affiliate link. Visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website — registering and installing through this link pays Softprism Online a commission; your cost is the same either way, and the course does not change if you do not use it.

The household in the spare room

Our hypothetical reader starts the download after dinner and leaves it running while doing something else, because the connection in the spare room is unhurried. The installer asks for permission to make changes and they read the publisher name on the prompt before agreeing, which is the one habit worth forming from the whole step.

The first launch then fetches a second, larger body of content, which they half expected because they read this page first. They complete the tutorial attentively and recognise three of the terms from Step 1 appearing on screen, which makes the sequence feel less like being swept along.

They stop when the energy counter runs low rather than looking for a way around it, and write down the three things from item ten: the account's email address, the date, and the drive's free space, which has fallen by rather more than the download alone would explain. That number is now a fact rather than a suspicion.

Before you move on

Checklist for Step 4

• I checked the address in the bar before registering or downloading anything.
• I chose the version matching my operating system.
• I used a password that is not used anywhere else, and saved it before submitting.
• I confirmed the account's email address.
• I checked the downloaded file's name and size before opening it.
• I read the installer screens and declined any additional software offered.
• I let the first launch finish fetching its content before judging anything.
• I completed the tutorial rather than skipping it.
• I wrote down the account email address, today's date, and my drive's free space afterwards.