As promised, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings developer CD Projekt RED has released the first patch for its recently-released wonderful fantasy RPG. It's a doozy too, with changes including removing its SecuROM DRM and performance boosts of up to 30%. Unfortunately, it's launch hasn't been entirely smooth.

"Our goal is to make our fans and customers happy and to reward them for buying our game and DRM schemes does not support our philosophy as they might create obstacles for users of legally bought copies," said RED development director Adam Badowski. "Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version. This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users... We felt DRM was necessary to prevent the game being pirated and leaked before release. This purpose has been served, so we are pleased to let our users enjoy the full freedom of game usage they deserve."

The Witcher 2 will be updated automatically to version 1.1 on Steam, though some users are finding themselves facing a monster 9GB download. For those who have bought elsewhere, the auto-updater is currently not working so there's a hodge-podge of different patches depending on where you are and where you bought it.

There's also a problem with redeeming the items retailer-specific bonus downloadable content, so you'll need to e-mail RED for a work-around if you're having trouble with that.

With the patch out the door, RED says that "by the end of next week you can expect some more free stuff available online." All The Witcher 2 DLC, expansions aside, will be free. The developer's also working on improving the registration servers and launching new forums.

RED also says to watch out for its online conference on June 2, which promises "exciting new announcements." RED has said that there's some sort of Witcher-y project for consoles coming.

Here's the full patch notes for version 1.1:

• The process of installing and activating the game is now easier and more stable. SECUROM copy protection has been removed entirely, making the game DRM free!

• The "Troll Trouble" DLC package is included in the patch, bringing to an end any and all problems related to downloading this content.

• Problems related to downloading other free DLC have also been resolved. The game launcher now correctly detects and updates specific modules.

• Game efficiency has been improved. Game now runs 5-30% more efficiently and game loading has been accelerated. Efficiency increases will vary depending on system configuration and game version. Owners of boxed versions of The Witcher 2 are likely to notice the greatest improvements.

• Bugs causing the game to crash, especially while saving game progress or loading saved games, have been corrected.

• Movement key mapping has been expanded to include cursor (arrow) and number pad keys.

• Options have been added for inverting the X and Y axes of the mouse.

• NVidia 3D Vision Surround now works correctly with the game.

• The hardware configuration auto-detect function has been corrected, resulting in improved game efficiency.

• A bug preventing the completion of the "Blood Curse" quest has been corrected.

• After beating the GOG.com penitent monk in the mini-game, the relevant link now displays correctly.

• GOG.com credits have been corrected.