The Witcher 2 patch 1.1 removes DRM
The splendid RPG's first big patch has launched to strip out its SecuROM DRM, increase performance, enable invert mouse, and more. No progress is without setbacks, though.
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.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, The Witcher 2 patch 1.1 removes DRM.
The splendid RPG's first big patch has launched to strip out its SecuROM DRM, increase performance, enable invert mouse, and more. No progress is without setbacks, though.-
Now, if they would add in the top-down and isometric camera angles from TW1, it would make my gaming much easier.
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THis is weird. I updated last night and I still am having issues with the monk dice mini-game. There's no link at all in the extras, but I already beat the monk before I patched. Do I need to beat him again, because I'm already in Ch 2 so maybe i need to replay :(
Overall, this is an awesome patch. There's still a few issues that I have like suddenly missing music (and or dialog sounds) and the horrible saving system. Hopefully they will address that soon....
Awesome game! Awesome support! Long life CDPR! :)-
Whats wrong with the saving system?
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Well, I'm pretty sure you know, but it creates a new save (5MB big) everytime you autosave, save manually, or saved by the game on some checkpoints. Even if you save manually, there's no option to overwrite old saves or delete save within the game. You need to manually delete it from the save folder and that is really really annoying and dated. Other games can already do this easily...
I have been playing for a while and in chapter 2, quick saving and saving. I already have my save folder 2GB big. It's just ridiculous...-
Oh wow, I never thought to look at the individual save files. I had no idea it was doing that each time I quicksaved :x
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Yeah, it is really annoying. If you check your savegame folder, see how big it is. The fact that all the saves are stored in the C: drive doesnt help either. :(
Last night, mine is about 2.3GB and so I needed to clean all the older saves. There's a working utility already to do this, but I dont know which one I want to keep and which one I dont since you cant name your save either. Just feels outdated. Even Fallout 3 saving system is better than this, unfortunately.-
Oh god what? They automatically go to the C drive even if Steam is on another drive?
My poor ssd :( -
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which btw is why they got rid of f9. people going batshit with quicksaving every 2 seconds is a major problem for designers that want you to play their game (interesting enough the game is brilliant with the consequence as they never play out immediately).
though i agree, overwriting quicksaves should be the norm (like archive the last two quicksaves, overwrite the rest)
i remember deus ex made a complete copy of the whole goddamn map every single time and that in 2001 where hdd space was much more of an issue. the game was 700 mb and the save folder was like 2 gb and more :D-
yeah I remember DX and KOTOR being big offenders with those 20mb+ saves way back when
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But it doesn't solve anything though. At this point, their quick save system is no different than saving through the menus which means you could still go batshit with saves.
While I don't have a problem with how they implemented their version of quick saves, I do have a problem with the notion of "I must play their game the way the designers intended" without the designers explicitly telling me how they want me to play their game.
This passive-aggressive behaviors from designers only causes more frustration (at least for me) when I want or try to do something that isn't intended w/o the game telling me "hey, we want it like this."
A good example of designers correctly conveying their message is in Hitman when you select the difficulty. It explicitly tells you that the harder difficulty has limited saves.
So if the designers for The Witcher 2 didn't want us to go batshit over quick saves every 2 seconds, how about an explanation somewhere that explains why they changed the quick save system to what it is now.-
I don't think their implementation had anything to do with trying to dissuade you from quick saving often
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IIRC the monk dice mini-game only rewards you if you're a GOG customer. And you have to beat him by winning with 2 pair in order to get the 'reward' in the first place. The reward leads to http://www.goodoldmonk.com/ anyway if i'm right.
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lots of shit was added in the last minute, previewers could not change any of the graphics settings we have now. the gui is pretty bad for a pc game. especially the map is practically worthless. you could ad inverted mouse but you had to do it manually in one of the setting files by changing the value into negatives.
they addressed many things and i hope they well do so further. the lack of 5:4/4:3 support is a major gripe for folks who do have a good ips panel and don't really enjoy losing 1/3rd of the screen to black bars.
according to steam data a good 30% of the users have no widescreen monitor. the input in the minigames is also rather bad and not really optimized for use with mouse.
as awesome as the game is, for a company that makes pc only games and knows how to make a pc interface as seen in the first one they kind of dropped the ball with their hybrid gamepad friendly gui.
i can only hope have their shit together for my second play-through because so far this game has been the best rpg since the original witcher in 2007 (which btw was fixed with the free enhanced version as well, so these dudes deserve every penny). -
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urgh i tried to see how hard it is to go the other way round and invert my mouse to play games. it makes me so angry i want to punch people. i can totally see how if you are used to it you wouldn't want to switch to a normal input scheme, but its weird nonetheless. it's unnatural i tell you. you have the choice son. maybe some electroshock therapy can bring you back to respectable gaming.
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Did you know that the first game that allowed inverting controls actually made the controls what are now known as non-inverted?
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At least I can type and walk at the same time.
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[deleted]
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You might be the worst poster on this website at the moment.
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I don't use inverted mouse, what now!?!?!?
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[deleted]
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Looks like they underestimated how many of you inverted freakshows there are out there.
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What's up with this article?
http://www.shacknews.com/article/68597/witcher-2-patch-11-removes-1 (note date)
Compare to this: http://www.shacknews.com/article/68598/witcher-2-patch-11-drm
both are right next to each other in the recent articles RSS. -
I'm torn. I'm in Floatsam and it's awesome, but I've heard the rest of the game is meh and pretty shorty overall.
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"I'm in Floatsam
and it's awesome" -
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What part did you not understand? I didn't say I wasn't going to complete the rest of the game, just that I've heard it gets rather short after the first chapter and the gameplay less interesting. Is that better? Larger words?
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"I'm torn."
Implies that you are considering not finishing the game.
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Flotsam sucks shit compared to the rest of the game!
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well it's not bad, but the storyline as a whole in the game is kind of bad or just half a game depending on how you look at it.
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O_o What beefs do you have with the story? I think it is very interesting and engaging so far. ( I am near the end, I think. Chasing Silah while the Dragon tries to stop me)
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Does Igni stack?
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Or, I should say, does incineration stack?
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