First TW2, then TES5

Seriously, both are freaking good.

I'm not really helping, am I?

Will a fantasy sandbox keep you entertained until you can save up enough to buy TW2 yourself? If not, get TW2 for the story (GoG really does have nice exclusives) and the fact that it's patched already and save for Skyrim while Bethesda works on patches and the fans work on mods. You'll find ways to have fun with either choice.

As others have said, TW2 for story and just jaw-droppingly gorgeous visuals and TESV for open ended exploration. They really ARE quite different and each have their strengths and weaknesses in the eyes of their users. A bit of a word further is that of the two it seems that TESV is a bit more tolerant of "older" hardware probably due to it using a much tweaked version of the Gamebryo engine as opposed to the "Red" engine which is where W2 gets the nod.
If hardware is present that is of recent vintage DX11 and fairly sturdy my vote goes to W2 as it defiantly made my jaw drop more than TESV which bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain post-nuclear adventure game as well as borrowing from its' predecessor. Also bang for buck factor is with W2 as well due to new release pricing.
Ultimately you should read up about both of them and make an informed decision based upon what you perceive as your gaming wants and plan accordingly.

Very different games.

From 40 hours of The Witcher 2 and about 4 hours of Skyrim so far I can say Skyrim is the better game in all likelihood.

Add me to the list. I do.

Happy Birthday man!

Skyrim is awesome.
Skyrim will give way more hours of play than TW2. Including mods that's even more.

But:

Skyrim is a new game - there are bugs and we need to wait for patches.
Skyrim is by Bethesda - there are tons of bugs, we need to wait for patches.
Skyrim will be released as GOTY with all DLCs included - cheaper way to get a complete release.

That's why at this moment I'd take TW2.

The Witcher 2 is a damn good game. But the 2.0 patch is a fucking mess. Really bloody difficult to forgive the fact that they've fucked it up that badly and not issued another patch already. It's only the exe they've buggered up after all.

I'd wait for another patch to sort it out before buying or it'll just be sat on your GOG shelf gathering dust like it is on mine.

No clue about Skyrim, but personally I've got no desire to buy it right now for many reasons.

So yeah, I guess that's a vote for saving your money. Another vote for giving a shit here.

Apparently I'm a loser because I'm not interested in Skyrim. Go figure.

Witcher 2 wins hands down.

As far as Skyrim is concerned I'm going to see how things pan out. Both with the game and the lawsuit.

Now I can understand that Bethesda has to act if their trademarks are threatened. Don't get me wrong. But they never bloody trademarked Scrolls. So I really can't see the justification for that. Even if they themselves would actually like to see the case shot down just so they could say "well yeah, we protected it, so Elder Scrolls is incontestably ours". Such a defence was never really needed, was it?

Witcher 2 is an amazing game. Equally amazing is how fucking dumb adding a disc check to a digital download game that started out DRM-free. I still can't get my head around just how fucking dumb that is. If the bloody update wasn't so insistent then I could at least tell it to piss off and leave my copy untainted. But there we go...

Witcher 2 is my GOTY and nothing will beat it, but that said, I am playing through Skyrim and it is fantastic too.

So get Witcher 2 now, and Skyrim later.

Navagon - what problem do you have with TW2 ? patch 2.0 introduced cd check? wtf ? I own GOG version and it works flawlessly with 2.0 patch.

Be smart; buy The Witcher 2 from here, then buy Skyrim after they release the eventual edition with all DLC and shit. :)

Yeah, I haven't seen any similar complaints to be honest. But it's there all the same. Wasn't before the patch. It's there now. I don't think that there's another explanation and I've only got my own experience to go on when it comes to recommendations - and I can't recommend the game in its current state. It's a shame as it looked like they added a lot to the game with that patch. Just that one particular thing they added was an automatic game-killer for me.

I still don't understand why I can't just tell the patcher to fuck off. It's not like it's a multiplayer game or anything.

And so you have GOG version? If so, how is it possible? When you reinstall form scratch, is it not working correctly? Especially now that GOG version is updated to 2.0 already?

I'll have to try re-downloading the game and see if a fully GOG version solves the problem. Clearly the patch was aimed at the retail release but was forced on everyone (or at least somehow managed to include me).

Then again I thought that even the retail version was supposed to have all DRM removed?

I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know how it goes. I just got a new GPU before this patch hit. It was looking so nice and running so smoothly too. But only for a day or two.