Seriously? I am not thrilled with the UI. But the game itself is fantastic. Such drama queens around here. Love the interwebz nerd raging! LOL!

Quoted for truth. Console gamers will cry havoc if the difficulty is not adjusted and a better tutorial is not added. Penny Arcade had a nice comment on it

Tycho:
"I installed The Witcher 2 on the PC we have in the office here so that Gabriel could see with his own eyes some of the things I’ve been telling him about. While I was home this morning teaching my daughter which berries are to be avoided, he was here playing through the game’s nominal “tutorial,” a sequence of retrospective vignettes that can be played in any order. When I got in, he told me that he had died twelve times at the same spot and then quit. I knew the spot he was taking about; I’d died there myself.

Forty-seven times.

He didn’t believe me when I said “forty-seven,” but I started counting it. It’s partly my fault. I wanted to see if something was possible, and it wasn’t! It really, really wasn’t.

I’m not sure what they were thinking with this stuff, I honestly don’t; this dogged refusal to help the player. If I had to guess, it is this way because they didn’t want to do some boring, typical tutorial sequence that insults the player and makes their titular warmaster out to be some concussed dipshit, taking part in some remedial course for monster slayers. That’s certainly something I can understand. What’s happened in the absence of a true “booster phase,” though, is that people who want to play the game but lack psychic ability are forcibly driven out.

It has tooltips that pop up from time to time, but if you’re under active assault by a dragon maybe you aren’t looking at that. This game doesn’t really play like others, your skills either from action titles or the role-playing genre won’t really cross apply. A Witcher is tough, but he’s not optimal unless he takes time to prepare for a fight, which involves the brewing, consumption, or application of various things inside or outside the body. This is one of the things that make up the odd cadence of this world. So much is left to chance.

PC Games can be cantankerous, idiosyncratic, occasionally unrelenting, and unwilling to make concessions. I happen to like that kind of thing; that’s more or less my own philosophy. We are just... unreconstructed, is the word. If they’re serious about bringing this to consoles, the first hour of the game needs to go up on the lift. Those nines and tens it’s pulling now won’t survive contact with that audience.

(CW)TB out."

The comic itself: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/5/25/

*shrug* TFM has good information, but unfortunately most gamers won't bother to RTFM, partly because many FMs are ridiculously useless.

Europa Universalis comes to mind; while the biographical data for the various leaders was interesting, one might have expected that the manual would actually discuss the interface (particularly useful when UI elements aren't necessarily well-marked, like in EU) and idiosyncratic rules that contradict intuition or consistency (like how AI fleets never suffered from attrition, or how an army on the march could be interrupted *and returned to the beginning of its march* when attacked by even a tiny force).

Here are my thoughts on W2 going to console:

-PC owners got it first, console owners have to wait a year. Sadly, this makes me happy that they have to wait.
-CDPR has made a game with the PC gamers in mind, I am grateful for that
-Perhaps next year people will know what I was talking about when I said "Im playing W2, its awesome."

And on a side note, it would be nice if we continue to get exclusive content while console owners wait or don't get it at all. If the opposite of that happens, I will be crying bloody murder! =P

My response is: so?

If you think logically and past your own biases you might notice that the Xbox 360 has a massive shooter and Western RPG fanbase that buys games by the millions. There is no logical company out there making shooters and Western RPGs that do not want their product on the Xbox 360. To ignore that market is batshit insane. Millions of people waiting with anticipation to give you $60 a piece and you tell them to piss off? Insanity.

It's a multiplatform world now. The audience for shooters and Western RPGs used to be almost solely on the PC, now it has spread to three or more platforms. If you're not making a game for that entire audience then you're not doing your job.

The key is to make every version a good version of the game. Despite some little niggles the PC versions of The Witcher 2 is certainly a quality version of the game with high-end graphics that will not be seen on the Xbox. It also came out like 6 months earlier. So be happy with what you got, because a ton of other multiplatform releases treated us much worse.

Your entire argument is laughable as TW2 is not a shooter nor a WRPG. Games like this generally sell betetr on PS3, TW2 is big in europe where PS3 outsells 360.

So? Where do I begin...

1. Had a console port been planned entirely separately, the interface would not have suffered awful design changes compared with TW1 EE that were optimized for gamepad uses, but for a keyboard and mouse instead, like the first hit title that made their name
2. Had a console port been planned entirely separately, we wouldn't be subjected to awful QTE
3. Had a console port been planned entirely separately, CPR would have launched the game with proper control remapping support as their first game had
4. Had a console port been planned entirely separately, CPR would have recognized supporting a single aspect ratio was not coherent with support the PC gaming scene

In short, had a console port been planned entirely separately, instead of designing a "PC" version where every single design changes that could be made to make the porting as easy as possible were indeed made, PC users would not give a flying frak about a console version, because they'd be too busy replaying TW2 endlessly and enjoying every little aspect of it.

Instead, we're still waiting for fixes and relying on many mods to erase those awful changes, especially the UI, because of CPR's greed or unwillingness to invest more money to make a "true" PC version.

I hope this enlightens you on my position.

you forgot the software mouse.

and graphics menu

and how small the areas actually are (its streamed so it shard to notice unless you are keeping your eyes peeled)

Try telling that to Rockstar and a few others.

rockstar knows that thats why we get them much later. the great thing about rockstar is they actually work on the game, and sometimes it turns out differently then the other versions.

Many things screamed "I'm consolized, bitch!", but the UI is the one I absolutely cannot digest or accept. From the awful new dice set to the abysmal inventory management, it's all awful. HUGE steps backward.

TW1 had many problems. TW1 EE addressed most of them. The inventory system was great. The EE version did not fix EVERYTHING, but it was pretty damn close. But why ignore all of these improvements for TW2? If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

...unless, of course, that system isn't really compatible with your true target platform. Imagine playing TW1 with a gamepad (as far as using the inventory and interface is concerned). It would be a lot less enjoyable.

Truth is, the inventory was designed to accommodate gamepads first, then keyboard and mouse. Barely. If you claim for months and months that "PC will always be our first priority" and then release a shitty UI like that, optimized for a peripheral that a minuscule minority of PC players use vs the alternative (K+M), it speaks volume of your integrity.

CPR has been marketing itself as an honest and integral studio for years, and pledged on numerous occasions to honor their PC fans, which could recognize the greatness of the first game in spite of its flaws, and made CPR what they are today. That's how they turned me from a rational adult into a fanboy, because such integrity is so very, very rare.

Unfortunately, they did not honor their word the second they decided to optimize aspects of the game for console controls. I would have happily compromised, but the interface is so shitty compared to TW1 EE that I just cannot accept it.

I'm still waiting on Red Dead and LA Noire.

There's no guarantee they'e coming to PC, and yes, I'm aware of Rockstar milking the console market as long as possible, then releasing a PC version.

However, I'll believe it when I see it.

1) $50 (you know 49.99 is 50 not 40)
2) we ant it to work with the majorly used assets of the system it was developed for. (K+M) if they with to port later then they should update it to use the assets of that system, not expect the first system to conform because they cant be bothered to.

What is the big deal with the UI? Doesn't the actual game content matter? And the actual game content is complex and unforgiving, not kiddied down at all...................