Hi all

I've been playing The Witcher 2 for some time now and it's been running perfectly, well, up until now that is.

My problem is that the in game cutscenes are just being skipped, automatically (as if I pressed the mouse button, but I didn't). This has only been happening since I upgraded the game to the latest version. In the game only after having been at the council meeting in Vergen where *SPOILER* Saskia drinks the spiked wine ... as far as I can tell it's only been happening with the sex cutscenes, but I figure this problem pertains all in game cutscenes, I mean, why would it only stuff up the naughty shit? Doesn't make sense.

Anyhow, after the council meeting in Act 3 I met the elven girl outside Vergen whom offered sex for an earlier favour I'd done for her. I agreed and the screen turned black for a second. Now, instead of being treated to one of "those" cutscenes, the screen came back and I was back in dialogue with the girl and the "act" was over. I was a little confused because earlier in the game I had already seen one or two of these cutscenes. This is when I first thought something was odd.

Later in the Elyias/Succubus quest the same thing happened. *SPOILER* after slaying Elyas and returning to the Succubus I again agreed to have sex with her. But the same thing happened, black screen and when it came back the Succubus and Dandelion were gone.

After this I went on youtube to find out if there really was a sex scene at those points in the game and sure enough, there are. They're just not playing for me :( I mean, it's not really the lack of sex scenes that worries me, more so the fact that other cutscenes might be missing too, some of which I may have missed without ever noticing.

It's really strange though, I've saved before the final Succubus encounter and even after restarting my computer etc. the cutscene is still missing. The council cutscene plays fine on the other hand ...

I don't get it and I'm open to suggestions, maybe it's only the sex scenes that are buggered, but maybe others too. In any case, I want them all to work just like before. Have I accidentally activated some censorship feature in the game? I don't think there is such a thing but yeah, I'm totally stumped.

The game runs perfectly apart from this issue on ultra settings, it's a fresh Windows 7 install (on a brand new SSD, I backed up my save files from before) and all the drivers are up to date (BIOS, GPU, Sound, Chipset, etc.). So the one thing that has changed is that W2 is now installed on an SSD instead of a normal hard drive and the save games were created on a normal HDD, but I doubt that has anything to do with it.

I don't feel like continuing the game atm, out of fear of missing crucial content, so any and all tips and ideas are welcome at this point, thanks a bunch

best
yner

That's really strange, but not completely unexpected--patch 1.3 seems to have messed with the cutscenes for some people. If you can, I'd recommend backing up your saves, uninstalling, and patching back to 1.2.

That is, unless someone comes along with better advice :)

The only thing that springs to mind is that you have the censored version or something, since your problem is only related to those sex scenes. (Is it only the AU version that's censored?) You're saying that all other cutscenes play normally? If so, please check in your The Witcher 2\CookedPC folder, and look if you have one file called elf_flotsam.dzip, and one called succubuss.dzip. It's only when these two are installed, that those two sex scenes you mention are displayed. Maybe you have removed them by mistake, at some point?

Australian version and New Zealand version, but you can't choose the sex option in either of those. Rather than just cutting out the scene, the censored version doesn't allow you to choose the option of sex, automatically defaulting instead to a monetary reward.

Thanks for the replies! The version I have is definitely not censored as I've seen these kinds of cutscenes before and yes, afaik it's only the AU version that's censored and even there, they only took out the response to accept sex as an award. The responses are still there though, it's just that the cutscenes are skipped right away. Yep, other cutscenes seem to play just fine. I checked the folder you mentioned and these two files aren't there but I definitely didn't remove them or anything, as I only reinstalled the game yesterday after doing a fresh install on the new harddrive and didn't tamper with anything inside the game dir. Where do these files come from? From the patch or from the original game?

Strange ... but the fact that these files are missing certainly seems to be the problem, now I just need to find out why they're not there and where they come from ... Thanks!

They come from the original install, and at least one of them is supposedly updated by the patch. I've heard of them not installing correctly, though that case was different in that the game acted like the censored Australian version.

If you want to test the effect of having them in your game folder, I have them uploaded here:

elf_flotsam.dzip
succubuss.dzip

Alright, I understand. Thanks for clearing up how the censorship works in those regions.

Yep, see if it helps to replace those two files - if we're lucky, that's all there is to it. :)

Thanks a lot! I'll try that. One last question, how many files are supposed to be in that folder? Minus the sub folders and the two missing files I've got 25 files. You?

Hm. Minus the two files in question and not counting the sub folders, I count 28.

Maybe that's because I've gone through all of the versions (even installing the Troll Trouble DLC through the launcher on launch day) rather than patching straight to 1.3? I also installed Polish subtitles--which, in retrospect, is stupid since I don't speak Polish--and that may be one of the files. Don't want to jump the gun and assume that you're missing something, so maybe someone else can chime in with how many files they have, just to be on the safe side.

If others have similar numbers that don't match up with yours, then a reinstall would probably be for the best. Sometimes the game just doesn't install correctly the first time for some reason. Seems pretty rare, but it happens.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm busy reinstalling now, curious to see whether those files will be there this time around ...

Do you know why there are specific files for the succubus and the elf, but not for other npc's you can do your thang with? Seems strange ...

edit:
Installation done now and lo and behold, elf_flotsam.dzip and succubuss.dzip are there now. Hmm, now for the patch. Hope it's not the patch that deletes them.

edit:
Damnit! it's definitely the patch that get's rid of them for whatever reason ... Shit man, so now I'll have to reinstall again and skip the patching process that starts automatically after installing and try and patch the game manually. Hope this helps ...

Um, could you maybe do me a favour and attach a screenshot of all the files in your CookedPC dir? Or list them here? That would certainly help, I'm just wondering whether I'm missing more than just does two.

Probably because those are the only two things that are missing from the Australian and New Zealand edited versions of the game. If they separated it, seems like it would be easier to remove, you know?

... And also easier to put back, as I doubt they were the biggest fans of having to censor their game :)

This.

Didn't even think of that, but that makes sense.

Okay, I believe I've fixed it now.

1. Disable Internet connection in some manner
2. Install the game
3. Make a backup of succubuss.dzip and elf_flotsam.dzip from the CookedPC folder
4. Patch the game
5. Restore backed up files into the CookedPC folder.
6. Done

Hope this helps somebody else with similar problems.

It's quite mind boggling that a fresh install of Witcher 2 patched to the latest version is fundamentally flawed because of the buggered patcher. I mean, please ...

Anyway, thanks for all the help, you dudes and dudettes are great!