The Witcher 2 - Interview @ Bit-gamer

Bit-gamer has a short-ish interview with Tomek Gop about The Witcher 2. Here's the current status:

BG: How has the game progressed in the last few months, and what have you been adding in to the title?

Tomek: We’ve pretty much just been wrapping things up. We’re nearing beta now and the game is finally shaping up, so at the moment it’s not about this or that feature – it’s all of them. You can already walk through all of the game, taking any sidequests that you wish. We’re at the final stage of optimisations, balancing and trying to gauge the number of gameplay hours in The Witcher 2. That’s the question that everyone’s been asking us.

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More information.

Looking forward to playing the game even if I don't like some of the new features added. I still recall playing the original with all its bugs and slow loading times on its release. I'm going to have to save money for all he games coming out in the next few months.

Difficulty in trying to gauge the number of gameplay hours suggests there must be a differential factor. This could mean the difference in attaining any extra insane mode gameplay hours over and above the normal settings - eg: where would the increased difficulty begin? (between easy-normal-hard-insane) at the very beginning? - or somewhere part way? or per quest? - we are looking at quantifying the easiest shortest route through the game in comparison to the longest hardest route. Not very easy to explain without giving away spoiler/indicators before the game's release i must admit.

Perhaps it would be best to give the minimum hours indicator and leave the max as an *undetermined* factor for hardcore gamers to discuss retrospectively?

Wulf said:

Difficulty in trying to gauge the number of gameplay hours suggests there must be a differential factor.

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Or more simply that they've finalised the side quests that made it into the game, the branching choices etc from all their assets, and they now need to calculate the path through them all. Not possible until you lock down the quests.