I was always interested in The Witcher upon it's release, but refused to buy it because of the TAGES copy protection. I was at Best Buy recently and saw that they released the "Enhanced Edition" that has so many upgrades and packed with so many extras that I really REALLY want to buy it.
I REFUSE to buy an offline game that REQUIRES me to get online, even if it's just for a second, to tell if I have a legit copy and let the game boot and function properly. The LAST and ONLY game I bought like this was SIN: Episode 1 and it used Steam. For about a year I had no internet connection and regardless that I payed for the game and had a legit copy I couldn't play it.
I read somewhere that The Witcher: Enchanced Edition had removed the TAGES copy protection from the game, I believe the developers themselves said this in a post. Either way, I can't find confirmation on this. Then I came across an Amazon.com forum about this very topic. Here is what he had to say:
"I ran a scan over the Witcher Enhanced DVD using the "BurnOut" copy protection detection tool from SourceForge and it revealed "Tages 5.5.2.6".
Can anybody shed some light on this version of Tages?"
Some people have said the game installs and boots up perfectly without an internet connection. So is it possible that the game no longer needs or uses TAGES and instead of removing it, the developers just left the TAGES program on the disk but in a non-working state? That would be fine with me. As long as I can buy the game, install it and boot it without the need for an internet connection then i'll be a happy camper!