Just installed Witcher 2, along with all the patches, and tried to start a new game. Skipped the tutorial, and skipped all the videos, talking and such by right-clicking until Geralt was standing in the tent.

However, i could not get him to walk. Neither WASD, nor the cursor keys are being acknowledged as movement keys. It does however acknowledge some keys. F for centering camera, Q for drawing weapon, space for rolling, and E for blocking. Using these i was able to move him around.

So, this problem is centered exclusively around the movement keys.

I checked the key config in the launcher and it says WASD as it should. I did however note that i could not change any of these keys. (I assume this is some developer-side consolification idiocy.)

So, did i spend money on a hopelessly broken product or is this just something they never bothered to fix and can be worked around easily?

The WASD keys work for everybody else, so I would not jump to the conclusion that the game is in any way broken or in need of fixing.

What keyboard are you using, and what other peripherals do you have attached?

In Windows Control Panel->Ease of Access->Make the keyboard easier to use, do you have "Filter keys" set? If so, clear it.

The machine is a Lenovo W520, no attachments but a network cable and a power cable.

(Did you really need to quote my entire post? It doesn't really help with readability here. ;)) Nothing there is set.

I know the stock keyboard is troublesome in that it can't handle many keypresses at once. I'm pressing single keys here though. It has never been removed and never made any problem in other games. (I'm also fairly sure that i updated the BIOS just 2 months ago.) I am running Win 7, yes, but i would be *extremely* surprised if that made an issue only for Witcher 2.

With a Logitech Comfort Wave 450 (the business edition) the behavior is identical.

I also noted that while alt+tab still works, the windows key is ignored as well. Is that normal?

Sorry Op, nothing that's happening with your keyboard is normal. I just used mine, and everything works like it should. Is your keyboard wireless?

Ok, figured it out. No idea how this got through testing, but in the configurator i selected the german keyboard layout, QWERTZ. Among others, that file has these lines: Meaning by default the movement keys are overwritten with fist fight commands if you selected the german input layout.

Is there some way i can report this as an official bug so they can patch it and others don't fall afoul of this?

Edit: Someone quote me please so i can mark that post as solution.

Thanks, i'll try posting there. :)

Nice find there.

Same problem occurs if you have a controller (gamepad in my case) attached to your PC. In the game i can designate the gamepad (which is an Xbox controller) to be the primary input device and it works, but WASD are only registered by the game if the controller is disconnected.

Congratulations for necro'ing a 5 year old solved question.