Actually, I think The Witcher is by far the best single character RPG I've ever played. I really don't know where you get the idea the system is designed for more than a single character, though. It's clearly not. Given the way combat is set to timed moves, you'd have real trouble with more than one character, don't you think? It had its problems, yes, but nowhere near the level of bugs that NWN had. The main problem with Witcher was horrendous load times, which were annoying but far from game breaking.
As for being MORE valid, I take it you do know that D&D is a system designed for a MINIMUM of four characters and preferably five or six, right? The classes are all balanced the way they are for that reason.
I didn't say The Witcher's system is designed for parties, I simply said if you pretend to claim NWN IS designed for party-based play, then the Witcher is, even moreso. The engine was designed for NWN, not for some party-based game. NWN never even supported single-player party-based play (multiplayer != single-player party-based). I would say NWN2 proves that party-based play was never the idea of Aurora engine, because its party-based play is a nightmare.
I loved the Witcher as well, but up until the EE, its performance was absolutely dreadful. I was playing with a top-notch PC when the Witcher came out, and graphically it was a nightmare, especially the cutscenes. It also suffered from stuttering a lot, even on lower graphic settings, and its response was also very slow at times. Loads of weird framerate drops and insane loading times really diminished the game experience in the early days. There were also a couple of crash-to-desktop bugs, and with AA on, my PC would hang every time on reaching Vizima.
The EE fixed most of these issues, but that was a lot later. And if I'd known, I'd have bought it when EE came out, cause it would've saved me a bunch of money. Still, I agree that it is easily the best single-player RPG since Gothic II.
When I bought NWN, I by no means had a top-notch PC for the time, and it played beautifully. I never had a stutter, much less a bug in it. Graphically, there was nothing even close to being in its range at that time (Morrowind looked really nice in terms of colors and stuff, but it was no match for NWN), and it was the only game in which I ever played around with the mod tools myself; because it was so user-friendly.
Even though the D&D system is designed for parties of at least 4, that doesn't mean every D&D game is designed for parties of at least 4.
The Witcher's biggest drawback for me just also happens to be one of NWN's strengths: character creation and development. Witcher's story, quests and characters are far superior, I fully agree, but those are not the only things that matter. And NWN's story, quests and characters, while rushed towards the ending and not being Shadows of Amn-worthy , are definitely not so bad as they're made out to be.
*shrug* different experiences, different opinions. Did you play The Witcher right when it came out? I never encountered bugs in NWN, but I didn't actually buy it right when it came out.
