1961

If you do all that there is to do in the game you don’t really have to push yourself into either melee or magic, really. You can walk the fence quite well, one of the things I love about the game.

A good move in Chapter 1 is to grind a level or two using the Crypt in the northeast part of the the village.

And I love having a bunch of skills! Wheeeee

1962

Now that you mention it I don’t remember a lot of spells/signs in the game at least in the first couple of chapters. Maybe that’s why I didn’t really consider being more of a magic user in my previous play attempts.

Oh well, back to the drawing board for this next play-through.

BTW does anyone know if the Steam Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut version includes the 1.5 patch?

1963

Dear lord, no. Stick to Diablo and Dragon Age where games are balanced on finding trash loot and rearranging inventories.

The Witcher only had some weapon slots to carry other useless items for one reason and one reason only: to look like a god damn badass walking around with 4 visible weapons.

It’s unfortunate that TW2 kinda caved in to the typical RPG trope of including trash loot for you OCD types. It’s also unfortunate that TW1 was only a half-measure, since they still included scrounging barrels and drawers for items, seldom useful, but once they give you a book that opens up herb or monster entries the first time, that’s all it takes to get you to keep searching throughout the rest of the game.

My point is, it’s fucking retarded and it should be kept out of RPG games.

1964

Well said that man.

1965

I found the lack of inventory management in The Witcher I freeing for a change, that’s definitely a plus in this game.

1966

I do find myself checking every barrel and wardrobe in the search for a “free” book that will enhance my monster compendium with something new and harvestable. Plus you can often find strong alcohol in such places too, which is the base for alchemy (and weaker stuff if you like drinking with the NPCs a lot). I don’t mind it so much, though it makes me feel weird looting the NPC’s houses right in front of them (that’s not limited to The Witcher games though by any means). I still wish I could grab the extra steel swords though, 80 orens is a nice bonus for slaying a Salamander scumbag.

My quest OCD kicked in. I dropped by the Hairy Bear tavern and someone got killed, apparently because I initiated events by visiting with someone else (being vauge to avoid spoilers). Anyway, that screwed me out of at least two quest completions, so I reloaded and am trying to finish up some stuff before kicking off said events again. I could just let it go, but I hate not finishing something.

1967

My recommendation is to just not have any scruples about looking things up, if you want to complete everything possible. I used this site: http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher_Wiki

The innkeeper that got killed was killed because of a choice you made earlier. His quest has to do with the other side, the one you chose not to help. It is possible to complete his quest no matter which choice you make, but you have to do some shenanigans with running straight to the inn without doing things first that the plot naturally pushes you towards, and it’s obviously not the intent.

Specifics

You let the Scoia’tel take the weapons shipment outside Vizima. That puts you on a story path of siding with them and against the Order, although it’s not too late to change if you don’t want to do that.

So don’t worry about that innkeeper or his quest, basically :)

1968

Why do you do that? If you’re reading the Wiki anyways to find out what you missed, why are you even going back to experience it when you’ve just spoiled yourself?

And the death of that guy you’re talking about can’t be reversed, it depends on a decision you made back in Chapter I. It’s not worth replaying that kind of shit, because this game has several permanent decisions that you don’t deal with the consequences of until much later. Just play the damn game.

1969

I didn’t read everything on the wiki. Just if I came to a point where I wanted to be sure of what I was getting into, or if I wanted to make sure I had covered all quests before leaving an area, I would check it.

1970

It wasn’t the innkeeper that was killed, but thanks for the link. I’m pretty sure I know what I did to cause the NPC’s death, and how to not trigger it until I’ve completed his quest and another that involves him, but I may look him up on the wiki just to be sure.

Quest OCD, it’s a sickness…

1971

Really? Who was killed? That’s another reason I have no shame looking at the wiki for this game. there’s so many permutations of the events that can happen, and I’m not going to play the game more than once to see them all.

1972

I meant to reply to Slainte, not you.

And he’s right that it’s not the innkeeper, it’s someone else that’s completely unimportant except for a couple lines of text.

1973

I didn’t read a wiki, I figured it out from in game messages and events. Here’s the deal:

Explaination

[spoiler]It was Coleman who died, murdered by the non-human resistance right there in the inn. This screwed me over, because I had not yet finished the quest “The Rat” which starts (and ends) with Coleman. I had his request to clear ghosts out of a house of his, but had not done it yet. When I discovered him dead big red quest updates flashed on my screen telling me I had failed “The Rat” and would not be able to complete it.

Since I had just recently loaded from a save game I realized the only event I had triggered recently was talking to the private investigator guy. So I reloaded, avoided talking to the PI guy, and cleared the house of the wraiths and graviers that infested it. I then returned to the inn and discovered Coleman gone, but the Innkeeper said he could be found at the dike. I did find him there, chatting up a guard, and he revealed he was a mole working with Vincent to uncover the Salamandra. Thus I completed Suspect:Vincent Meece (or whatever his name is) and obtained the City Guard signet ring. Yet another quest or piece of quest I would have failed due to Coleman’s death.

Now I’m done with Coleman, so I’ll talk to the PI again and Coleman can die (or maybe he won’t if he’s not at the Inn anymore). It was worth it to me to reload and delay his death, as it resulted in some decent rewards and quest completions.[/spoiler]

1974

Oh, ok. That is the innkeeper, he just gets replaced when he’s killed. AFAIK.

1975

Ahhh I see what he means. Yeah I forgot the triggering event. It’s probably a very common occurrence because the investigator is the main quest line, and I think most people talk to him right when they get into the city, and end up causing the other thing to occur.

Keep in mind though that there are several things that happen in this game like that, where yes you may lose out on some quest rewards or whatnot, but ultimately I think one should just live with their decisions and move on, and maybe check the Wiki to read what else can happen. I understand what it’s done though, and I did do it once in chapter 3 I think (reloaded to get the other outcome because I found it more favorable).

It’s a rich game and I probably shouldn’t harp on how people play it… except for the OCD, seriously, stop it.

1976

Nooooo! Must…complete…all…quests!

1977

Arise, old thread.

This could be pretty cool:

I take it from other tweets of CDPR that Fools Theory is a small studio with some Witcher-era CDPR developers.

1978

That would indeed be very cool. Presumably they would design a better combat system that used a controller too.

1979

Personally I liked the combat system in 1 more than that in 2 and 3. It was different and centered around the character’s skill rather than my ability to time dodges.

1980

Yeah, I did like that aspect of it. I’m not a fan of the combat in 2 and 3 exactly. But I do appreciate that I can play it with a controller, so hopefully they can at least translate 1’s combat to a controller. Maybe I can press A instead of clicking in the left mouse button.