You should of read the books mate, I'd never played a witcher game before this but found out the books were released in the 90s and translation started in the 00s not only do they give you a much better insight of geralts and Ciris past plus many other characters! They are also highly rated books and will really grab you, much more than the game does. There's things that get mentioned in the game and even quests you do that you can only relate to if you've read the novels.

It is quite restrictive, and, as I said in one of my posts, I would actually prefer it if it was more linear like W2 - as someone who played a lot of open-world WRPGs, some design choices in W3 seem very primitive, which I wouldn't mind so much in more linear game.

As for that particular quest - tbh, I vaguelly remember what Gangs of Novigrad quest was...though it was not 2 days ago I was still in Novigrad. Honestly, can't say is it worth it, I think I finished every last one that was available (and achievable at my level), but honestly, I didn't like Novigrad that much - large city, but I haven't really felt connection...city is somewhat...I don't know...boring.

Skellige is for me (so far) something I hoped this game would be prior to starting it - good story, with great exploration. Vellen is, IMO, poorly designed for exploration that doesn't feel like waste of time without POIs and Skellige has finally gave me opportunity to wander around and not feel I'd miss something important if I don't go 100m further into the woods, in the bleeding land where everything is mostly flat and overgrown with trees.

I made it through the main quests in Novigrad (I didn't go back for gangs of Novigrad), now there's still the secondary spin offs left with Dandelion, Dijkstra, Phillipa and Roche. I feel the same about Novigrad. Oxenfurt seems more plausible as a city, still not as good as the Baron's keep (Crow's perch I think) which feels very natural. Novigrad feels more like a bunch of elements akwardly put together. There is no natural flow to the city.

I'm starting to hate Ciri, I hope se dies at the end :/ The game design is at it worst in the flashbacks and today completed the list of open world sins. First segment I had to climb the roof, I tried to jump to a scaffolding, clearly made it but slid down along an invisible wall to my death. Don't think, just follow the bread crumb trail. Then I'm supposed to fight the guy I'm talking to in the present. I hesitate, since I'm obviously not supposed to kill him... died because of that, second time I wail on him to be rudely transformed into a helpless girl that gets overpowered in the cut scene. To add insult to injury after that bit I get abducted onto a boat with my jump ability taken away so I can't jump off the ship.

Second segment I'm supposed to escape. I set out to find my own path to be met by infinitely respawning enemies, more invisble walls, and instant death floors when I manage to get around a wall. Of course all in order to force me into an ambush where a cut scene takes over and I'm suddenly helpless again after just defeating a hundred men. I guess she was tired...

It never ends lol, too bad the corpses start fading away, it was turning into a nice pile.


Oops got on the other side, now I can't get back, and I'm invisible to the guards


I also wonder how long a theater can survive that thinks killing half its customers is a normal way to end a performance lol.
The game seems so afraid that you'll get bored if you haven't chopped anyone in half for more than 5 minutes that it tends to become ridiculous at times.
Humor is good, intentional or not, I'll take it. Still having fun over all.

Hahaha, you're making some really strange desicions in your playthrough - I'm guessing you're talking about Dudu quest, I chose comedy, all went fine, audience was thrilled.

You didn't get the audience riled up at the end? I went for drama. Half the crowd drew their swords at the end, some were smart enough to run away yet their was a big pile of bodies after things settled. The troupe seemed to be ok with that.

I did finally manage to kill a peasant! I was trying to kill the guards that stopped me at the gate out of Novigrad, yet you can only piss off one of them. Tough bugger, but with a lot of axii stunning I managed to chop him down. His friends at the gate completely ignored all this. So I threw an enhanced dancing star at the commander sitting at the table followed by enhanced dragon dream, big explosion, nobody cared, except the peasant standing next to the table dropped dead.

Actually I accidentally killed npcs before including a guy I had to talk to for a quest. A pack of wolves I ignored was following me and killed a bunch of people where I had to stop to talk. It luckily only was an optional conversation, however the quest marker stayed on the corpse.

I wonder how far you can lead someone with axii, set something dangerous lose in the city.

No, I had one guy protesting at the end against dopllers, but everyone ignored him since they liked the play.

As for NPCs, so far I only managed to get one killed, he was in the cage (some of those Person in Distress POIs) and somehow he died. But he then got up and was out of the cage and I couldn't 'save' him - obvious bug.

That's one of the things I miss in lot of open-world games - who can and who can't die - I get the importance of main story and all, but more than that I appreciate if you have a choice to behave the way you like and for world not to be magically protective of certain NPCs. And I really don't buy 'if NPC die you'll break main quest', that's just lazy design, and all the games that do it properly are counterargument to that. Unfortuantelly W3 is full of those restrictive measures, but then again most AAA games are.

Just wondering, how will the sales of Witcher 3 look like.
Maybe other thread with predictions and poll?

Dude!! You can't say that!  Ciri is the main character! Underneath it all She's basically what the whole of the witcher world is all about.

There are so many stupid bugs in this game, it's starting to get really fucking annoying. Not only do I have to deal with this stupid game crashing at least 3x a day, now it's putting missions I've already completed successfully into the failed missions section. When you check the mission, which I am certain I completed successfully, it shows all green check marks.

F.U. CDPR. As much as I like this game, it's a broken mess. I don't know why they didn't just delay a bit more.

I lost a guy in a cage too, literally lost. I could not find the key anywhere, decided to return later. When I came back the cage was empty, still locked, still white on the mini map, no one there. That was at the Pontar crossing.

I had the opposite of protected npcs today. Dandelion's cabaret quest turned out to be rather long and convoluted. At one point I had to chase a muderer at the Vogelbud residence. So I run outside and all the guards start chasing me. Mistaken identity I'm sure, so I avoid them. Can't find the killer anywhere, exits are locked, can't use witcher sense since the presence of the hostile guards force you to have the sword out, which also prevents you from climbing and jumping. I go back inside to look for traces, a guard follows me however and again I can't use witcher sense. Now all the doors out of the house are locked as well. I knock the guard out of the way a few times with aard, yet can't do anything. In the end I give in and kill the guard, cut scene, indeed mistaken identity, the killer was supposed to escape for the rest of the story. Stupid, sorry about your innocent guard I was forced to kill.

I found something more aggravating than Ciri, horse races! Horrible AI, badly marked routes forcing you to 'drive' by minimap and immediate fail if you accidentally leave the path like a Gran Turismo driving test. I got dq twice during the final race over tons of criss crossing little paths. After completing it (had to reload) everyone starts fighting anyway (same as failure) yet I'm not allowed to help? Can't hit anyone, he just does his 'come on' gesture, while there is all out war around me. All for more useless money, over 20k now. (And effing Dandelion rather makes me kill a bunch of people instead of simply accepting a loan, and I'm not allowed to gift it of course)

I made it though the secondary Novigrad quests, the murder mystery was pretty interesting despite some of the gameplay bits. Now I still have a bunch of scavenger hunts and contracts left. At least they're out in the country, no more Novigrad. Waiting for 5 seconds or more everytime you want to talk to someone, or for the rest of their body to load, or the walls of the building you just entered, it's a mess since 1.04.