Since I'm posting, anyone care to discuss the game itself? I'm personally disappointed,
Now Don't get all defensive, the game play is good, the difficulty is good (as far as combat), graphics are good, storyline....EH! . seems to me more like they were on a good roll developing this game... then one day the Boss comes in and says "we gotta have this done by Friday " then it all goes down hill. character cant even reach full potential even if you do every side quest, cant make enough money to upgrade armor and weapons as needed come the end game, and once you manage to loot and sell every possible thing, and sell off all your alchemy items to make the Vran armor .... the game is over, you don't hardly get to use it. Sile' tells you Yennefer is in nilfguard if you let her live... well, why cant we go see her. especially if you chose to save Aniese instead of Triss. you don't even get the girl in the end.
And i really don't like that you can't change your mind and go another route once you have made the choice. ie. why cant i go the route of helping Roche, then go fight with Saskia after i lift the curse from Henselt?. or go save Triss after saving Aniase? this way you could get more game experience, complete more quests, make more money etc.

I'd kind of like to hear other opinions, thought this forum was for discussions, not just tech help. but i cant find any normal discussions heh.

Also it was all just too short, i have played it through 4 times in 1 week. not worth $40 imo.
Witcher 1 had tons of quests and you could just wander around killing stuff and gathering alchemy ingredients to sell ... for days if you wanted to, not just rush to the end.

I kinda agree with you as far as the finale goes - the game does suffer from the "second part of a trilogy syndrome" and instead of a Empie-Strikes-Back cliffhanger there's a little feeling of not having resolved much, which is strange since you could do that easily if TW3 is going to be set in Nilfgaard anyway, away from the Northern troubles... Even a narrated ending repleying all your choices ala TW1 (or the Fallout series) would give me a bit of more out of the ending.

However I did like the progressive sidequest trimming. Many of those serve just asa filler in most RPGs (tabletop and computer alike) and less of them in act 3 made me feel that the main plot is actually important, and time is scarce. This is not however an excuse to make chapter 3 as short as it went, because all that creative energy could've been spent making the finale of such a grand story even more epic.

And as far as choices go - turning your back on them would beat the wole purpose of making huge choices work in TW2 as they do. Still I agree there are too many loose ends, so even if the situation would play out on it's own while Geralt does something else you should get to see more of it.

I Agree with you as far as the "turning your back on your choices", but for example i didn't choose to help Henselt, I chose to go with Roche to find the Kingslayer and save Triss. and because i i went with Roche to save Aniase to help Tamaria become stable, i should still be able to save Triss and kick some Nilfgaurdian arse. that wouldn't change the outcome of my choices.

Anyway seems to me they rushed me through to the end way too soon.

Yeah I know what you mean. The whole third act, no matter which side you're on, is about personal choices vs greater good. While the idea is brilliant, and very much in the style of the witcher books, it's execution could've been better; i.e. no clear reason was given why you can't have both. Moral choices and dillemmas are great in a game only if the player knows beforehand enough to understand the gravity of the choices and inevitability of the outcome. If we had a real reason to know that after saving one saving the other would not be possible, the choice would be much more meaningful.

this is a bit of a storytelling dilemma I often encounter while hosting pen-n-paper RPG sessions: how much information do you give the players for making a choice, how much do you steer them through fate and "coincidences", how much do you rely on their choices to push the plot forwards, and make them suffer the cosequences. Because, in all honesty, players love to suffer consequences, because they make stories interesting, unique, and give them total immersion due to te fact that they get the feeling that what their character does matters and the plot revolves arround them. On the other hand you can't give them too much so that you can have minor choices make big changes - the unforseeable is also fun! Still if you make those consequences appear out of the blue, in wrong moments, or too often, then it makes it feel "unfair" and spoils the mood. Very tricky to pull off in any interactive medium.

I think this game was deliberately made to frustrate certain approaches to playing RPGs that the developers find inconsistent with the characters or the story.

You can't master all the skills. You can master one skill set, or you can be a jack-of-all-trades. What you can't do is make your character into a tank. Why? Because Geralt isn't a tank. He's a veteran witcher who puts his life on the line with the tools he has.

You can't go back and play other paths through the storyline for completeness. The whole point of making choices is that you have to live with the consequences. Besides, if you were supporting Roche and Henselt, the Scoia'tael and Saskia's militia are prepared to shoot you on sight.

You don't get to know the consequences or the gravity of your choices before you make them. That's the single strongest point of the game. You choose what you think is the lesser evil and live with the consequences. All of them. Your actions cut off alternatives just as they do IRL, clairvoyance doesn't exist, hindsight is bullshit, and the developers do not have to apologize for it.

You don't get to grind monsters for XP. That's just a waste of story time and good electricity.

The one point I will agree with is that the Epilogue is rushed. Too much of the story is not played out but only told to you in your conversation with Letho.

Well, i have to apologize,
logged in this morning and see a rather large thread that was started back in May covering all of this conversation in great length.

Thanks a lot for your replies though. i enjoyed the discussion.