OK, we all know that devs add and remove stuff as the games goes through developement, some of these changes can be spotted as you progress through the game. My question is what was removed/left out of chapter 1?

For me there are 3 things:-

1) The big area over the river with the bandit hut is so under used.

2) The Guild guy talking to the blacksmith. If you keep listening there is quite a lot of threats made. I could see this as a side quest where you either have to help the blacksmith against the guild or help the guilds protection racket, either way choices would play out later in say ch2.

3) The trap door behind Loredo's house that links up to the caves out side town. Why go to all the trouble of linking these too objects.

Any more you can think of? Or perhaps these could be futer DLC?

1. small cave on the outskirts of Flotsam which has a couple of crates and sacks in it which isn't connected to any quest.
2. Corpses of soldiers in the area near the Troll bridge/ bandit swamps that apparently were carrying a very large demijohn (smuggling moonshine liquor?)
3. the guys in Flotsam who hire you to be a guinea pig for their new drug. (I'm at the end of chapter 1, but no quest entry about that)

Forgot about empty cave.
As for corpses with demijohns I just assumed they were visual backup of Loredo's fisstech smuggling business.
2 Guys in flotsam again I assumed this may be answered in Witcher 3 since they say see you in 1 year in Vizzima

The guys in Flotsam give you a critical effects mutagen. Would be nice to meet them again in TW3, though. Also, the one who is talking to you, reminded me a little bit of Kalkstein... I miss Kalkstein... "lost in thought"... ;)

Would be great to go back to Vizima with the new engine and meet all the old friends.

The guild guy bugs me too, someone should get an SDK and make a quest out of it. :)

And the whole of Loc Muinne is a bare canvas. Lots of closed doors, the cave area is severely underused...


Edit: And what's up with all the food in the game being junk and not even needed for a quest?

The guys talking about the medical trial, they want the Witcher to undergo, just give him a mutagen though (I thought that was kinda misleading). I never used that mutagen (sold it), since I only apply the strongest kind of them, because they can't be changed anymore, once distributed.

I also thought that locations like the bandit hut screamed for _something_ that should happen there, but... :( It didn't even offer any good loot. I had high hopes.

The bandit hut was a disappointment, the whole swamp area really, just several drowners, the two dead elves screamed for a related mini quest, and the supposed bruxa (was it really a bruxa? looked anorexic, boob-less and was wielding a sword, nothing like the bruxae as we got to know them in TW1) which wouldn't drop any interesting loot seemed like an afterhought. Now that I'm finally playing TW2 non- casually I realize there's the need for an Enchanced Edition like in the case of the first game, but damn, they should have done it right from the start, I'd have gladly waited another 6-12 months for a flawless game. And, OT, I really wonder how they plan to fix the controller issues for the XBox version, there's a console dedicated radial menu which is a pain in the ass to use and makes you waste precious seconds before you finally manage to highlight the right sign or ranged weapon. It's much easier with the keyboard and mouse.

Edit: I think I remember the cave you mean. More like a hole in the wall, no? :P Somebody linked a review by Rock, Paper, Scissors that made a very good observation. It seems like most of the "flaws" in the game are what one might expect if the developers spent such a long time on a project that it all just seems so natural to them.

I think it is true that longer development time doesn't necessarily equal a better game. A fresh set of eyes for testing seems to be more important.

To me it seems that they had a lot of quests ideas when they made the world that they had to cut down because of time.

This is understandable because development time is limited and you don't have time to finish everything. However, those things stick out in this game because they didn't remove the locations of the quests (like the empty hut in chapter 2).

The flip-side is that they can release the unfinished content as DLC as they patch the game and prepare the 360 version. It wouldn't seem unlikely that they could add a quest in the swmap area.

But regarding that swamp area, isn't one of the points of there to loot the house after you get the key by killing the guys from the troll quest?

Yes, but there's like one chest with crappy items that it's hardly worth your time. I did like the swampy area and tree with hanged Elves, though. So sinister.

Hey, now... A superb cutlass is nothing to scoff at. :(

I do my best to smile wide while trying to get the best price at Mysterious Merchant's.

Hmpf! :P