@dudeglove: Interesting. I don't remember hearing that, but it could be her. Although, Novigrad is kind of long way from the Fyke Isle and Kerack.

@artisanbreads said:

Wait a minute.

No... no way.

:(

Oh god all that time.

Ha! Well. Live and learn I guess.

As far as sailing goes, and I agree it's one of the weaker parts of the game, what really gets me (and this is especially true of Velen/Novigrad) is how unnecessarily carved up the world is and how useless any inland river or stream is for travel. Seriously, what happened here?

The game is close to being magical to explore by boat but it's as if the developers actively worked to stop that. Many rivers which you see on the map that look like you could use them as shortcuts are actually blocked off. Either by some stupid rock, a sunken boat, or a bridge that is too low to sail under. Honestly I have been stunned all game by this design choice. I'm beginning to wonder if sailing wasn't added much later to the game to Novigrad/Velen especially.

@geraltitude: I totally agree. If I was to guess, I think they just realized the boating sucked and bailed on it as a big part of the game but left it in there as a gameplay element. I did my due diligence and explored all the small islands and spots of interests. I feel like that was a choice they made later on but as I say, just a guess.

@artisanbreads: yeah I could see that. I mean I've played well over 100 hours and love this game so don't get me wrong when I see it's too bad the boating isn't better. Just feels kind of tacked on in a way and some where (deep down) there is a kernel of sailing exploration I enjoy. There is a peace to being at sea at least.

All the wateractivities seems shoehorned into the game just becouse they need to be there to be "true open world". Its not well designed and without purpose.

If you are having a hard time with the boat then just swim. You swim superfast in this game and the boat is only slightly faster. Not having to deal with all the boatcrap makes up for the lost speed.

Edit: Theres also mods for the PC if you wanna swim even faster.

I got to level 7 yesterday and since I like to explore on my own my inventory, quests and schematics are many levels higher than me. Almost half of my schematics range from 14-37. I've modded extra loot and weight limit so I'm hoarding like a madman and I suspect I find enough loot my level that I don't need to craft too much. What are your thoughts on crafting? Useless?

Worth it if you want the best gear (the witcher school armor pieces and swords you find schematics for). If you don't want to craft anything, you can. I might even consider such an approach for my second playthrough. I actually enjoy crafting in any game, but it would let you not bother with all those materials cluttering your inventory (admitedly almost a non-issue post 1.07).

hah! Didn't Roach much myself. Kinda think of Geralt as a Walking Witcher. The one thing I could never figure out about the boat was how many speeds it actually has. Is there a difference between a double and triple tap? Honestly I don't find it hard to maneuver outside tight streams and rivers, and many times would get myself stuck trying to reverse out of a stream.

@geraltitude: Dang it. I had no idea boats had a sprint speed like horses...

It's a repetitive game though.

My biggest issue with the sailing, especially around Skellige, was the camera angles. One of the most enjoyable aspects of AC: Black Flag was the gorgeous, all-encompassing boat views you could stare at while sailing. The camera seemed too zoomed in on Geralt and always snapped back to behind him too quick.

Spent over 100hrs nearly finished I love this game but I absolutely hate playing it, I think Roach's goal in life is to troll my ass.

The addition of new game + seems exciting for this game.

So I finally beat this game. Took me a month longer than expected but I freaking loved it! Got the Empress ending with Yen and after I Youtube'd the other two, I'm really happy with all of my choices. Things couldn't have turned out better if I planned them. It's been a while since I've felt so fulfilled after finishing a game....

Thinking of getting back into this game, since I'm 99% on Batman now.

Did the latest couple of patches do this game any good (PS4)? I loved the world and some of the stories, but playing it was kind of frustrating with all the glitches, sloppy controls and bad framerate.

@dussck: It has been working pretty good for me lately. I like the new movement option and the addition of storage is pretty great. But Roach is still a asshole though when it comes to movement and how he spawns.

I just lost ~20 hours of progress due to a Windows 10 upgrade (I am an idiot), and I feel like dying. I don't know man, having to go through 20 hours of shit I have already seen, just to see the 20 or 30 hours I haven't might actually break me.

Maybe you can actually skip content through console commands? Worth checking it out.

@nickhead: I agree, with the camera angle the sail always seems to be in the way too.

I'm on the Brothers in Arms quests now, can someone give me a hint how far along I am in the main quest? Like, ballpark a percentage?

@yothatlimp: Dude what?! Details please!

Yeah, I might also check into some sort of save editor.

Well I was a wee bit tipsy and excited for Windows 10, and I thought I had backed up my Witcher 3 save the day before, but it turned out I hadn't back it up since June so I upgraded which nuked my windows partition and my 10+ hours of work.

I am going to choose to see this as a good thing as one of my main quests were bugged, so instead of doing the Novigrad stuff, maybe I'll go to Skellige first.

Never upgrade your OS under the influence, kids.

@yothatlimp: Were your saves not backed up through Steam cloud?

@yothatlimp: What do you mean by "nuked your windows partition"? Do you not have a windows.old folder on your OS hard drive? Because that's where your old save file should be.

I have officially learned this lesson.

Unfortunately I have a GoG copy that copy with my nVidia card, no steam clouds saves for me.

I was unable to update my existing windows install (long story) after choosing 'upgrade to Windows 10' so I had to install Windows 10 fresh on this partition. I am going to try to see if I can use something like Recuva to see if I can find any hint of my saves before going through the entire Novigrad section again, I do not know if I have the heart.

I am an idiot.

@yothatlimp: I just finished it ten minutes ago. I'm writing this post as the final credits roll. A hundred and fifty hours.

I feel like flying to Poland and giving everyone in that team a giant hug.

Just restart. Skip the side stuff and mainline the story up to that point.

Congrats on finishing it! Yeah I think that is a great plan if I can't recover the saves!

Just wanted to post this article by Patrick about the game.

http://kotaku.com/how-the-witcher-3s-developers-ensured-their-open-world-1735034176

Found it interesting about how the game was developed. Basically it boils down to they kept a focus on making the quests strong even though they made an open world game. When they messed around with procedural generation and that kind of thing they saw quality suffer and they went back to the drawing board. Sometimes the answer is just putting in that effort. Made for oustanding side quests for an RPG and it's part of why the game is so special.

So I'm on PS4 and the new 1.10 patch is totally bugged, all of my sweet Witcher armor has disappeared as well as my diagrams. CDPR did say there is a fix coming soon and that we should keep a pre-patch save. So there is no point in playing any Witcher or starting the DLC tomorrow right? Because if I have to revert to a pre-patch save all that stuff will be lost.

Maybe they should've put some extra focus on making the actual gameplay good?

The gameplay is good...

I also love the gameplay. Some of the best for any RPG to me.

Patrick has another Witcher 3 article up, this one about the Bloody Baron quest. I really like how that quest turned out and they talk about the different responses to the broken family at the center of it.

@bigjeffrey: Curious: Did you play through it on a NG+ save? Is it worth starting a new file for the DLC or should I just steamroll it on my über-Geralt?

It is really good and I like it is more challenging than the base game, now I use a lot more tools when fighting to stay alive. I know a lot of people do not like combat and think it is garbage.

I would really like to see just a concept art for Bood and Wine new region. I have no idea how it looks.

I seemed to see a lot of gwent hype from CDPR for the expansion before it came out. Then with them doing physical gwent decks thru their site or Gamestop I assumed there would be a bunch more gwent stuff added. I just beat the DLC story and all the side quests and there were only 2 new people to play against and 1 vendor with some cards.

Did I miss something somewhere?

Is it just me or are the quests in Heart of Stone on par with -- if not better than -- the best content of the main game? Every quest I've completed thus far has tried to do something new and different. The writing in the expansion continues to be excellent and the cinematics are objectively better than those in the main game. It also helps that the game runs smoother than it did a few months ago, both during cutscenes and gameplay. Speaking of which, I'm finding the combat to be enjoyable again. The the combat scenarios in the expansion, particularly the boss fights, are quite challenging, forcing me to use every tool at my disposal. My only gripe with Heart of Stone so far has been the Rune- and Glyph-words; it's too expensive to get to the good stuff and even then I feel like most of bonuses you can get are not worthwhile.

So I'm just trying to take stock of how big this game is. Having recently reached Skellege and having put near on 70 hours in, I'm wondering how much of the main plot is left.

After I've finished searching for Ciri in Skellege, I'll have searched for her in the three main areas of the game. What kind of percentage of the main quests will I be through at this point?

@frodobaggins: About half maybe?

It depends, theres alot of stuff thats sort of connected to the main storyline that you can do but aint required to progress.

There are secondary quests and side quests in The Witcher 3. Secondary quests are given to you by people that Geralt knows, and side quests come from bulletin boards, and random people who ask you to help with something. You should do ALL secondary quests before finishing the game. Depending on how many secondary quests you've done in areas aside from Skellege, you could have 1/3rd of the game to go, or only about 1/3rd completed.

If you're 70 hours in, my guess is that you've been doing most of the major quests, so you should have half to 1/3rd left. There's still a good ways to go, and you're about to reach some pretty good quests.

It's a darn big game. If you're worried about getting the best ending, or where a possible point of no return might be, see this thread:

http://www.giantbomb.com/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/3030-41484/forums/point-of-no-return-a-spoiler-sensitive-guide-to-ge-1786484/

Spoilers are marked and about as vague as they can be. Just make sure not to spoil anything you don't want to know.

@spaceinsomniac: @rethla: Thanks for the replys. I'm doing every single quest I come across. Good to know I still have some ways to go. Was thinking perhaps after the three searching for Ciri quests there would be one last major quest and then done.

This aint a game made after the Bioware formula so you dont have to worry ;)

You will know when you are nearing the end, Not by all the companions suddenly having one final request they wanna ask of you but naturaly in how the story and events are unfolding.