Hello all,

I am a l33t class newbster when it comes to both Witcher games and RPGs in general. I'm hoping you all can answer a few questions for me:

1. When I'm looking at my equipment (swords, armor), I see their rated with a number, but they also have specific attributes like "+7 Slash resistance" etc. So, when I'm deciding what to use, what should I be paying attention to. All the numbers a bit overwelming.
2. I am tooling around White Orchard right now. Just did a side quest to help a villiager find his brother after a fierce battle. There are dead soldiers EvErYwHeRe so of course I grabbed all the rusty swords I could carry. Now what.... Do I just sell them? I read somewhere that it's better to disasemble everything and use their parts - is that true? And if so, what the hell do a do with a bunch of metal since the local weapons dude can't seem to craft anything.
3. I also just got rid of the ghost lady in the well (I dug the story behind that one). Once the mission goals were set up, I went and crafted some spectre oil and took her down to punch town - I was very proud of myself. Usually, all this crafting in games is a turn off. So, is that the best way to approach missions? To not let all the alchemy become overwelming by waiting until I identify a particular oil/potion/magic thing-y that I'll need?
4. Anything else I should (but may not) know about right now?

Much thanks all. I clearly need all the help I can get.

1. Generally it's a matter of preference. If you like using signs and you have equipment that improves your use of signs, then that might outweigh a +3 to armor or attack power. If you're playing on a lower difficulty the numbers don't really matter. You could probably get away with changing out your equipment every time something breaks from low durability.

2. You can sell them, or if you go to a blacksmith you can melt them down into components for crafting. Crafting is a good way to get decent gear, assuming you have the recipes. Recipes are acquired all over the world, from quests to simply looting. You can view them in the crafting menu (next to inventory and etc).

3. That is certainly the best way to approach witcher contracts. Though, again, on lower difficulties you can get away with avoiding most alchemy. Just dabble in whatever takes your fancy.

4. If you want things to explore highlighted on your minimap, be sure to take all the notes from the notice board. It'll scatter a bunch of markers around the map that offer a variety of things to explore. This makes it a little easier to find loot and side quests.

@sunbrozak: Thanks sunbrozak! I'm hitting up the notice boards right now. It sounds like maybe I'm over thinking things a bit, but I don't want to miss out on great powerups / magic / etc.

This game is actually pretty straightforward and versatile I think. You can just kind of run around and do whatever strikes your fancy, and it'll probably be ok. I'd say you can just sell all the rusty weapons. You are guaranteed to find loooots of iron and steel weapons over time to dismantle if you need materials. Though I suppose you could dismantle 6~ or so of them just to have a stack of materials prepared. More than that seems a little unneccessary though, and money is scarce for the first few hours. I do however recommend you start dismantling any leftover silver you have, since that is a fair bit rarer. That could be anything from plates or candelabras or weapons for the record. Try not to buy too much stuff from shops, the prices are quite high, and you can find almost anything just lying around eventually. Though definitely check every shops stock as you pass by, sometimes they have unique items like recipes and maps.