ironyuri said:
That depends on your play style- the signs could often be more effective in combat against certain enemy types. Igni (the fire sign), for example, was useful in several situations and against numerous enemies. Putting points into the shield/defence sign was invaluable near the end-game and the aard proved itself useful throughout, especially when you needed crowd control.
I guess I just liked using all the options available, rather than just clicking allt he time and then bitching about how the Witcher is filled with click-twitch combat?....
The problem is that the game never had an opponent were using a sign was somehow easier then just clickity clicking them to death. There is no depth, no moment when I thought "This fucker is tough, I wonder if he has a weakness to something..." It was pure and simple potion spamming plus hacking.
Like made said, you don't need to take all the jobs. Witcher's hunt and kill beasts for a fee; stray dogs are beasts and the Witcher was paid... however you always had the choice to turn down the job. While it would have been interesting if the job boards had been more dynamic, ie: if you didn't take jobs they'd disappear after a certain time limit (simulating someone else taking it in your place), they were not. You still had the choice.
Why wouldn't I do the quest? I mean from a metagaming standpoint there's no reason in game why I shouldn't. Now, if there was some consequence for taking the quest, for example getting made fun of by some other witcher or some shit, then maybe, but as it stands those "kill 5 things even though there's hundreds of them" quests are a poor man's quest filler. Something I'd like to think will become extinct at some point.
If I remember rightly though, the dog tallow quest for the Undertaker/Graveyard overseer led to another quest involving a woman and her recently deceased husband who had returned as a restless wraith. She only appeared at the Graveyard around 12-16:00 game time, however, and so you may have missed that.
I don't recall there being any pre-quests for that one, but I certainly could be mistaken...
Again, Geralt is railroaded by the nature of the game and the need to implement some structure which will drive the plot forward. If you name Ramsmeat, sure, you don't get anything but a cheap fight; but I'd say there's some feeling of accomplishment if you take the quest through to the end and try to figure it out.
My point was that there may be a lot of choices, but precious few consequences. Just a little flavor that doesn't go a long way. Again, what was the consequence for picking Ramsmeat or one of the others?
If the game is destined to be railroaded, then I have no problem with them simply telling a story. I have a problem when a game is hyped about diverging story lines and C&C when in fact it's just switching a few factions around while going to the same places and fighting the same shit.
The factions are not the same. You've got the Flaming Fis- I mean the Order of the Flame and the Squirrels and then you've got the neutral path. None of the factions is either purely good nor purely evil, so, unlike a Bioware game the moral choices are somewhat ambiguous. The squirrels can do pretty horrid things to humans and the Flaming Fist can do pretty brutal things to non-humans. I took the neutral path and fucked the two nurses because the Witcher does not into politics.
Same burning Vizima, same enemy types, different sex cards... wow.
I haven't seen any other game that really implements vibrant and realistic factions, so to expect it of the Witcher is perhaps to expect too much. If you extrapolate the plot into the unseen future you can assume how different the endings would be- If you chose the Flaming Fist then there would be renewed non-human pogroms and if you choose the squirrels they will, after a bloody struggle, force recognition of their rights in Temeria... if you choose the Witcher then nobody wins except Geralt.
None of which you ever see in game. Like if you choose the OTHER red head, the one with the green, doesn't Trist still help you? Yes, though excuse me, SHES NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT : ( Does that part of the city still burn? Are the two females from each faction not reversed depending on who you pick?
It's all flavor. It's all just shallow flavor and to be honest, none of it was written well enough for me to give a shit about. That's just me. That's my opinion so maybe that's worth shit.
As for end games, I mean really, who gives a fuck what we speculate or what the game tells us. I suppose if you don't win in DA:O then TEH DARKSPAWN DESTROYS EVERYTHING! So what?