User:AEon


 * Note: This is the very first version, created before I played the full game, so almost everything needs to be edited and corrected. And quite a few entries will probably directly link the wiki, since the information has already been presented there in full detail.

= AEon's FAQ for The Witcher =


 * v0.2 - XXX Q&As, for The Witcher - Enhanced Edition - Director's Cut - 5/13/2010


 * Edited by AEon (C) 2010


 * (* Marks changes since v0.1)

INTRO

 * This FAQ is intended for the fans who have enjoyed, played and finished The Witcher, at least once, and are now wondering what quests, and other goodies they may have missed. In short, the FAQ is written for those that want to get more out of the game!


 * Note: I am assuming you more or less know how the game works, i.e. you learned the basics from playing The Witcher. If you want to be informed of things that go beyond "just winning the game", keep reading.


 * A niced-up version of this FAQ in HTML is available at my site:


 * |AEon's Advanced FAQ for The Witcher v0.2 - HTML (***TODO)

***Selected Gameplay and Combat Tips?
To get you off to a good start, for your next playing of The Witcher, you may want to read the following list of in-game tips. There is bound to be something you were not yet aware of. For convenience these in-game tips have been sorted by category.

***Comment: These infos and tips are shown on the load/save progress screens in The Witcher. These are all mentioned in the \dialog.tlk file. (AEon)

***The Witcher does not seem to have such in-game tips?! Just the tutorial tips...

 
 * XXX.

The Witcher gameplay Goals?
There are quite a few things you can/will want to achieve when playing the game:


 * Character Building: Create a powerful Witcher.
 * Level up your char as far as possible, i.e. maximize XP gain.
 * Read books and scrolls to learn new abilities, i.e. recognize plants or brew potions from recipes.
 * Master alchemy, possibly experiment with your own recipes.
 * Collect and earn heaps of orens (gold).
 * Collect Meteorite pieces and Rune stones to upgrade your swords.
 * Collect the Romance Cards.
 * Solve all quests and puzzles.
 * Have fun :)
 * Have fun :)

How to read up on dialogs?
Alas it does not seem to be possible to look up dialogs, information about recent quest updates, orens or XP earned etc. The Journal updates all the pertinent information, marking new entries with a "!".

How to Maximize your XP?
If you want to maximize your XP counts (***was there a Level cap?), to thus push your PC Level, here are some tips:


 * Some obvious tips to start off: Play and complete as many quests and side-quests as possible.


 * Play the mini-games, see the "What Mini-games are there in The Witcher?" Q&A.


 * Go out of your way to "clean up" all enemies. In some areas the monsters will respawn again and again. E.g. Drowners near the river (at night), Ghouls in crypts, "green cursed hounds" on the Outskirt paths at night.


 * *** Add more examples.

How to Run faster?
The normal running speed of the Geralt (you) is - compared to the walking speed - already quite brisk for an RPG. But should you want to run even faster, draw a sword (q-key or e-key by default), to then run slightly more quickly.

Note: In peaceful areas it is not possible to draw your swords. (***see indicator).

What objects can one Interact with?
Aside from NPCs, you can interact (open, use) with Barrels, Chests, Wardrobes, Plantss, (***add more examples), even the Remains of slain enemies. Be sure to check all of these, when they have a blue interaction text hovering above them, since most of them yield Loot.

Loot:
 * All sorts of valuables, weapons, food, potions, plants, and junk that can either be used or sold.
 * Orens coins.
 * Meteorite shards.
 * Scrolls, books increasing the PC's knowledge.
 * Ingredients for alchemy.
 * *** add more of them.

First-time dialog options?
Usually dialogs with NPCs will let you re-ask questions, letting you listing to stories or valuable information a second time.

Note: In such dialog trees, the dialogs you have already followed are grayed out. Helping you remember old information and notice *new* dialog options!

But in several cases your first interaction with a new NPC, can yield unique one-time-only dialogs. You can also insult NPCs in dialogs, thus barring your game from future useful dialog trees!

***Needs testing, you can insult NPCs... I am not sure they will ever talk to you again if you do.

Tip: Always Quicksave before you talk to a new NPC. Should the dialog not go well, simply Quickload again. This lets you experiment with the dialog options.

How does the Crime System work?
Differing from other RPGs, in The Witcher, the looting of objects (see the "What objects can one Interact with?" Q&A) is *not* considered a crime. The NPCs completely ignore this.

Violet repercussions only occur through either dialogs or by some "automatic" area trigger, spawning foes.

Fleeing from foes during combat?
Usually you should be able to outrun your foes when combat was initiated, thus letting you leave the area of combat, should the fight not go well.

Note: The foes only follow you for a certain distance and then give up.

***May not always work though? Examples? E.g. I think you loose in a fistfight if you try to run away. In other situations there may not be anywhere to run to, e.g. when cornered on a bridge or in castle halls.

Tip: When e.g. Swallow cannot regenerate your health quickly enough, running away will give you an extra moments breather. Does not work well against foes that shoot projectiles, though.

Backtrack and Meditate for Vitality, Endurance, Toxicity?
A well prepared fighter, is a fighter that survives the next battle!

It is always a good idea to completely regenerate before you enter a new area, e.g. a cave or tavern etc. Thus backtracking will improve your chances of surviving the next fight.

Since Geralt automatically heals (Vitality), regenerates Endurance, and also reduces Toxicity, you simply need to stand around and wait. It is more efficient to visit a camp fire and Meditate for an hour or so. This completely revitalizes the PC.

Note: You can also sleep at an inn or some hut with a "bed".

Especially during combat, you may want to consume various goods to up your Vitality or Endurance values. Potions are most potent in this respect, so ensure you always have some at hand.

***Mention those spiritual sources, whatever they actually do.

Revisited locations yield new items?
During the game you will revisit areas, the second time under slightly different circumstances.

Examples: ***Crypt suddenly opens up previously blocked passages.

Tip: Be sure to very carefully re-investigate the revisited area. Very often you will find valuable "hidden" items:


 * ***Examples?!

What Quests are there in The Witcher?
The Witcher is a complex game. This list will help you track down those few Quests you may have missed for some reason.



Total: XX Quests.

***Where to find the Meteorite shards for swords?
Visit a smith with extremely rare Meteorite shards to improve the sword's stats:

 :

***Note: There were two of them in the outskirts CH1... one on the monster in the crypt (after 2nd visit more of the crypt was accessible, not sure what triggers this), another one you could by from the "smuggler" at the "harbor", after helping him out (IIRC).

What different Endings are there?
There are three endings to the game, and these are determined by Geralt's choices at critical points in the game. Thanks to flashbacks (series of still images, reminding the player of his past choice) the player is retroactively made aware of the forks in the story.

*** Details...

Choices:
 * XXX
 * YYY

*** 

Gameplay Alternatives?
The many gameplay alternatives in The Witcher are among the more fascinating and interesting features of this RPG. Meaning, quite often there are several ways to reach/complete a quest. Read: Replay Value! Below a list of situations with alternatives you might like to try out:

Alternatives:
 * ***

XXX.


 * Three Endings

See the "What different Endings are there?" Q&A for details.

***What Mini-games are there in The Witcher?
There are only a few mini-games in The Witcher:


 * Fistfights.


 * Game of Dice Poker for coin.


 * Drinking bouts.

What Mini-games are there in The Witcher?
There are only a few mini-games in The Witcher. These are activated as part of the dialog tree when talking to NPCs. Activate the mini-game by clicking the available gameplay icon to the left of the numbered dialog options:


 * Fistfight.
 * ***Mention locations...


 * Dice Poker for coin.
 * ***Mention prerequisites... and players.


 * Drink
 * Provided you have optimized Geralt's build to be able to take large amounts of intoxication, you should be able to win most drinking bouts. These let you win favor with this NPC, you may also gain, often rare, items or additional information.
 * ***Details what char traits exactly?
 * ***Add a few examples and what they yield.

Easily overlooked goodies?
A few containers can easily be overlooked:


 * XXX

Foes easily missed?
Some foes in The Witcher will only spawn after certain other prerequisits have been met. Or are dependent on the time of day. E.g. some foes only appear at night. This can make it very easy to miss them, since the foes are often spawned in areas you will quite probably already have explored (by day). For those looking for more XP and orens, some pointers:

 :

FUN
===Favorite character Quotations?''' During the long hours playing The Witcher you may have witnessed many comments from your side-kicks, here is a collection of some favorites:

xxx
 * "xxx" [ ]

Favorite dialog Quotations?
There many amusing dialogs between the various characters of The Witcher:

XXX & YYY -
 * XXX: "xxx"
 * YYY: "yyy"

Geralt's darker moments?
There are a few situations when playing a more darkly inclined Geralt is possible:


 * XXX.

Speculations and Musings?
Here a few game related speculations:


 * XXX
 * YYY.
 * Comment: XXX (AEon)

And various thoughts pertaining to the game, things to wonder about:

XXX and YYY
 * Is there some deeper plot behind XXX?
 * Comment: No.

Curiosities?
Things to try out or places to go after significant changes happened in the game:
 * XXX

MISC
===Bugs and Workarounds?''' Presently (5/13/2010) with the Enhanced Edition released in the Director's Cut version for the PC version of The Witcher, the number of bugs are quite few. But heed to the following tips anyway to avoid possible frustration:

Tips:
 * Save your game often! Every 5 minutes is a good number.


 * Take full advantage of Quicksave / Quickload, e.g. save before you enter a new area, or talk to a new NPC, or begin a game of dice, or start a fistfight. If you loose a fight or a game of dice, you can simply reload the state before the game.


 * Alas the so-called quicksaves are actually *full* saves, meaning every time you quicksave a new file is created, this file is not over-written! This can bloat your C:\ drive.

***Mention moving out save files to speed up load menu.

Bugs:
 * The game can sporadically crash, in my 120 hour run it crashed about 8 times (running the Steam version of The Witcher Director's Cut under Windows 7 (64bit)). Luckily I only lost a few minutes gameplay thanks to the abundant recent saved games. To continue playing, kill the game's task via Ctrl+Alt+Del, then restart the game, and load the last saved game state.
 * There does not seem to be much of a system behind the crashes, in one case exiting a building would freeze the game when it was trying to autosave at that point.
 * Or talking to a person would simple stop the game.
 * Or some cutscene late in the game (Chapter V, talking to Shani in Hospital) would not trigger properly, leaving the game running but with a black screen. In this case at least, rebooting Windows and restarting the game would fix the issue.
 * There are more bugs in the game, but with the save tips above, you should be able to avoid most of them and complete the game.

How do I use Cheats? Open the game console?
Alas there is no in-game console, so on-the-fly "cheating" or a change of settings is not possible. If you know differently, post!

***Mention the savegame editor that allows a certain degree of "cheating".

How to get clean HUD-free screenshots in The Witcher?
As far as I can tell there is no way to completely turn off the HUD (Heads Up Display) to take clean screenshots. You will always see Geralt's stats on the left side and the mini-map on the right. If you know differently, post this!

Tip: If you move Geralt back towards a wall (or tree), in OTS view you will notice that the character model will become invisible. This lets you take screenshots with HUD, but at least without Geralt in them.

How do I play the in-game .bik movies with an external player?
Since all in-game movies are in the Bink format, look for the free Bink player at |RadGameTools. Download and install the RADVideo package.

Tip: The in-game movies can be found in the \Data\Movies\ and \Data\folders. The latter lets you watch the 24 Romance Card movies.

How to take Screenshots?
For optimum quality .bmp Bitmap images are much better, though this comes with a file size price of about 5MB for screens running at a 1680x1050 pixel resolution.

To take screenshots plus get a framerate counter as a bonus use the Fraps screen-grabber tool (google for it, free version available). It takes screenshots instantly (no noticeable lag) in .bmp format. Note the tool lets you bind any key to grab screens. I use the <-key to the right of the left shift key on a German keyboard, very convenient.

ABBREVIATIONS
The Witcher uses quite a few new terms, and the FAQ needs to refer to them at times. To make the Q&A easier to read, here are all the commonly used abbreviations explained:


 * 50o - 50 orens (the official currency)


 * PC - Player Character (you! and your avatar in the game)
 * NPC - Non-Player Character (anyone else you can talk to in the game)
 * XP - Experience Points (controls leveling)
 * Q&A - Question & Answer (the meat of any FAQ)


 * *** - Denotes Q&As that still need to be edited/corrected, etc. ... help?!
 * * - Marks updates / fixes / information additions since the last version.

FEEDBACK

 * Feedback welcome!
 * Please try to look into the Q&As marked with "***", maybe you can help out there.
 * If you have additional info on a certain Q&A, please post it.
 * If you are missing a Q&A or some spiffy quest etc., tell us about it!
 * Also take a look at the Todo & Ideas section, if you will.
 * Any other improvement suggestions welcome.

CREDITS
The FAQ is based on my (AEon) playing The Witcher, but some valuable feedback was provided by the kind folks at the official XXX forum:


 * |The Witcher Storyline and Strategy Discussion

I would like to thank the knowledgeable "old timers" at the forum who patiently answered all my questions. Thanks go to: xxx, and xxx.

Special thanks go to xxx for all his extra contributions to the FAQ!

On quoting information: I (AEon) usually do not use the exact words of the various folks that helped. In crediting them, I credit their idea, feedback, or insight. I mention this in case someone is wondering about my not using their exact wording.

TODO & IDEAS
Some things I am planning to look into for this FAQ:
 * The different endings and how to get to play them?
 * Things to look out for.
 * Money, alchemy, plant collecting.
 * Quicksave before every dialog, or game of Dice Poker.
 * Tips from the manual... things to remember.
 * Merchants and pricing, they don't buy everything... the buy/sell ratio is 5/1, a few items like gems (e.g. diamonds) have a 2/1 ratio.
 * New Talents that need to be developed into Skills and Abilities.

HISTORY

 * v4.0 1st public version, 165 Q&As total, 117 new Q&As, 5 updates, 75 changed blocks; massive Q&A update (xxx).


 * v0.5 Putting together the basic Q&As and tips, and a complete list of in-game Tips.


 * v0.1 Using the Jade Empire layout, content structure, for this FAQ. (5/13/2010)

AEon