Don’t be silly. You bang one prostitute and you get a card that represents all of them.
No, really.
I think the worst part about the sex trading cards in The Witcher 1 was the compulsive part of me that made me collect all the ones you can get in one playthrough just for the sake of ~completionism~, despite the fact that even at 17 years old I knew that was juvenile and creepy as hell.
One place I do think they fell down is the Skellige map - look, it LOOKS like there’s a ton to explore but I’m done getting in a boat and shooting sirens at smuggler’s caches. It’s nice to know the money’s there if you need it but that isn’t fun or interesting.
Actually I thought it was kind of great that most of the hookers had a “so how did you get here?” dialogue option, and some of their answers were that it’s none of your damned business. At least the writers wrote them as people.
The Witcher 3 is pretty great on sex worker-friendly sex positivity, I don’t have too many problems with the way it handles women or sex work, aside from nitpicks. But pretty much nothing can be held to the level of ideological purity required to be “perfectly feminist” or whatever (especially since such a thing is poorly defined).
The Witcher 1? Much less so. Even the first Witcher book is a bit… awkward with sex.
Okay, Kinthalis, I reluctantly let myself finish the game… What was it, that you were talking about in the finale?
Am entirely bereft. Like literally just wandered around and my husband asked if there was something wrong. “I guess it’s over?”
Well, you inspired me to start a new game since I hadn’t played since the DLCs emerged. I never even used the free DLCs. Went heavy on combat last time, think I’ll add a few more signs in this time and up the potions - try for a “balanced” build.
And yep, the story and visuals are just as compelling the second time through and I am paying a lot more time to little details like what the peasant rabble are doing as they mill about ;). Poor Bloody Baron - surprisingly sympathetic for drunken, wife-beating lout and petty tyrant. And Princess! The most annoying goat ever!
Oh the little thing I mentioned?
When he looks at you! He’s having that chat with Regis by the fire and Regies says how they’ve had an amazing, long adventure together. The camera zooms in on Geralt’s face and for a moment he looks directly at you with this knowing smile. He’s nodding not at Regis but at the player.
It was a small, genuine, meta moment that I really enjoyed. For a brief instance Geralt wasn’t a character in a Video game, he was this real guy in some other universe I was peeking into. 
Aww, yeah, I got to really feel like I knew the guy.
And you know the best damned thing? There were whole quests where you didn’t have to go kill anything, just investigate and figure stuff out.
I got the complete edition for Christmas on PS4. I have fond memories of the original game, but never played the second one.
I’m not that impressed, to be honest. It’s okay, and the cutscenes are great, but the game just hasn’t hooked me the way all the Fallout games did. I think it might be the combat mechanics; I’m on the second-easiest level and it’s just too fucking hard to kill more than one enemy at a time.
Picked up the GOTY version as a self-gift. It’s not really to my taste - don’t like medieval stuff, don’t like magicky stuff, don’t like the checklist conversation model, don’t like integral cutscenes - but after an hour or two it’s grown on me. Real purty, too.
I’ve only had a game affect me like that once - at the end of the very last Borderlands 2 DLC, when the annoying NPC is forced to confront an aspect of (game) reality she’s been trying to suppress… and just as you start to tear up for her, they ring in something truly amazing. (BL2 players know what I mean; explanation to non-players on request.)
Give it a bit of time - in my opinion the early game was too hard and then the late game got too easy. Takes a bit to figure out the combat and to get better equipment and skills.
I did finally complete the game, and got a good ending. But not the one I would have picked if I’d known the consequences of my actions. I’ve started on the DLC, but I haven’t gotten far into it. I mean, it’s nifty and all, and finally gave me a reason to spend some of the money I made by obsessively chasing down question marks on the map. But I have many distractions.
It is currently the apex CRPG. Some excellent games can only look up to Witcher 3 in awe. It has the open world of a Bethesda game, but a tighter plot. It has the critical decision making of a BioWare game but manages the follow-through of keeping you feeling like your choices were meaningful all the way to the end. The crafting system inspires almost as much obsession as that of Divinity: Original Sin. The gameplay doesn’t offer much to the crowd that likes a little RTS in their RPGs, or the turn-based gamers, but the action-based combat is not a twitchy FPS fest either. The mini games are a fun addition and not a chore that feels like an obligation you’re neglecting. It’s pretty much the whole package.
sigh
My hard drive recently crashed, and I’ve taken the opportunity to upgrade my computer to a brand-spankin’ new machine. I had most important stuff backed up/already on the cloud. HOWEVER…
I did not back up my saved game folder, and I lost my Witcher 3 saves.
Seriously, this is the worst bit of my hard drive crashing. What possessed me to NOT back up saved games? What was I thinking?!?
You will love the DLC. Blood and Wine could have been released as a standalone. So much content, and so little of it make-work. (I also love how different the two DLCs are - Hearts of Stone is bleak and dark as hell, Blood and Wine is just a wonderful romp.)
OK. I’m going to buy it. I was delaying since I intended to play the three games in a row (already played 1 and 2, but lost my saves).
I’m sure I’m going to be depressed. The witchers are the darkest games I’ve played. The end of the first one in particular was awful (along with everything else that happened in the game, except worst).
Were you playing the GOG version? the Steam version at least would have saved your save games to the cloud by default.
There’s software out there too that should help you out in the future http://www.gamesave-manager.com/
I usually only buy games from Steam so this isn’t an issue for me except in the few titles that don’t support this - older Tell Tale games for example. Worst thing ever for an episodic series of games.