Why I'd love to play it:
First off, about the Witcher 3‘s predecessors. They‘re amazing. I played both of them and I‘d say loved them both. I started out with TW2, but, intrigued by all the references to past adventures by characters that seemed to be involved in them I got to play the first one, too. I loved Witcher 1 for the adventures and locations. Not so much for the combat. It was bearable and, to an extent, enjoyable, though. The different factions, characters and their drama in my opinion covered that flaw. And of course the choices. You could be neutral, help the non-human rebel force or, follow the KKK equivelent. And these choices weren‘t as easy as the sith-jedi points in Knights of the Old Republic, where you just pick the most goody-two-shoes choice to get your good guy points or the most evil thing to get your evil points. In Witcher, both factions (okay, The Order of the Flaming Rose more so... most times) do immoral things in the name of their cause. Staying neutral is not that easy... Oh and Witcher 1 locations. The huge town, which you can tell is huge, because first you visited a small village with a tavern. The stuff you care about are littered all over the place, not stacked in one, giving the town a feeling that it‘s not just a quest hub. Then there‘s caves/dungeons, which actually FEEL like dungeons. BECAUSE NOBODY LIT YOU A ROW OF TORCHES! It‘s amazing. You need to drink a potion that gives you sight in the dark, or carry a torch if you‘re cheap like me. Then there‘s a swamp with distinct and memorable locations (ruined tower, druid grove), and a village of (clay?) miners, who worship the local monsters. Oh, and there‘s at least two quests where the beasts you are hunting have to be beat in a special way which you learn from books. If you read and pay attention, with preparation you can beat a lot of monsters easier.
Okay, Witcher 2. It removed the most jarring flaw from the first one! The combat is much more involved and responsive. And they didn‘t dumb down the not-hack-and-slash element of combat. Now you use potions more strategically, because you can‘t drink them in combat. And it looks like they didn‘t need to sacrifice the narrative, either. The game is shorter. Technically speaking. KINDA SPOILERS: But, depending on your choices, you end up in totally different locations. Literally. The second act hub changes. END OF SPOILERS. And then there‘s a million smaller choices which make the game so much more enjoyable to me. For example, there‘s a choice not to kill a bridge-guarding troll and help him sober..up... and I am really thankful for that, because trolls in this game are such nice, gentle creatures. Scary, ugly, but gentle. Oh, and, I suppose, neutrality is gone... But I didn‘t miss it. Honestly, it wouldn‘t make much sense in the narrative. Probably. The locations are still amazing. More epic, that‘s for sure. Though dungeons kinda lost their unfriendlyness. Except for one. And it was amazing. Other caves in the game try to justify their light by crevaces and holes in the ceiling with sunlight coming through, so it doesn‘t break immersion. And it works. Locations are all still interesting. War camp, dwarven city (I have a bias for dwarven cities and for dwarves in general, though Markarth in Skyrim was kinda disappointing), even a port town/village was very well done. There was one place in the middle of the game I found incredibly frustrating, though also immensely cool. (SPOILERS: It was a ghost batte brought upon by a curse. To break it, you entered it, impersonating various warriors from the battle, then, finally, fighting a giant amalgamation of armor pieces that represented a king who‘s kind of an ass).
Moving on to Witcher 3. I‘ve been following it since the announcement. Ate up those cinematics/teasers/gameplay snippets. It looked like best things from TW1 and TW2 put together, and then improved some more. It looks like Skyrim with bearable combat and a not boring story. So basically nothing like Skyrim. I saw videos of Geralt riding through the giant town, which looked like the one from TW1, but a whole lot livelier and open. I was amazed by the open world. Witcher in the past always had little areas. They were big enough to not seem like some invisible wall-filled box, but small enough so you don‘t get bored walking from one important thing to another. I don‘t fear to get bored travelling in TW3 because you apparently get a HORSE. I‘ve heard the combat is tactics-oriented and you have to be prepared. Which is great! Maybe I won‘t even be able to outroll every opponent. Next up? No loading between locations. Oh boy. I noticed one old character making a return. And finally finding about Yannefer and Ciri seems like an amazing prospect. Since I went to talk about characters, I must mention the emperor of Nilfgaard. Voiced by. Charles. Dance. The actor who plays the owner of the best voice in GoT. It might not seem to be important, but Geralt has a beard. That is amazing. Okay last two things. The playthrough, according to the devs, is about 100 hours. And if it has as much replay value as the second one, I could sink an unthinkable amount of my time on this earth into this game. Or just a really, really big amount. The second thing would be the continuation and the finale of the story. The Wild Hunt, Yannefer, Ciri, Nilfgaard‘s schemes... It must be amazing. And one more thing: All the games seem to portray old folk legends. Devs seem to draw from folk legends, instead of the Tolkien stuff everyone else seems to be focusing on. Cockatrices, curses, spirits with unfinished business, monsters from drowned people, harpies, druids and dryads which are really awesome.
Thank you for reading this. You are awesome OP.