Alright. I got the game, will download it tonight. Now what will I need to know? Any helpful hints from the GOG community?

Don't button-mash. Combat is based on timing. First time, run the Prologue in Normal or Easy, so you get prompted when to strike and told when you struck at the wrong time. Once you are comfortable with combat timing, you can switch to Hard; Hard is not all that hard in this game.

There are a few cases where somebody comes up to you and tells you to do something urgently. In these cases, you should go do exactly that, and not something else; doing something else may result in a broken quest, even a broken main quest.

I heard that the swords affect combat? How is that?

You will learn this as you play, but the basic idea is that you will use a two-handed steel sword when fighting humans, elves or dwarves, and a one-handed silver sword when fighting monsters, as they are weak to silver. There are fighting styles associated with both the steel and silver swords that can be upgraded independently.

At the beginning, though, you will only have a steel sword.

alrighty. wish me luck

Don't get killed, Witcher :)

I have to get the download to work first