Oh, I imagine they will go into greater detail for the different systems in the game, not just alchemy, as we get closer to launch. For the time being, however, the Q&A seems to answer the basic question of 'how it works,' which is what BlackWolf was asking. It's an answer that comes straight from the developers, so no need to guess if the journalist who wrote the preview 'got it right' or not.
I meant details, a look at it.
So, here is what I gathered from that Q&A:
1. Collecting ingredients is difficult and it takes some ingredients to make a potion (Good)
2. There are many recipes for potions, more than in previous games (Good)
3. There are multiple (3-5) uses for a potion (Good)
4. "Once you have made the potion, it's yours" (BAD)
5. You only need alcohol to replenish it (does it automatically replenish or do I have to trigger the replenishing within the meditation screen?)
6. Many people hoarded potions because they did not want to use them up (WRONG, not true, they hoarded them because there were way too many ingredients and making potions would give you a chance to get mutagens, also because there were only a handful of potions that were REALLY useful (maybe 4, max. 5) AND because they were to really needed and some people like it harder)
Again, it's great that getting ingredients is harder and more fun.
On the other hand, I would prefer having to get at least a small amount of the ingredients we had to get the first time to make the potion, even if it's just 1/4 or 1/16 of the original amount you needed.
I would be okay with auto-refill if not all "uses" were utilized, meaning you could "stretch" the potion with alcohol, but making the complete potion out of alcohol alone? meh.....
Then there are the questions:
Does it automatically refill or do we have to trigger the refill?
If it does automatically refill, how does it decide which potion to refill first?
Can we determine which potion we want to have refilled and in out inventory and which not? (don't want to carry around useless potions)
Are there so few ingredients that it's hard to find them? What do I do with monster-loot then (harpy claw, gargoyle heart, etc) and normal herbs? Supposing there is still monster loot, or isn't there anymore?
Will I have to travel to certain regions and places to get certain potions?
How many recipes are there for potions, or are there also "experimental" ones (a little bit like in TW1) where we can just stuff ingredients together and look what we get?