Some other bits from that interview:
- they are thinking about a system that would let players choose the state of the world at the beginning of the game - for those who don't have their saves from TW2. Most probably by choosing different options in dialogues in TW3 prologue. But that is not yet 100% decided to be in the game.
- yes, there will be Oxenfurt
- there will be references to Sapkowski's last book "Season of Storms" - its places, characters etc
- about difficulty: the game is divided into different difficulty areas(like in Gothic) - so in theory, you start in No Man's Land but as the game is open world you can go to Skellige, where you'll meet more difficult enemies etc. Also, each area will have powerful monsters, guarding some powerful items, that should give you both more challenge but also more XP.
- the game will have something CDPR calls "storybooks". These will be beautifully painted and animated "boards" that you will get when loading the game or through your journal, that will summarize the plot so far and update themselves after each significant quest or point in the game. They are supposed to help players in keeping up with the main storyline should they get distracted by side activities and motivate them to progress with the main adventure.
- Monster Hunting: these quests are divided into phases. After you find or stumble upon such quest the investigation phase starts, where you gather info about the monster causing trouble. Once you recognize the monster, you have a special "panel" available with all the info about the monster you managed to gather and ways & advices on how to get rid of him. The more info you gathered - either from reading books, investigating or experience(meeting monsters from the same family before) - the more advice you will get about monster's strong & weak points, special abilities, his vulnerabilities and so on.
After you come back with a trophy to the quest giver you will be able to bargain about your reward's amount!
- Collector's Editions for PC and PS4 are sold out
- what's left before February 2015: debugging; fixing cutscenes; bug fixing and overall QA