I acknowledged that problem since after I finished TW1 twice and transferring to TW2. I knew I was going to love TW3 once it came out nevertheless, but I was never touching the past games if they pulled another TW1-TW2. It's pretty discouraging, to be honest. Specially since The Witcher 2 gave me nightmares every time a major decision came out; every decision you take is going to fuck up an insane number of people, MUCH more than in any other game.

TW1-TW2 was understandable, they were starting, they did a lot of mistakes, they were inexperienced. TW2-TW3 is just plain betraying the PC and Xbox fanbase and their own story. I can trust CDP to make a great story and a RPG all in one game. But not to make a several-games RPG and expect player's choices to matter beyond the game where they appear.

TL;DR: CDP really needs to invest more effort in save-transfers for future franchises, or botch them all-together and make single-game RPGs.

Elaborate.

- Thaler. I even had a spy give me the gift in TW2, even tho I killed him in TW1.
- Saskia, Verden, Iorveth, Anais, Henselt, Adda, Stennis are entirely scratched from the story. Only Triss and the Conclave mattered.
- Apparently no one cares that you helped Elven terrorists in TW1. Not even Iorveth, who only mentions Yaevinn once in a very minor dialogue.
- Siegfried appears once/twice in TW2, depending on your path chosen. Never in TW3.
- Jacques and Alvin. All we TW1 players got to remind us that Alvin was even in CDP's minds for at least a minute after TW1 was a letter from a pretty banal side-quest in TW3.

Don't know why I even had to elaborate. If you had even played the last 2 games, you'd know.

It's called artistic license. All game series do it to one degree or another, even games like Mass Effect: Garrus Vakarian? Never recruit him in ME1 yet he's forced as my best buddy in 2 & 3. That's just an example. No game has flawless progression... none.

Yet Mass Effect managed to respect players' decisions pretty well until right before the end of ME3. Just look at the amount of companions you can have killed, and almost every single one of their deaths affect the storyline of consequent games significantly. Taking Garrus is a pretty bad example, since they dealt with his arrival to the ME2 crew pretty well. He doesn't start out as a friend, he becomes one fighting with you. And you can still kill him.

Bioware, despite giving a rushed ending to the trilogy, knew how to successfully create a choice-driven experience. And they keep doing it with Dragon Age, which so far haven't betrayed players' major choices besides Morrigan and Leliana.
CDP proved from the start that they knew how to expand Sapkowski's universe and make a game out of it, making players feel the anxiety of Geralt's every-day moral dilemmas. But just "a game" though; they tried and failed horribly to make a constant RPG trilogy.

- Thaler. I even had a spy give me the gift in TW2, even tho I killed him in TW1.

Your choice, not CDPR's.

- Saskia, Verden, Iorveth, Anais, Henselt, Adda, Stennis are entirely scratched from the story. Only Triss and the Conclave mattered.

So?

- Apparently no one cares that you helped Elven terrorists in TW1. Not even Iorveth, who only mentions Yaevinn once in a very minor dialogue.

So?...;)

- Siegfried appears once/twice in TW2, depending on your path chosen. Never in TW3.

So?

- Jacques and Alvin. All we TW1 players got to remind us that Alvin was even in CDP's minds for at least a minute after TW1 was a letter from a pretty banal side-quest in TW3.

So?

Don't know why I even had to elaborate. If you had even played the last 2 games, you'd know.

The Witcher series of games are about *the Witcher*--not the NPCs in any given game. By W3, Geralt had moved on and things were not the same anymore. That's life...;)

No it isn't. I despise Garrus and never give him the time of day in ME1. I'm forced to interact with him in the beginning, but I always tell him to get out of my face, and I NEVER speak to him again. Yet in ME2 he's all "Shepard, what are you doing here?" I said one sentence to him. How does he even remember Shepard two years on, after he died? I certainly know that my Shepard wouldn't remember him. Kill him in ME2? That's possible only if you allow more than half of the rest of your crew to die: he's way up there on the survivability tree. Garrus is written as the "best buddy", and he has the fastest leveling approval score of ALL the characters. It's a fine example of discontinuity.

You're not making any point besides "I hate Garrus and the devs for forcing this one decision upon me." I agree, no game has flawless progression (even though your predicament actually has a solution). Thing is, The Witcher series had absolutely no progression. That's my complaint and the only thing I wish CDP improved in future franchises.

Last side note about Garrus: It's pretty easy to kill him in the Suicide mission and to not interact with him in the game, somewhat like what you did in ME1. Give him the role of opening the door, only the person tasked with it dies. That's one way, there are others. Look for guides. You seem to ignore he's been called the "Sword of Destiny" for a reason. Neither the books nor the games were about a lonely man minding his own business. They were about an outcast who, half the time involuntarily and the other half voluntarily, managed to get involved by forces greater than him into world-changing events and the moral dilemmas he was forced to face by them. He sure wished that was the case for a long part of his life. The fact this game exists denies this point. TW3 is the result of nearly a decade of past actions, concluding at last. Plus "moving on" doesn't mean "it didn't happen", just that you chose to ignore it.

You're cherry picking. I'm done.

I in fact played all three titles. Personally, I didn't feel like any of that really detracted from the game.