DA Fan gives TW3 a shot: Text Based Let's Play

Both have better writing and pacing than the main quest, and the funnest additions to combat/skill tree, which were badly needed. Hearts of Stone has my favorite slice of life gameplay segment of any game. 

They aren't really "necessary" to the game and to the story. What they do do is add a tonne of new content (Heart of Stone = 10+ hours. Blood and Wine = 20+ hours and a nice little ending to Geralts story). Heart of Stone brings back a character you have actually already met which is nice. That whole story goes to some weird places, it's brilliant. Blood and Wine should be completed after the main game ends because it feels like a nice end to Geralts story.

Even though they aren't essential, they are both a lot of fun. Blood and Wine happens to have a side quest that is pretty hilarious, and the city of Beauclair has a cheery "Val Royeaux" feel to it. The main quest is ultimately buried in shades of gray (very, very dark gray), but there is some lightness to balance it out.

I don't remember any lightness to Heart of Stone...it's just dark...but a great story based around a side character from early in the game that you probably overlooked, if you're like me.

There are good outcomes, and you can contribute to them in various ways. The world is more *noticeably* grey overall, but especially in the big decisions, you can make the Northern Realms a better place without any downside to you in the end, which contrasts nicely to Bioware's latest games. Also, if you read the Codex entries in DAI there's a lot of pretty grim stuff in DAI's sidequests you can't influence, the game just doesn't show it to you because when you finished them, everyone involved is already dead, and all you get is a note telling you what happened. TW3 shows you much more of that, and thus people get the impression the world is much more grim than Thedas, which it actually isn't.

Edit:
I've called DAI sanitized because it glosses over or implausibly avoids so much of the bad stuff, and I maintain that statement.

Two times 150 hours is still significant, I'd say. More replay value could be in NG+, trying different builds, for instance sword-focused or sign-focused (I've heard alchemy-focused doesn't work all that well), trying different romances, playing on different difficulty levels (that's very significant in TW3, especially the switch from "Normal" to "Blood and Broken Bones"), or trying to get different outcomes. I'm on my second PT (NG+, B&BB, trying to get my preferred outcomes) and there might be a third one. In DAI I did five PTs, with two of them refining my first. 

Yes. Not so much in this thread, though, and when this was most prevalent, in the times when people were still playing DAI and TW3 was new, well, you have to admit that TW3 did the whole open(er) world thing significantly better than DAI, and its various mods of movements made TW3 much more immersive. There were, and still are, many things where one could legitimately wish that DAI had been more like TW3, without going into areas where TW3 was necessarily different because it features a different style of roleplaying. Meanwhile, apart from the effects of the less defined protagonist, which are intrinsic to the core design, the only thing where I feel DAI is significantly better (I explained why I don't feel the differences in the implementations of decisions from earlier games is significant) is that its areas have a stronger identity - there's nothing like the Storm Coast or the Emerald Greaves in TW3.

...Master... Mirror... Allow me to shudder.

I am also extremely selective about games. For me, a good RPG needs an immersive story - something I am able to relate with, also consistent and with a main plot unfolding through the game, not just dropped on me out of nowhere. Scattered clues slowly revealing plots details helps. Also, well written complex and credible characters and companions. And a consistent and credible world, with customs and culture bits.
I have read Andrzej Sapkowski`s books about Geralt (the short stories collection and the novels) and tried to play W1 & W2 several times. Unsuccessfully. The books are good and based on East European Middle Ages lore and stories, including some humorous and crazy retelling of old fairy tales (which was part of Stanislaw Lem`s style in Cyberiad). But the games were a bit too brutal for my taste, with not enough degree of freedom for roleplaying.

I have played Pillars of Eternity recently (well, actually finished the game again in order to play its DLC White March). You might like it. In my case it was easy to like PoE since I liked both Icewind Dale games a lot. There is a good and strange story in PoE , based on an idea of soul persistence (people has souls which departs after death and are "reshuffled" (elements from different souls are remixed) before they enter newborn bodies. And ...  a god was killed before PoE events. There are well written companions, some with dialogue - based personal quests about their past. No romance, but that is understandable considering the main plot. Combat is a bit similar to DA:O and much harder, even on "normal" difficulty. But there is a "Story Mode" with much easier combat. And it has an intriguing end. For me, the only drawback was the choice to make "The White March" a DLC instead an extension like DA:Awakening.

In case it gives you some extra incentive to play Mass Effect, I can say from personal experience that although I considered Mass Effect 1 to be really boring, the next two games are considerably better. ME2 was a good game in its own right; it had more creative ideas, a better plot, good humour and some great moments with NPCs. There's a bartender in the game who's simply the best Moreover, in ME2 you begin to see the impacts of your choices, and this also serves to make the story feel more like your own.

ME3 suffered from some typical problems of trilogy-ending instalments, but at this point I started feeling really involved in the whole mess because it felt like everything I've done in the past was coming back to influence the ending of the story and it was a great to know that everything I've done in the past had been meaningful. And so many of the old characters were coming back and it was like reuniting with old friends, sorta. So although ME3 at times felt like a mad scramble to wrap up all the loose ends, I think it managed to deliver a satisfactory ending to the series.

The only context I have for the meaning of Ng is "no good" so what does it mean in this context?

Also, how does one know if it's a side quest vs main quest? Are contracts always side quests?

I don't know what kind of endings I want because I'm so close to the start. The "issues" I'm aware of are thus.

The Nilfgardiens empire expansionism reminds me of Orlais before their recent age of stable ish borders and one side of the Civil War Faction in Skyrim. It's unfortunate that Valen has been abandoned by both sides at the moment, so it's full of raping pillaging bandits. Either side taking responsibility would improve the situation. But the Nilfgardiens caused the death of Foltest and I liked that bugger for the whole half hour of watching on YouTube that I saw (even if he was incestuous?). I'm also Against Gaspard in DAI.

As I recall from watching TW1 on YouTube, the entrenched racism against non humans is never going to budge. And I don't currently know if that's going to be a significant part of TW3 either. I don't know if the Nilfgardiens are being "nice" to the dwarf merchant and don't care that he's a dwarf or only care that he's useful and are just as racist as the Northern Kingdoms have been. But the Nilfgardiens also apparently illegalized Witchers and have been executing them. So, regardless of their maybe? Acceptance of non humans, as a Witcher I'm in danger by the Nilfgardiens taking over.

Other issue is finding my ward. Which is apparently also a princess. Why a Princess was training with Witchers, I have no idea. Seems odd and dangerous choice. I don't super love Ciri as a player because I got one dream sequence tutorial with her. So, the emotional connection to this quest is tenuous. Not like Clementine where I spent 20+ hours with her as her parent fogure in TWD.

The other matter on the table is the romance option. I currently like the Herbalist in White Orchard better than either Yennifer or Triss. So... I don't know. If I like neither I could go for that threesome that leaves me single. Or go for Yennifer just because she's not Triss. I like content, and I'm trying to make a true comparison to DAI, so I don't want to skip romance altogether.