[imisssunwell]

@ Find Therma, I didn't like tunguska as well, from recent AGs I kinda liked vampyre story but it felt as bad value for money for 3 reasons, 1) price given the game is short 2) no reason to replay it/stay in the game world, 3) online distribution only is ok, but only 2 activations (bought it for my mac laptop) is a joke, unless they change that I don't see me buying the sequel. A Vampyre Story II should be much cheaper if points 2) and 3) stay as they are & game remains as short, especially point 3) makes me feel like I payed for renting it.
The intent seems to be epicsodic releases, so I don't blaim the ending in VS but the price, given it's just an episode without any replay value (and possibly even re-install value). I could go on with VS weaknesses that imho removed potential out of an interesting idea but it would be way off topic.

Many things like non-linearity in the game, real options are not rpg only, they rather add a sandbox feature to the game, many genres seem to adopt that and I think it fits nicely into AGs. Also, more side-quests mean more gamehours and also give something to do while stuck. A mod tool also adds imho a lot of value to the game. only factions/professions/stats are rpg features, I think these can be meaningfully adapted to AGs but even if not, all the rest points would add value to AGs. As I said before I'd really be happy to see possible additions from people that play more shooters or startegy games or any other genre, I used rpgs & PoP as examples because these are the sort of games I am well familar with and can compare them to AGs not because I think AGs should become rpgs but rather because I can spot elements of rpgs (but not bound to them, that's why I didn't include e.g. leveling & gearing up) that could fit into AGs but I can't claim the same for e.g. Strategy games.

Unless some features which tend to be considered standard features of games as years are embodied into AGs, the people interested in AGs will become less and less. The chances of seeing a top notch game being developed for a shrinking audience will drop leading to a buried genre for some period.

Regarding the need for puzzles to fit with the story/physical space & necessity of a good atmosphere and story I agree 100%. However eg having more realistic enviroments (better game engines) only helps in the atmosphere, having choices that interact with the environment also help the atmosphere, else for me at least, it feels like knocking on 10 doors and having a fixed one de-facto opening, choosing the door adds salt & pepper and replay value.

@ darthmaul, I was refering to KQs as high quality games with regard to their release period, as I mention many times in my post. KQ games are barely playable by todays standards. Of course even a mediocre game 20 years later would have KQs bad points corrected, there is not much to celebrate on that. A fair comparison can only be made if the gaming era is taken into consideration, KQs were top notch games *for their era*, while current AGs (apart from a couple of exceptions) rarely get good reviews.

For offline rpgs I replied some posts back, if you wish to stick to Bioware games its better graphics, better voice, better dialogue system, newer & better AD&D and developemt of mod tools. Outside Bioware, Fable is totally open-ended I don't think any other rpg has reached such levels of non-linearity, I haven't played daggerfall, I never liked its graphics even when it was at its prime so can't comment on morrowing/oblivion vs daggerfall. But even if it was just voice & graphics, at least these two sectors had huge advancement in rpgs, in AGs, outside a couple of exceptions, I sadly cannot say the same.

Regarding WoW, having a max level character in a raiding game (where most people have max level toons) doesn't say much. In Blizzard forums we see alts claiming they killed Kael & Vashj *pre nerf* and passed Muru easily, an intelligent guess would suggest they didn't, so I won't ask how far into the endgame you have reached as anyone can claim anything in forums.
By saying it's aggro+4 button smashing, my guess is that you haven't done much endgame raiding, maybe t1 or t4 or t7 raiding, aka the first raiding tier of each expansion, else you would have seen more than tank & spank fights.
Admittedly, the 1st raiding tier MC/Kara-Magy-Gruul/Naxx80 is always easy and is meant as easy content catered to casuals. If you progress to subsequent raids, they become significantly harder, with the last tier of raiding usually being completed only by the top guilds of each server. There unless you have intelligent players, use intelligent setups & play at your absolute best it is impossible to progress and it is certainly not doable by aggroing+4 button smashing.