So, Gothic in a larger world? No clue, but does sound interesting.

You said it, JRPGs are what comes to mind. A number of the FF titles give the illusion of a open world to explore but the story is typically on rails. Or you are limited to certain parts of the world until you get far enough into the story where you unlock certain types of transportation that gives you access to more areas.

Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X might fit the bill... though you would need a Wii / Wii U or 3DS to play them...

The worlds are large and quite open but the story is completely linear (I think some of the side quests have choice based endings but nothing major that I'm aware of).

Beyond that I'm not really sure, maybe some other modern JRPGs might work too, but I haven't really played many so I couldn't recommend anything specific...

Your description is basically Gothic / Risen series. You're free to go anywhere but they put strong enemies as gatekeepers here and there to stop you going places you're not supposed to go yet. The main storyline is pretty linear, with a little variation and small side quest here and there

Grand Theft Auto series?

Sounds a bit like Stalker. The only branching that I can remember is choosing your allegiance between two groups, freedom and unity.

Gothic and Risen are like that? Great, I didn't realize it! I've played them a little but not much.

Yeah I like JRPGs like FF and especially Wild Arms 4/5! But I was looking for something actually open world, where everything is connected and it's a huge world, not just a "world map" that just sort of acts like scenery with random encounters.

Fortunately I do have a Wii so I can play Xenoblade, but I didn't realize it was like that. If I'm not mistaken, that's one of those real-time action RPGs that you control one character at a time and the rest have AI, right? Not my favorite way for it to work, and it's really expensive for some reason, but I'll get it if I ever see it for a reasonable price.

GTA? I always thought of that more as a sandbox game (as I understand it, a connected, but relatively small world, in which you quickly but repeatedly visit a bunch of areas). Maybe I'm wrong. Also, it's a driving and action game but hardly an RPG. I'm not sure I specified but I want it to be role-playing at least in some ways.

Stalker is definitely good. It's kind of a poor man's Fallout 3, but without all the branching that I hate. I played it for a while but gave up because it's REALLY tough! But I'll try it again one of these days.

Might and Magic 1, 2 and 6 might fit your criteria. Nothing really prevents you from exploring the whole world (other than your party being way too weak for some enemies) and the main quest line is very linear.

MM3 is not so open world. Several areas are restricted until you do reach a certain point in the game. To a lesser extent, the same goes for MM4+5.
In MM7 you have to choose allegiance to one of the 2 factions, and the story branches in a certain path depending on your choice. Similarly MM8 has a few choices that you have to make, which determine later outcome.

STALKER isn't a poor man's FO3. It is more like the game FO3 wishes it was with tight FPS action. FO3 tried but kept it too rpg like. A shotgun blast to the face at point blank range should be the last word in a battle, not a joke for a raider to laugh off because my shotgun skill isn't high enough .

Paladin, I get what you mean, but in games, I'm more concerned with fun than realism, though I like graphical realism. But I specifically like the fact that Fallout 3 is an RPG (although it is very unrealistic for a gun to become more powerful because a character is at a higher experience level).

As for the M&M games, yeah those are fine, but I guess I'm referring to stuff more along the lines of Stalker, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Risen, maybe some of the Far Crys. Basically stuff that has a huge, interconnected world to explore in real time, with RPG qualities.

Unfortunately most of the games on that list (Fallout, Elder Scrolls [I think]) require choices, and Far Cry is not an RPG, so it seems to leave relatively few options.

But thanks for pointing out Gothic, Risen and Xenoblade. I'm always open to more suggestions if anyone has them.

I don't think Gothic and Risen are what you're looking for, as Piranha Bytes' games typically involve choosing a faction (with the result of being excluded from joining the other factions).

I'm not sure if you just want to avoid different story paths or avoid choices of different skills and such as well. In the latter case, I'd say you're not very likely to find the game you're looking for among RPGs. I can't really think of any CRPG that does not involve choices, even if the choices are just about class builds or similar, but I wouldn't know which RPG (except for JRPGs) allows you to choose everything there is to choose at the same time. Some allow you to max out almost everything but not quite.

And "linear open world" is a problematic concept as well. Most open world games struggle with the introduction of linear storytelling. I think an open world game without meaningful story progression quickly loses attraction for a large part of players and becomes boring and pointless to them, but at the same time linear story progression kind of interferes with the open world concept. A game that pulls of both in a believable and enjoyable way would not just be very difficult to design but also very costly ...

Two Worlds maybe? I know it doesn't have the best reputation, but it's not as bad as people make it to be...

The Elder Scrolls: Arena satisfies all your requirements except for the "interconnected" one.

*: Huge open world to explore
*: Main quest is linear, without any choices (other than to turn down a quest, which is not recommended)

The one thing is that the world isn't actually interconnected; the only way to get from one town to another is by fast travel. However, there is still plenty of wilderness to explore around each town, and the world is huge (possibly larger than Daggerfall's, but Daggerfall has branching events) and the wilderness is far more interesting than Daggerfall's.

Well just because an open world is connected doesn't mean you can't be restricted from entering certain areas until you should be allowed to. JRPGs are similar in that you can go anywhere on the world map, but it might prevent you from going certain places at first. The only difference is that the towns are not connected directly to the world map (it needs to load a different place when you enter or exit), and there are random encounters in a JRPG.

Having to make choices actually hurts the story because it limits how good it will be to just what you choose to do, and in the most extreme case, when you can do anything you want (like No Man's Sky or something like that) it's generally procedural and to the point where there can't be any story at all. But look at games with lots of choices (Dragon Age, Fallout) and you'll notice that there are a bunch of optional sub-/side-quests and very little about a main story, because it's too hard to tie it all together when it goes every possible direction.

Ultimately, the thing I CAN'T STAND is that I have a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out) when I play games, so if there are choices, I always have to save the game before making one. In Dragon Age Origins, whenever I was about to talk to anyone I had to save, then try every possible branch in the conversation tree to see how it would turn out, then choose the best one, and in some cases, take a couple paths and save different games to explore separately. I think I spent over 200 hours on that game. Same thing with Fallout 3. It just takes too much time.

The only good thing was that I got my allies to all have very high respect for me since almost the beginning of the game.

Edit: dtgreene, if it's not interconnected then it's not open world. That's what that means. Though I guess that isn't always strictly adhered to in all cases.