I think it really depends. It starts really bothering me when developers go "half way" with the idea, and give characters a name and a history, but no personality or voice (Gordon Freeman or Link). I understand the idea (give you a character's background and let you, the player, interpret them by your own actions), but I seldom feel like it really works. It feels too artificial. ESPECIALLY when characters in the world are interacting with you (Halflife 2 is really bad in this area).

On the other hand, the guitar and the jokes told at bonfire. Amazing.

Morrowind is actually an incredibly immersive game - the game itself very rarely breaks your immersion, you must do it yourself. Like, for instance, putting book on sneak button to increase sneak. If you have the self-restraint to not break the game's mechanics - and no, no one can say 'I didn't know I'm breaking it,' it's always very apparent - the game gives you an immersive, alien world that's filled with it's own history. Using Morrowind Overhaul to make visuals prettier helps as well, it makes the world feel quite a bit more alive.

You misunderstand me. I too find it to be very immersive (and fun for that matter). But it's full of the same sort of things that he said ruined STALKER's immersion for him. So I don't understand how one could be one of the most immersive games he's ever played, and the other a letdown.

And this isn't an accusation, either. I'm just curious.

For me, a great point of immersion was always when a game is using text to describe stuff. Therefore I really like the RPGs of old. Especially those with "first person view" (RoA, BG, Daggefall) that use boxes to describe what you see.

This is also why I consider the Infinity Engine as the worst RPG engine possible, as it broke this kind of storytelling with a weird, totally unimmersive perspective and really bad graphics. (Not technically bad, but it just looks totally bonkers). And nothing was explained anymore, because you could "see" it.

When the tech progressed to finally render great 3D (Morrowind) games became immersive for me again. Generally, "FPRPGs" are those I like most. Because they usually trade technical stuff (tactis, game mechanics, etc) for immersion and atmosphere. And in any RPG I really want story, immersion and atmosphere. Technicalities are only important as a side category.

To this day, I really hate the "isometric or pseudo isometric" perspective in RPGs because they totally break the immersion for me (Those should be reserved for tactical games). 3rd person 3D like DA:O or ME is a lot better, because I put the cam behind the character again.

Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief.
Lookinglass were the masters.
Nothing break immersion like behind-the-ass camera.
And what makes you think the IE game are not tactical?

I disagree. With "BTAC" I only see what my char sees. I don't look around corners on the one hand, and I don't run into obvious ambushes due to small viewing area. BTAC is next to FP (or "fake FP" like Wizardry) my 2nd favourite viewing. In any non-tactical game, actually.
IE?

It's a bit counterintuitive, but I think this does add to the immersion a great deal. In fact, any time a game finds a way to engage your imagination by forcing you to fill in gaps for yourself, it ends up being more immersive (if you're willing to play along, that is). I was just today wondering why I find my FTL experiences to be so engaging, and I think part of it is that much of what happens is told through little text boxes, and interpreted by the player's imagination.

And personally, I find first person to be worlds more immersive than anything else. I know some people disagree though.

Is it? The monsters and enemies do respawn in Morrowind, but in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I was often unable to progress because I ended up fighting an endless horde like in a Survival Mode. The voice acting isn't exactly brilliant, but at least Bethesda had the decency not to include a several characters that only have one line that they must blurt out whenever the PC gets anywhere close. Most hostile characters and monsters in Morrowind leave you alone if you're standing over a mile away. There are no Clear Sky style faction missions, and thank fuck for that. In my experience Morrowind isn't even particularly buggy until you mod the living shit out of it, and even then it's more stable and smoother than either of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games I've had the misfortune of playing. Even if it does crash, bringing it back up to life takes half a minute as opposed to the Clear Sky's three. Moving between areas doesn't impose a one-minute loading time on you. Changing setting doesn't force you to restart the game and hence waste several minutes to load the game and see how much of an effect the changes had.

I agree that Morrowind's game mechanics can be abused very easily by min-maxing, which is why I don't.

Elder Scrolls series
STALKER series
Metro 2033
Gothic series
Vampire Bloodlines

There are, actually. A bit less systematic and a bit more 'story driven,' but they're there.

Oh, we're talking about Clear Sky? Yeah... if you play Clear Sky unmodded or unpatched (as I did my first time), you're gonna have a bad time. A REALLY bad time, as a matter of fact. I thought you were talking about Shadow of Chernobyl for some reason.

*looks back at post*

Yeah, I see you're talking about both games now. Guess I just saw "Shadow of Chernobyl" and stopped reading. Derp.

I still maintain that Shadow of Chernobyl and Morrowind are pretty much equal as far as "little irritations that break immersion" go, but I guess that's an individual thing. I personally find most of the stuff you list to be inconsequential, and I certainly know which game I find more immersive. But whatever.

I really do suggest you give Call of Pripyat a try. It still has the wonky voice acting, but it improves a TON as far as mechanics and bugs go, to the point where it feels like a completely different game. It still forces a restart if you change grahical settings, though, and the load times are a mite long. Darn XRay engine...

On the upside, it's one of the prettiest games I have ever played and locations that need to load are huge.

Agreed. Say what you will about XRay's bugs, it can render some very nice visuals. Especially with the Complete mods. And its lighting and shadowing are really incredible. Especially when you realize that you're seeing shadows and light rays cast from objects and landforms halfway across the map.

Infinity Engine.
Among the most tactical of all CRPGs, IMO.