Ok, this one's contentious.

Two Worlds. It's got to be taken with a certain amount of tongue in cheek humour. However it fits the bill in all other regards, and would be a helpful distraction if nothing else.

The key with the game is to decide how you'll play it, before you play it. Post in the forum for advice on that.

EDIT: Oh, and Risen is hard as F***, worth it if you have the patience, not if you want a fun easy game.

Try the demo for Mount&Blade Warband. It's not precisely what you asked for, but it's a refreshing experience and quite open.

If you have a modern console, give the demo for Dragon's Dogma a try.

Arx Fatalis

I played Two Worlds 2, it was really decent. Mount and Blade is one of my favorite games and I played them all.

Arx Fatalis is neat, I played it for a while but I never got into. I preferred Dark Messiah more due to the smooth movement and dynamic fighting.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Definitely give Two World II a shot.

Edit: Nevermind I see you already have. Hmm a hmmm. I'm one for more castle building type or heavy storyling. So hmm. Oh wait! The Avernum and Geneforge series are always good. So is Avadon. And they're on a bundle right now.

Edit the second: And since you don't like parties I would go with Geneforge over Avernum. I mean, you can solo Avernum but it's really hard, whereas in Geneforge that's one of the main default ways to play.

Play number 1.

Avernum and Geneforge are not my cup of tea, like I said party based rpgs are not really my type of game. Also I prefer more graphical games.

Oh! How about Eschalon Book II? That's a single player and single character rpg, fairly open world, loot dropping, leveling goodness. With better graphics.

I'm going to check it on steam then.

Though to be fair the graphics aren't better by much (compared to like Avadon, way better compared to like the original Avernum series). Sorry about that.

Divine Divinity
Divinity 2
Two Worlds 1 + 2 (the second one is slightly better) ; but both won't compete with The TES serie
Gothic 2 maybe (i found it a tad easier than others Gothic, but it's just me ;) )
Risen 1 & 2
Inquisitor
Arx Fatalis (with the unofficial patch -> Arx Libertalis)
Eschalon Book 1 & 2 (tried episode 2 , yikes it's hardcore for a ranger :D)

well , aside Risen 1 & 2 which ain't on GOG, you have lots of choice ^^

I'm playing Neverwinter Nights for the first time right now and loving it enough to finally read my Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book.

And the book was over 10 years unread on my bookshelf... so yeah, the game is good.

I absolutely loved Risen - I think if you check GG the whole series may be on sale.

If you are after a GOG game Arcanum may fit but there are so many.

Have you played Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines?

It's not open world, but you can travel between levels and they each felt very conducive to exploration, especially since you don't have a map, which encourages you to actually get to know the environment so that when a mission tells you to go to the pawn shop, you know which street that's in.

It may be a little too talky for you, but the actual missions are open to be tackled through combat if you wish. In fact, I think you can attack anyone on the street if you really want it, of course you'd pay for that though.