If you only played the original edition of the Witcher you might give it another try tomorrow when the Enhanced Edition will be available on GoG for 5$ I believe. And yeah, the first chapter is not the most appreciated one.

Like Dragobr said, Arx Fatalis doesn't have an overly complicated and surprising plot; if that's your main interest PS:T and BG2 are much better choices. It's more like a dungeon crawler in the vein of Ultima Underworld or the Eye of the Beholder & Lands of Lore series. I wouldn't call it pure hack and slash though, a big deal of it is about exploration and puzzle-solving. Where the aforementioned Infinity Engine RPGs draw you in by way of the story, Arx Fatalis achieves that by its atmosphere (great sounds), the first person perspective and your survival instict. Character development is basic, your character is set and not customizable at the beginning (except for his face, but always male) and then as you gain levels you can distribute attribute and skill points and decide whether to become a fighter type, a mage or a rogue or a mixture of those. A fighter/mage combination is probably easiest while a rogue isn't that useful from what I hear. Another type of character development are the magic runes you can find and experiment with to learn new spells (regardless of your class).

Divine Divinity doesn't excel at the main plot either but the game world is very detailed, you can talk to most NPCs, find books and manuscripts with background info, jokes and riddles on it and like I said, there are many quest with side stories. You also have a lot of options for character development and nearly all of them are interesting and useful, all of which made it great fun for me despite the combat being hack and slash Diablo style (I couldn't bring myself to completely play through Diablo 2 yet but I'm close to finishing DD because I enjoyed it much more for its diversity).

I also second Coelocanth's suggestion to try NWN community modules. I didn't dare suggest it myself since you said you don't like D&D but with the community modules it really depends on the author whether D&D is a factor or not and to what extent. There are actually modules that completely did away with the D&D rules and invented their own RPG system, or others that focus more on the story and only have minimal combat. You also get all types of settings, even horror, sci-fi etc., not just Forgotten Realms high fantasy.

I seriously suggest you give Torment another shot. The gaming part of the game is pretty lackluster, but it's the characters and the story that made (and still make) the game special, and I believe that's what you're after. Also, there is little combat involved if you use stealth and persuasion correctly; at some point, I intend to play the game to check how many battles you absolutely must engage in (I expect less than five). Just make sure you download the Gibberlings Three Widescreen Mod.

Neverwinter Nights 1

For playing, creating and everything....

The Witcher is up tomorrow.... ^_^

been playing arcanum for few days.. cant complain!!

i would recommend the witcher or nwn

I'm sorry you feel that way about RPGs. There are only so many out there though you may as well buy RPG Maker and make your own RPG that'll please you and be made the way you want it.

Anyone who won't buy an RPG solely on the fact its on a console is just stupid in my opinion, of course the games aren't written by 7 year olds.

As I was reading through your post, I was going to say: Morrowind, and stay away from Oblivion. Turns out we think the same. Maybe this will be another argument for Planescape: Torment. I think it's an awesome RPG. I remember combats were very rare and at times I even craved for some action. Unfortunately the copy I had crashed at some point, so I'm planning to buy it here someday and start again.

And J-RPGs are really NOT a good substitute for good old western RPGs. I say that even though I played quite a number of those.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

They're not the same thing at all. Western RPGs are almost always set in a stereotypical medieval world with the stock high fantasy characters & species. Eastern RPGs are much more pantomime but tend to have far more unusual and unique storylines. Most people usually lean to one or the other. Myself I much prefer J-RPGs because I'm sick of the aforementioned settings. I did thoroughly enjoy The Witcher, Oblivion and adored Mass Effect for actually trying something different but Baldurs' Gate didn't do anything for me, nor did Dragon Age ad most of the older first person W-RPGs. Agree on Planescape too.

This statement is almost insulting to the new translation of the original FFT (WOTL). Covenant of the Plume (Valkyrie Profile saga in general) says hi. Also Xenogears and Xenosaga. I could keep on going.

Anyway, from the traditional cRPGS I'd recommend Arcanum. It's has a very nice and fresh setting that feels original for once when compared to the terribly bland and uninspired classic fantasy worlds.

How anyone would call Enslaved a RPG is beyond me. It's not, it's a beat 'em up with some platforming elements, western Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, that focuses heavily on combat.

Mask of the Betrayer had a lovely story and really nice characters if you can swallow down the crappy NWN2 engine.

Demon's Souls is a winner here but you don't have a console so it won't fly.

I wouldn't say it's an RPG, but I do think that RPGs as a genre is a stupid concept. The title itself denotes that you play a role, so that means that any game where who you are is relevant to the experience is a roleplaying game. It tends to mean that it has a lot of stats and customisation but that would mean that Gran Turismo is an RPG. Gran Turismo has more stats and more customisation than some of the best RPGs of all time such as Torment.

The obvious difference is that there isn't a story to GT and that the stats belong to a car, so then it seems that plot and you playing the role of a sentient lifeform are the key things, so then Enslaved would be an RPG since it's fully based around the characters and plot. But oh shit, a lot of classic WRPGs have minimum plot and no character dialogue apart from "Do this mission", just grinding and stat building - back to Gran Turismo again!

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm reading all of them. Especially thanks to Leroux, very helpful!

Just pointing out one more time - I have already played Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (to bits!), but I guess it did get lost somewhere in my list of acronyms.

I'm pretty sure I won't try Torment again... I've tried that game many times already (probably started over at least 5 times or so) and played for various periods of time, and even though I find the story extremely well written and compelling, I simply find myself unable to start playing it again after I come back. I really, really hate that engine. I guess one of the reasons for why I hate D&D is because I never really understood the rules. Might actually take an effort one time to study them.
Might give Torment just one more go though.

I would really appreciate though if someone could tell me whether the M&M games are what I'm looking for (and yes, I have read the reviews on the site).

Thanks for all the input guys!

I can't really provide a qualified judgement on the M&M series but maybe I can help you to provoke one of its fans to come up with a better reply. ;)

The only one I played for several hours (in fact hours and hours) was The Mandate of Heaven (M&M VI). From what I remember it was very open, a world where you can travel around and do whatever you please. I don't remember anything of the main plot though, if I ever found it. From my experience it's very heavy on hack and slash. In the end I quit when I noticed I was just wasting my time on decimating the population of the open world for no more interesting reason but to get treasure and experience and maybe solve a bland quest - and it just took too long for me to consider it worth the effort. I admit it was addictive, just not very rewarding. And then I didn't even like the graphics a lot. That was a long time ago though and chances are I did something wrong ...

(The graphics of M&M IV & V actually appeal to me and I read some good things about these games but I'm afraid that the gameplay experience might turn out to be similar to VI...)

BTW, if you're willing to learn D&D rules, NWN also has the benefit that you could go Multiplayer on one of the Persistent Worlds and get help and advice from fellow players. Or ask your questions on the BioWare forum, the NWN community is usually very welcoming and friendly to new players. The downside is that it won't help you much with the Infinity Engine games since the trouble with D&D is that there are several different versions of it. ;) (NWN is using 3rd edition or 3.5 while the IE games use 2nd edition, and there are significant differences.)