I'm trying to figure out how many people here actually use the "open world" concepts of Fable, or Oblivion, or Mass Effect. I personally skip most of it, and prefer to focus on the plot. I still find myself going back to the less pretty, more linear games of yesteryear (Super Mario RPG, and Chrono Trigger,for instance) and bemoaning the current trend of "if we make it pretty, and non-linear, it'll be awesome". I gave up on Oblivion because it was too non-linear, it didn't feel like it had a plot arc. By the time I got a few hours in, I had become so bogged down in the side quests, that I'd lost interest in what I was supposed to do, and went to play something else. So, here's my real question: which is more important to all of you: (a) a fantastic storyline, and games-as-cinema, which requires linearity and ignores graphics, or (b) the ability to choose whichever path you want, and making sure that the paths are beautifully rendered, even if that comes at the expense of story. I can think of a few good examples of non-linear storytelling with good plot (KOTOR, Mass Effect), but even those end up as "you can pick which order you go in, but you'll be going here, here, here, and here"; it's non-linear in the way the old Megaman games were