Walls of text everywhere, replying to an ancient post, but....
I do like AOD and I'm playing it right now, but I think I understand the central "issue" of it.
Being a "talker" is easy indeed - if you know which way to go. The central "problem" of playing AOD is the fact that you are never sure what 'kind' of solution will be possible in certain quests - at least, not until you go talk to the NPC in question or go to the quest location. Yes, there are cases that with just a minimum of common sense you can have a good idea of what you should expect (perhaps following that beggar to an alley wasn't a shining moment in your life), but many quests don't offer options that you would expect to exist there. This forces you to approach each quest/event in the game as an experiment of trial and error (albeit with some general idea of what to expect), where in your first contact with any quest you're just "testing the grounds" to find out what options are in there.
In fact, this is something which exists in *every* game with quests with multiple solutions. And that's interesting because in AOD, this feeling is absurdly more pronounced. For the majority of quests, it offers more distinct choices than most RPGs (more than Fallout, AFAIK) but you feel more trapped and restricted when you're playing. Well, why is that? I cannot say for sure, but I imagine this is due to the CYOA-style that it has. Anyone who played a CYOA went through moments where you felt constrained by its story, which didn't offer a particular option you thought valid in that context.
I see it mainly as a result for every solution being hand-crafted in AoD, going for rigid, scripted events rather than actual systems. From some of VD's posts it seems like he's looking at RPGs rather cynically at times, often criticizing them from "fake" choices that they present to the player, like creating an illusion of freedom when they actually only offer two or three different ways to do stuff at best. Perhaps it's because of this that AoD seems almost brutally honest, presenting the available choices to you bluntly without any attempt to try to blur the line between different solutions or give you any reason to believe that there's something more there than there actually is. A typical cRPG is a cage with clear glass walls whereas AoD replaces them with iron bars because it doesn't want to trick you in any way, and because of the rigidity (or inexistence) of actual systems it's more restrictive inside those bars as well.
Let's take an imaginary example from, say, Fallout, although it could be some other RPG just as well. There's an area that offers roughly two different ways to get through it, the other being stealth and the other being combat. So, basically you could say the game offers you only two meaningful paths through that area, which is hardly impressive compared to the wealth of options you have in AoD. In truth, the number of approaches is considerably larger since FO has actual systems built around both stealth and combat, and the player can utilize those systems in any way he sees fit. He could go in guns blazing, turning the entire map into a battlefield. He could try to sneak through the level undetected. He could also use whatever combination of those systems he sees fit: Using stealth to gain a positional advantage before entering combat. Using stealth to scout the area ahead in preparation for combat. Using stealth to get through certain areas and combat to clear others. A very stealthy character might be able to effectively scour the entire area undetected, a little less stealthy might be able to go through it without combat but possibly missing out on loot or information, a minimally stealthy character might be able to use it to get past an enemy or two, perhaps allowing him to hack a computer or break into a weapons storage before having to face the enemies. A combat character might try various tricks, like trying to lure enemies away one by one or setting up an ambush at a bottleneck. None of that has to be specifically scripted, because the systems will take care of that for you. You're in complete control of your character, can move him anywhere you want to and at least try to use any skill or item at your disposal in any way you see fit.
In AoD such things aren't really possible, because every route you take is clear-cut. Going stealthy generally means passing a skill check or several of them, with failure typically leading to either death or a combat scenario (which, depending on your build, could be the same thing as death), or some softer failure state that'd probably still lead you to having to try something else. You can't choose the route you want to take unless the game specifically tells you to do so. Taking a combat route, on the other hand, generally leads to one or more set-piece-like battles where you have little control over who you fight, how you position your character before the fight, how you move about the area between combats, and so on. Even if you added a couple of alternative solutions, like using diplomacy or disguises, chances are that it would still feel more restrictive than the imaginary example above that only allowed for a couple of different solutions on paper.
Then again, most of my experience of AoD is based on the old demo, so it's possible the game has changed quite a bit on the way. Still, while I'm really looking forward to AoD and really enjoy many aspects of it, I think it'd greatly benefit from allowing more systemic reactivity.
. You can also do a ridiculous amount of stuff throwing bombs, acid and liquid fire. Therefore, the actual systems also provide many choices. The feeling that AoD is too rigid in comparison to FO has a very simple cause: it is harder and you can die a lot, but FO is much easier. Again, using FO as comparison, maybe the fact that AoD doesn’t have an open word also contribute to this feeling that the game is too restrictive.
