Well, everyone has different tastes, as we know. The poster asked which had more story--and said he preferred good story telling to action. I just can't see how DivDiv would have more story and less action than Arcanum, but that's a personal perception.
Dasale wrote:
Avernum, well the beginning is horrible, empty area, awfull flat non inventive map design, stupid fights, Fallout fights shine in comparison. I'm not speaking about grahics. Fallout? In no way the beginning of this game reach a tenth of the quality of Fallout beginning. Well perhaps the game is better after but I loved Fallout and found Arcanum beginning awful.
To clarify, I didn't say the game was as good as, the same as, or the equivalent of Fallout. I said it was more similar in design to Fallout than to Baldur's Gate as a point of reference. Fallout has a non-fantasy setting unique to itself--so does Arcanum. Fallout is a single player-character rpg. So is Arcanum. Baldur's Gate is fantasy and party based. Arcanum isn't.
Also, If you only played the beginning area of Arcanum you're really not in much of a position to judge what kind of rpg it is, as that's less than one hour of the game. The beginning area, as in many games, is more of a tutorial, and the game opens out into a large world as soon as you leave it. And frankly, if you're not talking about graphics when you use words like flat and empty, what are you talking about?
Non-graphically, the opening area is full of story introduction, combat, encounters etc, so I'm not sure what is empty to you except the visuals, which I agree are not the greatest aspect of the game, nor, as Gallifrey says, is the combat, which I called clunky for want of a better description--Gallifrey has explained it much better.
Divine Divinity is a good game, but it's very combat heavy and the combat is all clicking. You are constantly in dungeons that look exactly like Diablo II. The character and skills system is very strongly similar to Diablo II and other action rpgs. I like the game's personality, the humorous dialogues and the npcs, but as far as it being story driven, I disagree. It does indeed have a complex and convoluted plot, as I said, but it mainly serves as a way to provide combat encounters and opportunities to level up. I couldn't tell you the plot, or describe it two or three years later. As I said, the game is well worth playing and in many ways it's a very innovative game, but to me anyway, it's not about the story, which is what the poster wanted to know.
But as always, everyone's mileage may vary.