G2, first playthrough, NotR yay/nay?

Good point. There are just some places in Gothic games you are better off avoiding until you are extremely tough yourself. - It's more realistic that way as opposed to games like Oblivious.

And most of the time you can run away from the baddies if you have to pass through their habitats

But I think that a vacuum cleaning approach to exploration is the norm in many games (including classic favourites like Baldurs Gate).

Yeah, I'm all about vaccum cleaning the world - especially the first two Gothics because they put such cool stuff in so many obscure places. The difference is the vacuum cleaning isn't systematic - here in this corner, then trot over the other side of the world…. then the middle, etc…

G2 +NOTR rocks, G2 without NOTR is freaking awesome!.
yeah it's hard but that's another thing I like about it, tried of the games where it's so easy to kill everyone and everything fits to your level, let me walk into a cave and disturb a couple of shadowbeast which instantly turn me to dinner , any day of the week. that's true freedom, the freedom of being stupid and getting killed every time you're not on your guard.
I like this approach much better than for instance fallout 3 where you can kill anything at level 1 if you are cunning and by level 5 the game just gets boring.

man watch out for snappers they will follow you for miles