It's sounding like pretty much anything we say is going to have something about it that prevents you from playing it. It's 2013 boxed copies of any type of media are all but resigned to history. You really are coming across as leader of the awkward squad.
Mods and fairness aren't mutually exclusive, that's my point. The Secret Armory of General Knoxx increased the level cap of the game by 11, making characters have more skills and become more powerful. No doubt Gearbox added stronger enemies to fight to balance this. Mass Effect 2 - Lair of the Shadow Broker. After completing this you get access to extra resources and the ability to invest to make even more money. I've played through both with and without this, and it felt like it made the game easier. In fact all the DLCs added rewards, allowing you to research earlier, making the game "easier" than a vanilla game with no DLC. Or it let you not have to scan planets as much - but this would 'detract from the original experience' of the game. Mass Effect 3 - From Ashes DLC. The gun from that became my defacto gun simply because I could melt everything with ease. All of these are DLC, and yet have altered the balance of the vanilla game. If they had been done as a third party mods, you would have rejected them purely on the grounds that they're mods. I can understand you not wanting to have mods/overlays/hacks in mmos for competitive reasons, but I've never seen anyone compete over a single player rpg. It almost feels like you consider mods for rpgs to give you some sort of edge, when in fact you'd probably find more HD texture packs/reskins and additional quests/areas/missions. At least that's what I remember from Fallout. 3 mods for Skyrim http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3863/? - SkyUI, a better UI to make skyrim not have a console interface http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/35841/? - More quests http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36478/? - Better/Tougher AI
Oh how wrong you are... Anyway my suggestions: The Witcher The Witcher 2 Diablo 2 - Hardcore, self found /players 8 single player.... Sadism in a game. System Shock 2 - You can get it on GOG now for pennies. Far too good to ignore.
You really do have quite a unique attitude to games If you want hard games then I've heard that The Witcher 2 is very hard on the higher difficulties.
Want to just put a CD in and play a game? Buy a console. Because you don't play anything downloaded? The Majority of MMOs are downloads. You're so hypocritical it's slightly annoying. It makes me angry because we're giving you ideas on what are the greatest RPGs ever made and you're thinking of a couple of petty, insignificant reasons not to play them. KOTOR, Skyrim. Oblivion. Morrowind. Fallout 3. Fallout New Vegas. Dragon age I and II. The Witcher and the Witcher 2. Half Life 2. Arma 2- Day Z mod (not a damn mod, it's technically a whole different game just built upon that game engine.) Diablo II. Diablo III. These are some of the greatest RPGs that have been released in recent years. Play one and find one you bloody well like.
Now that's a different story, and one I can understand. Though afaik Skyrim requires steam, hopefully that won't bother you since you said no downloading. Anyone know if they've fixed the horses yet?
There's a few Horse mods floating about. I think of them does fix the physics with them. I use Convenient Horses. It allows you to change everything about the Horses actions. You can change it so they don't run off as soon as you get off of them.
Fine. Fine. But that's going to really slump your idea of the gaming world. F2P is where all of these MMOs are going and modding is always going to be there. More and more games developers are putting that compatibility with mods into their games. The Freemium play style isn't all that bad you know. If you play some of these games, you can get everything the premium, paying members get. You just have to play a little harder.
No-one has mentioned it, but have you looked at Guild Wars 2? On the basis you want something with no mods, which comes in a box and isn't FTP then this is just about the only thing I can think of! It seems to fit most of your criteria too.
If you enjoy console gaming you might want to consider Demon's Souls and/or Dark Souls. Both can be had on the PS3, and have an online component. Both quite heavily based around replayability with endless new game plus. You can build your character to use a variety of different melee weapons, ranged weapons, magical spells and "faith" spells, and create different characters to play through in different ways. They each have various story arcs/NPC interactions that are difficult/impossible to get all of in one playthrough so you can get something different each time. Demon's Souls is the first and should be fairly cheap as a Greatest Hits title. The online community has lessened but you can still find people. Dark Souls is the spiritual successor but can also be had for fairly cheap now, and has a more active community. There is an additional DLC content for Dark Souls, I believe this is download only but is optional.
Wow. Good point there. Yeah, guild wars 2 isn't a free 2 play title. It's an MMO though. You buy the game (it comes in a boxed edition as well =p) and it doesn't have any subsciption fees. No mods, a selection of classes. Sounds pretty perfect. The first guild wars is amazing and can be had cheap.
I think the problem is that they don't really make epic games like this anymore. It's going to be tough to suggest anything. You might have to compromise on some of your criteria (namely having a physical product). If you can then there are some things on the horizon that you may enjoy... Shroud of the Avatar - https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/ Torment - Tides of Numenera - https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/ Star Citizen - http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/ Elite Dangerous - http://elite.frontier.co.uk/ Project Gorgon - http://projectgorgon.com/play-now/ The last one did not get funded (in Kickstarter) but I think they are still plodding along with it anyway. You're a switched on guy, so you probably have looked at these already, but they all do offer something of what you are looking for. Maybe! If you do find something - then let us know because I will probably want to play it!
I know you have said you don't like mods - but if you are getting skyrim, you should get the high res textures mod, as it makes the game look really nice. so does realistic water - and there is a realistic colour and night mod - they are the only mods I use, they don't change the gameplay they just change the way it looks, and if anything the realistic night just makes it harder as it makes it nearly pitch black at night time!
So you like competitive gaming but only with MMOs and single player games? If you don't like FPS or RTS anymore then maybe you should look at a MOBA, since they're competitive. Also I don't get who you're competing against in a single player game to not want to use mods etc
I respect your wish to play what you want, how you want but it doesn't hurt to try something just in case you find you like it, I was adamant that I would never play another RPG after playing one too many Interactive Fiction text based adventure games years ago on very old PC's and C64's, that was until I saw a friend playing Oblivion and I just knew I had to go and get totally lost in that world and I have been for a long time, Skyrim next and kiss goodbye to 2014,
Torchlight is free at GOG.com if you haven't played that before, don't know how replayable it is and yes it is a download, but it's free! Also DRM free so burn it to a dvd if you want and install the vintage way on as many PCs as you like.
But that's one of the good things about mods. You can play through it first time and say you've 'beaten it' or whatever, and then get a lot more playability through mods for free.
Pretty sure you don't need a credit card to register on gog.com. Once you register, you should be able to get free games if they are on offer...
Don't know if it's mentioned already... Neverwinter Nights (I & II + expansions), it's a tad bit older but you can put a lot of hours rpging into it.
