I have to say, it's a very interesting dichotomy to look at. Thurilith wrote the authoritative article on this as it applies to BoX, but it's a bit different with Jeff's games. Time and again people in the forums say that the open-world SW games are more fun, and time and again Jeff laments the fact that open-world games are much harder to balance and result in more e-mail complaints. The disjunction between the crowd here and Jeff's customers in general is old news, so he may be right about that call. Or does it even matter? Exile 3 (100% open world) and Avernum 4 (semi-open) were both heralded as great commercial successes, while Geneforge 4 and Dark Waters -- the most grittiest and most linear of Jeff's games -- were forum favourites.
Looking at a few comparisons:
- Jeff's most cited and most obvious gaming influences from the early days were mostly open-world. Ultima and Wizardry were all open-world with nested quest sequences much like X1 and X2, while the most celebrated of the Gold Box games, Pool of Radiance, was open-world much in the style of X3.
- Traditional console RPGs are mostly linear, but they also spend a lot more time on plot, notably including character development (PCs as well as NPCs) and plot that is actually shown with, you know, moving pictures. These seem to have limited relevance to both Jeff, his customers, and the forums -- I swear that every time I make a Chrono Trigger reference here, fewer and fewer people get it.
- Newer generation "gamer" RPGs are mostly open-world, with long lists of quests just like newer SW games have, and other elements borrowed from MMORPGs. Jeff has been openly critical of many elements of these games, but he still employs some of those elements, and he definitely still plays the games.
Really, even Jeff's more linear games have a lot more rollick than grit, and they have a lot more in common with modern open-world games than with actual old-school RPGs. Well, except maybe for not being real time... and thank goodness for that.