I think had a bit of content fusion mentally with the massive Goat City / Goat Inner Sanctum. Since I botched that example so completely let me substitute Despot's Lair on a non WC play-through and the DX Editing Building with the uber stealth scenario for examples of totally optional content.
Now to the one point I hope to cast some light on, Jonas said,
I wouldn't expect TNM's level of branching from any game. Dragon Age and The Witcher 2 both came close, but it's an incredible amount of work, and real game studios have budgets to worry about.
To which the Blob must reply, "I might know a few."
1.
The best example I know of that is close to a DX style game would be:
Vampire The Mascarade - Bloodlines. If it had a single character type the way the DX does it would be 'on par' for branching. It has seven with three of them being totally (and I do mean totally) distinct:
I was soundly blown out of the water when I played that game as a Malkavian
2.
And a second time when I played though as a Nosferatu. It's a short game, but worth a look for some outside the box thinking.
Anyhow, it's a trade off; and, as I recall from some post release analysis of TNM (if only I could recall where I saw it
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
) it's the strategic re-use of the most cost intensive assets that allows for quality branching development. I totally agree!
And @justanotherfan My very first reaction to TNM was profound pleasant surprise. Almost nothing is worth a second play-through and here is a game that all but demands it if you want to see the real ending.
1. Branching off the top of my head - Mostly found in Fallout games (F:1, F:2 and F:NV) with the ending slide scenarios being the actual impact. A few other branching quest/world design models: Might and Magic 7 (Elves/humans to start then good/evil later), Arcanum (This might actually have the most branching / meta gaming of anything listed). Temple of Elemental Evil also had a crazy number of branches in the interactions, even in the most mundane of NPC's. Another contender might be an ancient game called Lands of Lore 2, might give you a run for you money on branching and in game impact, you could have things play out in very different ways. For a look at branching in Space flight Sims the Wing Commander series had quite a lot of branching, often based on how a mission went, leading to different missions and even totally different final scenarios.
2. If you've never played this game and happen to decide to play though as a Malkavian this first time it's as close as I think you can get to touching the mind of a madman. Even as a meta-game play though where you know the world it's jarring on occasion trying to figure out what is being said.
EDIT: Spacing issue on footnotes.