Well I agree with you, character progression is a deep part of pleasure in RPGs.
In the mod I will try to construct (I have good hopes, because the Editor looks so much like the toolset, and the programming langage used by Larian looks pretty understandable), there will be MANY skills, with various levels (unknown, novice, apprentice, compagnon, master, grand master), with levels tied to specific skill experience and characteristics (so you will need, say , "10" in strength to be able o become a compagnon in mining, and "15" to become a master, and so on, such allowing great replayability (you WON'T be able to become a grand master in all skills, impossible).
What I mean by world interactions is that there will be many things to interact with (plants, rocks, cadavers, animals, tracks, whatever), but if you don't have the skill, you willm hardly be able to get anything from these things. But if you have the proper skill, you will have much more chance/more/better results from your interactions.
From example, your char comes across an "unknown rock". If he is has a prospector skill, he might identify it as an "iron ore", the better the skill, the better the chance to identify. And then, the better his "mining" skill, the more he will get from the Ore.
And one important feature is that top skills should yield top unique results. So in the above example, only if he is a grand master in mining would he have a chance to get a "Iron gem", a fantasy powerful enchantable gem.
Add this to many many skills (hunting (bonus to hit and damage of animals), tracking, trapping, prospecting, mining, skinning, butchering, leather working, tailoring, farming, taming........), and I think the replayability and character progression would be very interesting. Well, at least it was imho in the mod I already built for NWN2 (frontier, a french mod...)
But again, I reallu trust Larian, they have always been great at roleplaying in general, and character progression in particular.
