I guess we could agree to say that cRPG, besides the gameplay (obvious part of a "game"), are mostly foccused on the characters, the story and the world.
But is a world in which time and NPCs are completely frozen immersive ? Is a world in which distance are "compressed" immersive ? Is a world in which cows can climb ladder immersive ? Is a story in which an army cannot find something that's right next to them (and not really hidden) immersive ?
The stuff you listed doesn't really detract that much from my immersion(or lack of it) though, since it's the story and the characters(if they're any good) that elicit most of the immersion for me. The world that most RPGs offer is hardly ever very complex, spacious or alive, so I equate it mostly with a theater set, and in theater most of the stuff you listed, despite being silly, doesn't really break immersion.
Well, most games have a D/N cycle and a notion of time. Most games have random encounters and/or creatures that repop after a while and/or NPCs routine and so on.
Larian is one of the only studio that creates worlds in their RPG that doesn't feel alive AT ALL (completely frozen) if the player is not involved.
It doesnt have to be very complex. As an exemple the NPCs routine in BG1 and 2 are not very complex... for most of them they just have 2 positions (1 for day, 1 for night). Things are obviously different on true open world.
Immersion in the world (the FR here) is as important to me and when I was talking about characters, I included NPCs.
