>>284039
Correction: it was one of the first quests I took. I wandered where I felt like, so it wasn't exactly near the starter area.
>which rpg does actually offer gameplay freedom?
I don't play many RPGs (actual RPG RPGs, not counting any random game with levelups) so I don't know. When I imagine a good RPG, I imagine a game where the obvious player choices are implemented. And I mean case-by-case details, not "the game has lockpicking and stealth and combat therefore everything has 3 options based on those".
As an example of what bothers me, in Stalker Call of Pripyat there's a quest where you need to clear a lair of monsters. Around the same map there's a military convoy (which you can find yourself or learn about by paying an informant), and when you find it, you get a canister of nerve gas from it. One of the main NPCs in the main hub is the boss of a criminal group, when I found that nerve gas canister the first thing that came to my mind is to show it to the criminal boss and maybe sell it. I also thought about using it as a bomb by leaving it somewhere and shooting at it. You can't do anything with it other than a scripted event where you clear that one specific lair of monsters. You CAN clear the lair just by shooting the monsters though so that's good.
A truly great RPG would acknowledge a lot of things that the player might think of doing. In the above case, you should be able to show the nerve gas to many different NPCs and get unique responses and maybe minor player choices, maybe you can threaten/trick NPCs by showing it, maybe there's multiple quests that have a scripted "easy solution" by using it. If you clear the lair by hand, you "become known" around the area as a badass hunter and people start referring to you with a title, maybe at some point someone who normally blocks you will recognize you and gives you a pass because they don't want to go against the badass hunter. Stalker is mostly just an open world shooter though so I wouldn't expect it to have a lot of RPG complexity.