Hi! I'm designing an rpg for windows, and I am wondering what people think makes a good crpg? Lots of skills or just a few detailed ones, hack and slash diablo style or story and conversation driven Ultima 7 style? If you were designing a CRPG, what are the most important features you would want it to have? Feel free to say what game you think is the best designed CRPG ever!

Ultima 7's my favourite, but you should really design what appeals to you.

I like Planescape: Torment. Mostly for the great style of the game. This CRPG features professionally written dialogs with good addition of parody. And authors' attention to little details is amazing. You can play again and again, and like in a good book every time discover something new.

If you could take Ultima VII and mix that with a stronger, more driven story, I think you'd have the best game ever! Ulima's story was alright, but it just didn't seem like what you were doing was really important. It was way to easy to get endlessly sidetracked and forget what you were even supposed to be doing.
My all time fav is Baldur's Gate II. It's got enough sidequests, but it also has a very impressive story.

But that's the tricky part. How do you mix open-endedness with a really strong story. It's not easy to do. Not many (almost none) games pull it off well.