Hello,

I have caugth myself deeply thinking about this - what is better suited for RPG games - isometric view (like Fallout, or Fallout 2 had), or first person (like Gothic, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 had) ... note that by first person I also mean third person view (e.g. generally ground view). What do you think? I give you also option of None of these two (please elaborate ... and of course I know it is based upon exact game); And also an option that I'm crazy - thinking about these dumb things, when I should work on games...

For me, I like to be able to see my character rather than see through his eyes. I know that I'm not my character, so I'm not going to be bothered to see that he doesn't look like me. At the same time, aspects of my character, like clothing, weapons, etc., are things that I'd like to see-- if I wanted to imagine everything myself, I'd be playing a tabletop game and not a video game.

Games that use a first person view, like Oblivion and Fallout 3, tend to have a pretty poor 3rd person view. The game isn't designed for it, so the characters glide over terrain too much for me, and fighting animations just look odd.

I'm never truly at home with first person RPGs. In fact i find being in first person less immersive than playing in third. So long as the character looks like it should be in that world *cough* Two Worlds cave sections *cough*. The exception to this is Fallout 3/NV and that's due to it being very shootery.

I would go for iso/third person. By third i mean an actual third person like an action game, not something tacked on for some reason.

There are some really good RPG games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic which pull off the first person view really well. I can't stand third person in a game except for vehicles. Your question to me is kind of asking me "would Bioshock or Oblivion have been better as an isometric game?" and to me, maybe not others, the answer is a huge no.

I feel third person and isometric views take away from the immersive nature of the role playing genre. I prefer to see only through the character's eyes.

I think the differences between the many kinds of RPGs are too huge to simply say one or the other.

I think isometric is great for controlling and micromanaging a party, but I like first person if there's no party or a minimal party.

[quote name='Sirisian']
There are some really good RPG games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic which pull off the first person view really well. I can't stand third person in a game except for vehicles. Your question to me is kind of asking me "would Bioshock or Oblivion have been better as an isometric game?" and to me, maybe not others, the answer is a huge no.

I feel third person and isometric views take away from the immersive nature of the role playing genre. I prefer to see only through the character's eyes.
[/quote]

Hm... interesting opinion. Actually I'm not asking "If Bioshock or Oblivion would be better as an isometric game?", I'm (well of course not just me - I'm not *that* crazy) developing my first RPG game (with very good technology I've been working on for years, in my company) and yet I haven't decided if to go isometric, 1st person or 3rd person. And as the game will be 3D, it doesn't matter that much which one will be used (although using multiple views is not a way in which we want to go). For now we are mainly deciding between 1st person, over shoulder 3rd person (like GoW had I think) and isometric.

The game won't have parties (maybe you'll be with one character from time to time, or go with caravan.

I'm although more serious about 1st person - especially due to this (concept art for game):



As you can see, sky can be really important ... even though this concept are, we've been developing pretty complicated sky system (with support for that like planets, or moons ... note that the planet has atmosphere (although you won't visit her during gameplay))