Where are all the first person rpg's?

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I would ask this: what does first person essentially add to an RPG? As Zontar says, it's ultimately about playing a role, or a character. A role or character that's not always you. Third person gives that wall of separation between you and what's happening on screen. When you can see your character's face, their movements and appearance, you're not thinking "that's me", but "that's the character I'm playing as".

I see where you're coming from, but at the same time, I don't really see the need for that wall of separation. If I'm reading a really good novel for example, I don't imagine myself watching the character (as though I were watching a movie). I imagine myself in the character's shoes, inside the story itself. I read what the character sees and imagine it in my mind, I read how the character feels and can sometimes feel a small semblance of the same thing. In a way, it's the same way I experience a well done and immersive game with a first person view. I honestly don't get that same feeling at all from most third person games.

I usually completely forget what race I'm playing in Elder Scrolls, because aside from some minor differences in abilities, all the races play essentially the same, and are going to eventually be covered in 70 layers of increasingly complex and ornate armor anyway.

I think this is largely an art design problem a lot of first person view games suffer from, rather than an inherent problem with first person view itself. Silent "Gordan"-esque characters; arms, torso, and legs/feet never being visible when you look down, and even when they do there's rarely anything especially distinctive (save for maybe the protagonist's breasts in Trespasser). While not exactly an RPG, Vermintide did things a little bit differently (with fairly impressive results imo):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V0vqxOMNNc

Not sure how well some of the design techniques would translate into an RPG format(especially where customization is concerned), but I think it's a good representation for better first person view implementation, and immersion.

I think there are too many first person games. Far too many. They're so common because it's a lot easier to do than third person. The perspective doesn't work that well. I like being able to run straight while still able to look to the sides. In a first person game, especially all the ones that only let you sprint forward, you have to slow down and turn to see your surroundings. Moving around like a tripod or primitive robot with arms always in my view is getting stale. First person games also offer pretty limited spacial awareness. In third person and real life, I can peek to the sides and behind myself instantly without turning and I can feel what's at my feet. I wanna see how my character relates to the environment, since I sure can't feel it or really be in their shoes.

Largely true, although VR does fix most of those issues. So I guess give it a year or two and... you might find first person view a little more palatable.

 

[DoPo]

I think there are too many first person games. Far too many.

What is your definition for RPG? Because from where I stand, there are very few.

 

[DoPo]

I think there are too many first person games. Far too many.

What is your definition for RPG? Because from where I stand, there are very few.

I was talking about games in general, not specifically RPGs.

The thread is about RPGs, though. Moreover, we could also claim that there are far too many third person view games and topdown view games, as these three encompass the majority of views available in games. Does that make all of them "far too many"?

 

[DoPo]

I don't feel like singling out RPGs. I'd still be happier with fewer first person games across almost all genres.

Again, this is a thread specifically about RPGs. As has been outlined above, it's not like they really have that many first person games to begin with.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

2. In Mount and Blade you can bring 2000 of your closest friends to battle, including allied lords with their own armies. The largest battle I ever fought was 3400 vs. 4400, the size of the on screen battle is only limited to the power of your PC and the depth of your character's pockets.

I am really curious, how many did you *actually* get to spawn and battle at the same time though? I think I usually would get a couple hundred vs a couple hundred (then they'd bring in reinforcements depending on when people died), although one time with one of my characters I purposefully turned him into a god with cheats (not god mode, just his stats were through the roof) and I'm 99% sure that is directly tied to how many bandits there are when they attack one of your towns, so I did manage to spawn like 2500 bandits one time but my computer chugged pretty hard at that, down to like 10 fps I think.

 

[raankh]

Lots of interesting opinions from both sides of the fence when it comes to FP-RPG as a genre in of itself.

However, the discussion has kind of reinforced my opinion; you wouldn't even have to compete with Bethesda in that market-space, there's plenty of room for more studios. There have been attempts, and certainly other platforms than the traditional 1PV platform (ie kbd/mouse) have their representation, but most are either rather old or niche titles (such as Consortium).

It hasn't been explored all that much, Im thinking; the discussion about mechanics above really point to that-- even what works and what doesn't hasn't been covered yet.

It really seems to be an area where a serious start-up game dev could make large inroads and make a name for themselves. Here's hoping it isn't DigiTurd HomiShite.