What RPG are you playing right now?

[Valkyrie-Favor]

To put it a different way, if we had holodeck technology, I'd rather see it used to put players into an environment than simulating a room with a nice tabletop model and miniatures just because "that's how classic simulations did it".

I can't parse that.

[Menegrothx]

I'd say it would be, within the context of world/environment, since there's copious amounts of information that a 2D image would tend to lack. What's the ceiling look like? What's the other side of that table look like?

Not only has the isometric viewpoint the capability to make scenery look more grand and epic but it's also better for tactical combat and allows parties (/makes managing them easier).
Games should become more advanced, I agree. Worlds should be more interactive. AI should be more intelligent. And so on. In many ways modern WRPGs have gone backwards in evolution, hence the longing for "oldschool" RPGs. But I don't think any sane person wants to have limitations imposed by old technology on new games just for the sake of providing a similar gameplay experience. Games should become better with new technology. If graphics and sound are the only parts of gaming that are evolving, there's a problem. If in other aspects we're going backwards in evolution, there's even a bigger problem.

Not only some "unrealistic" (not a fully realized "photorealistic" 3D world) are more artistically pleasing, but having a less "realistic" and in some ways more abstract style can make the work as a whole feel more cohesive and in a way realistic, when it can remove many inconsistencies and technical problems you'd have in a full 3D world. Or to give a more extreme example: a game like Dwarf Fortress with no graphics at all can simulate the world much more accurately than a game like Grand Theft Auto. If you cut down the scale, the designers and programmers don't have to worry about so many things, and as a result, it's more likely that end result feels more believable and realistic,
with out any major inconsistencies in the world (in other words Half Life 2 NPCs that don't react in anyway when you pick up trash from the ground and start throwing it at them and do other stupid things like that)
And it's a lot cheaper to develop games when you don't have to worry about all that stuff that comes with the 3D territory, so you can focus more on more important matters and take more risks with the content, when you don't have to sell as many copies to be profitable.

Doesn't mean that the industry as a whole should stop trying to advancing 3D technology though.

[alienjesus]

Final Fantasy VII.


Got to be honest, it feels pretty dated so far. It's early days yet though, so maybe it'll catch my attention a bit more as I progress.

Aeris was just kidnapped and I'm in the sector 5 slums with Barret and Tifa.

[isiolia]

Not only has the isometric viewpoint the capability to make scenery look more grand and epic but it's also better for tactical combat and allows parties (/makes managing them easier).

There's nothing inherently wrong with an isometric view - it can be nice for tactics, if that works for the vision of the game. Creating it in a 3D engine though, could mean zooming in/rotating when desired, or using other views entirely when appropriate. Along with easier scaling to fit various monitors and so on.

In my mind, there are a lot more reasons to use 3D for those kinds of projects than not to, provided it's within budget/etc.

Not only some "unrealistic" (not a fully realized "photorealistic" 3D world) are more artistically pleasing, but having a less "realistic" and in some ways more abstract style can make the work as a whole feel more cohesive and in a way realistic, when it can
remove many inconsistencies and technical problems you'd have in a full 3D world.
...
And it's a lot cheaper to develop games when you don't have to worry about all that stuff that comes with the 3D territory, so you can focus more on more important matters and take more risks with the content, when you don't have to sell as many copies to be profitable.

Doesn't mean that the industry as a whole should stop trying to advancing 3D technology though.

Most games today don't seem to be going for a truly photorealistic style. More a painted "real".

While it might be easier to not need to worry about better presentation, that's why I'd rather see efforts to combine the two. They aren't all going to work out, but new ideas are going to come out of that - more than making HD versions of successful titles from 15-20 years ago will net.

Obviously, if budget/technology just aren't there to allow for that, then fine. In line with what you said though, hopefully someone who has the money to is trying to actually push the envelope.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I think pushing the envelope, in RPG terms, doesn't have to be about 3D environments at all. For me, writing, world design, choice (or the illusion of choice), and game mechanics that continue to grow throughout the whole adventure should be the focus. A game that does even one of these well is usually well-liked, as long as it doesn't royally screw up the others.

3D environments may contain more information, but most of it is useless or meaningless to the player. I'm not knocking 3D at all, but exploring a hand-drawn, hand-animated world can be just as interesting.

[MrPopo]

The more freedom of exploration you give to a player the more difficult it is to make that exploration seem worthwhile. Compare Daggerfall with Morrowind. Both are 3D first person games. Daggerfall's explorable area is 188,000 square miles; Morrowind's is 10. The vast majority of Daggerfall's content is thus procedurally generated using a set of templates created by the dev team, so after a while it all becomes very same-y. Going from an isometric perspective to a first person 3D world would vastly increase the amount of graphical resources needed to maintain the same fidelity of detail.

Plus, with an isometric game you can implement Escher physics pretty easily. A 3D game can have impossible geometry using tricks (for example, have a room where you go around a circle 720 degrees to see every numbered pillar on the wall) but you're much more constrained; you have to control the viewable area so that you can switch over where things connect while the player cannot see it.

[isiolia]

3D environments may contain more information, but most of it is useless or meaningless to the player.

It often is now, but there's a lot of potential there to actually use it for more, especially as the fidelity increases.

Not saying that everything possible with 2D has been done, but, there's probably a lot more still to be seen with 3D environments. That's why I'd rather see developer pushing and see how they can utilize them better.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Sure, they both have lots of potential and deserve to be explored more. I was just thinking that 2D games of the past were still limited, especially by memory. It's not like that era is over because it had nothing left to offer. Imagining a far more interactive 2D world is pretty fun, but there don't seem to be any studios with that kind of money trying it. A fully realized world can be presented either way, right?

[noiseredux]

Final Fantasy VII.


Got to be honest, it feels pretty dated so far. It's early days yet though, so maybe it'll catch my attention a bit more as I progress.

Aeris was just kidnapped and I'm in the sector 5 slums with Barret and Tifa.

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago. I don't think it's going to catch your attention. Outside of the nostalgia, I just think it's a pretty boring game.

[ZenErik]

Glad I'm not the only one that doesn't think FFVII is some sort of Holy Grail of JRPGs. Played it when it came out. Played it years after it came out. Both times... ehh. It's not bad. Just not a favorite of mine.