:( Sad that obsidian is making this game isometric...

[FacelessOne]

I think that the best thing to do is to close this thread.

[Messier-31]

I think that the best thing to do is to close this thread.

 

I once asked the same, and here's what The Management had to say:

 

If you cant get over it you should simply no longer participate in the thread.

 

So, nope

[nikolokolus]

Well done Gripshift.  A fine piece of trolling, looks like you got exactly the reaction you were hoping for.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Isometric vs 3D is such a lame pseudo conflict. It all comes down to gameplay and other entertainment values: Diablo 3, XCom, Civilization and a bunch of other current and very successful games prove that it's a mere matter of game design - it's how enjoyable and addictive game is that matters. Finally, like others have said, rotating the camera and having the 3D experience going often turns out to be a source of annoyance and lack of overview.

[Semper]

Isometric also seems to last a lot better than 3d which looks dated relatively quickly. No one would contemplate playing the EI games again if they had been made with then-generation 3d.

 

while this is somehow true it doesn't apply to current gen. in 10 years those games will still look awesome - perhaps not that awesome like the games in 10+ years but for sure very good.

 

@topic: since when is neverwinter nights an isometric crpg?!

[Gfted1]

I once asked the same, and here's what The Management had to say:

 

 

If you cant get over it you should simply no longer participate in the thread.

 

So, nope

 

Good advise in that thread and good advise in this one. The OP hasn't broken any forum rules and is entitled to their opinion. The usual suspects come in and try to shout down any dissenting opinions but that doesn't make them right.

[Pipyui]

... The usual suspects come in and try to shout down any dissenting opinions but that doesn't make them right.

 

Damnit Gifted1!  We all know who you're talking about, and if you're gonna talk about me at all, I'd like the decency of being addressed by name!

 

Anyway, in terms of the topic at hand, I like the forced artistic perspective that isometric games can lead to the medium.  The artist can portray a scene in exactly the way they wish to protray it.  On the other hand, I like the control of perception that 3D games give me, where I can view a scene from any perspective I choose (within the confines of the camera).  3D games are getting increasingly better at building a scene beautiful and complete from any angle, but I would argue that the art isn't perfect yet.  The only particularly irritating problem I have with fixed isometric view is occlusion, but it's a problem I'm willing to ignore if the scenery can dazzle me.

[Solviulnir the Soulbinder]

 

 

Hmmm, I do miss Isometric RTS too... Red Alert, Age of Empires.

 

Modern RTS suck, and you have to fight the camera more than your enemies :/

This, 1000 times this.

 

At least with a 3D camera, terrans can't hide missile turrets underneath their floating buildings anymore, those jerks.

 

It's not the limitation of the isometric view, sir. It's the limitation of the engine that Blizzard coded for his game... Commandos 2 was an isometric game (quite good looking at that), but the player could rotate the map in 90 degree increments clearing out any obstructions of view.

 

A true isometric view has it's drawbacks like the lack of perspective distortion and parallaxing (but they can be implemented by approximation). But none of these is essential in a game where you first and foremost need a clear, comprehensible view of the sorroundings and the ability to judge distance quickly (i.e. strategy games). I'm not saying that it's the only way to do RTS - Close Combat did exceptionally well with it's top down view (!) I'm not saying that going isometric the *only* way to make any kind of game. What I'm saying is that it is definitely more suitable than any other perspective for *certain* kinds of games. 

 

What was cool back in the day was that people experimented with stuff, were open minded, tried to build on previous experiences. Now it's just: FPS/TPP or gtfo, isometric is evil... Well, it's bad for some purposes and good for other.

 

[Failion]

3d games are fun. Hell I loved the hell out of the n64,playstation and pc 3d games. Which had blocky textures and horrifying camera. I still remember how awful the original tomb raiders camera was god that would give me cancer If I were forced to play it today. Lol its funny seeing gamers today who didnt grow up with the 3d games of old that even modern ones with their much improved camera angles like super mario galaxy are way over their head and they cant play them. 

 

 

 

 

[BillyCorgan]

Isometric is the best choice.

 

I always play Baldur's Gate (Ok, it's the EE) today, but who really can play something like 3D RPG as T.E.S. Dagerfall or Arena ?

[Lephys]

Well, for one thing, the forced perspective fully supports the tactical nature of combat, as everything is always designed with the same camera angle in mind. There's never even the potential for you to have the camera in a bad spot and simply miss what's going on in some kind of ambush or something.

 

I'm not going to say you can't have tactical combat in a game that ISN'T isometric, but, admittedly, employing tactics in a game like Dragon Age is a bit trickier.

 

Granted, you could always have the majority of the game be 3D 3rd-or-1st-person, then cut to a fixed perspective once combat begins, if you wanted "the best of both worlds." But, alas, there are several other areas in which isometric excels for this type of game.

 

I don't think trying to pick one over the other (fully 3D or isometric) is really all that valuable, as that's like trying to decide whether or not steel-toed boots or athletic shoes are the best shoes to always wear. It really depends on what you're trying to do, and I'd see an industry in which we get to safely work in a rough environment without smashing our feet AND get to maintain good foot support and grip when playing tennis, than one in which we just try to smash all that together.

[Wolfenbarg]

Not only does it provide a viewpoint that is very conducive to rule based tactical combat, but it also means that instead of being forced to skimp with 3D assets, every single environment that you travel through will literally be a work of art. Don't you remember the first image of this game that they released and how bonkers everyone was for it? That's because it was gorgeous, and it had an aesthetic to it that people have been missing since the isometric age passed us by. I mean the game was billed from the very beginning as a throwback title that would have the same aesthetic as the Infinity Engine games, so why is this disappointing?

Edited November 4, 2013 by Wolfenbarg

[philjack]

I really like that perspective. From the old Ultima series through Diablo, Torchlight, Titan's Quest, etc. Without forgetting Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment.

 

I highly look forward to playing Lineage Eternal, specifically because it uses an isometric perspective.

[teknoman2]

just think: to make a full 3D enviroment with the detail of the prerendered 2D presented with the first game screenshot, it would take more polygons than what was used for the entire Mass Effect 2

[Tauron]

If Project Eternity has any 3D sequels, I hope they will all have option to be played isometric.

 

I agree with you that spells need "fatality" , this is 2013 after all. We all want to see petrified, pulverised and smoookeen enemies!

[Zoma]

If Project Eternity has any 3D sequels, I hope they will all have option to be played isometric.

 

I agree with you that spells need "fatality" , this is 2013 after all. We all want to see petrified, pulverised and smoookeen enemies!

You'll need more than 4.1 million dollar budget to achieve that.

[Tauron]

 

If Project Eternity has any 3D sequels, I hope they will all have option to be played isometric.

 

I agree with you that spells need "fatality" , this is 2013 after all. We all want to see petrified, pulverised and smoookeen enemies!

You'll need more than 4.1 million dollar budget to achieve that.

 

 

First or second sentence? 

[ilhdr]

isometric is just a point of view guys, a 3d game can be as isometric as a 2d one.

[Lephys]

This is true, but, seeing as how the goal of an isometric perspective is to simulate 3D space, even from a fixed viewpoint, having a fully 3D isometric game would not gain much, I don't think. So, the whole "fully 3D versus 2D isometric" is still a pretty good comparison.

 

P:E is actually 3D, but all the environments are 2D. Why? Because the isometric view simulates 3D, and the camera perspective is fixed, so they can put as much detail as they want into those visuals without worrying about allowing them to be dynamically rendered according to 3D space, lighting, etc.

 

What good is generating the backsides of all those structures if you're never going to see them? And if you ARE going to see them, then what good is utilizing a specific perspective that makes a given, 2D view/image appear more like 3D space?

 

That's why all the old-school games with piddly technology utilized it so much. Because they couldn't really do full-3D stuff that looked even half as good at the time. So, they made the best of 2D.

[Ieo]

Oh, what do we have here.

 

Well done, troll. Well done. 

 

You started a useless thread just to get people posting again since it's been awfully quiet these days. Good job!

 

 

Oh, you weren't actually.... srs, were you? I hope not, because only an idiot--and a useless idiot who didn't back the KS--would complain about something that was decided before the Kickstarter even began last year. 

 

Nice work on pretending to have relevant thoughts, though. 

 

 

Now add some Twilight sex-romance angst, console angst, cinematic cutscene angst, emoticons, and probably a couple other things I don't remember, and we'll have this year wrapped up nice and round-like.

 

Hey y'all, lively in here!

[Zeckul]

So let's review the arguments presented against making the game "isometric" (by which I assume the OP refers to the use of pre-rendered backgrounds and a viewpoint with a fixed altitude and direction):

 

 - "Gaming is far past this kind of game"

 - "This design is antiquated"

 - "This design is outdated"

 - "This design is not modern"

It's not a valid argument against pre-rendered backgrounds to simply say that this is an old technique. The idea of using polygons for 3d models is at least as old, but it's still used in every game today.

 - "This design was only tolerated due to technical limitations of the time"

 - "I don't understand the logic behind this decision"

 

It is true that it would have been impossible to get anywhere near the level of detail seen in the Infinity Engine games had it used real-time rendered backgrounds instead. It is also true, however, that even in this day and age, Obsidian has judged that they could achieve more detailed environments and a better overall game using pre-rendered backgrounds than 3d graphics. One of these reasons might be that modern 3D RPGs like The Witcher 3 cost over 10M$ and take many years to produce, while Project Eternity has 4M$ and aims to get completed in 2 years total. It's a lot easier to make something look good from a single, fixed point of view, than from any point of view. That's just one idea; I'm Obsidian had its own as well.

 

 - "The game will not stand up to modern 3D RPGs"

 

I don't think it'll just stand up to modern 3D RPGs, I think it'll royally kick all their combined posteriors. Just in terms of graphics, I think we're getting highly customizable characters and finely detailed environments at a crazy resolution. Screenshots so far have been nothing short of jaw-dropping. That said, Project Eternity is not attempting to raise the bar for graphics, it's raising the bar for story and character development, something modern 3D RPGs have consistently failed to do as well as Infinity Engine games. PE has already made 4 millions in sales and so more than proven its viability on the market: it will be cherished as a classic game for many years to come.

[soulburner]

I didn't read the whole thread, but I'll add my opinion.

 

When Project Eternity was first teased I was hoping that after Fallout: New Vegas the next Obsidian game would also be a first/third person game. At that time I did not ever play an isometric RPG before and when the project was finally announced on Kickstarter I wasn't impressed. I thought it was going to be yet another game that's probably cool but simply not for me.

 

I was sad that Obsidian decided to make this game isometric.

 

But being a huge fan of Fallout: New Vegas I felt bad not knowing the originals, Fallout 1 & 2. So I tried playing FO1 and was slaughtered by the rats in the cave outside of Vault 13. Some time later I tried again and the same thing happened. I hated isometric games even more! Being hungry for more Fallout I started reading tutorials and walkthroughs... including the original manual for the game I found out there's a pistol and some ammo at the starting location. I found out I don't have to fight the rats at all and can avoid them even in the turn based combat mode. After I reached the first city... I wasn't the same person anymore

 

I found myself sitting in front of the computer playing Fallout 1 & 2 for 6+ hours daily. It was addictive and I even had dreams about the game - just like I had dreams about Duke Nukem 3D and Quake in 1997 after I played them on my first own PC :D

 

After finishing both Fallouts and having a few days off from gaming I thought about Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. It was also a horror at first - memorizing spells, resting, controlling a full party, managing the party during real time combat, trying to comprehend THAC0 and AC - it was very hard. But once I understood the basics I enjoyed these games so much I'm even considering getting into pen & paper "analogue" RPGs... and I used to laugh at people who play these!

 

So today I am a huge fan of isometric RPGs and not only isometric - RPGs in general. I am very happy to see so many new oldschool games like Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Torment, etc. and I'm monitoring the web searching for information about other great games of this kind. Old, recent and upcoming titles. I played KOTOR, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Divinity series and I'm still looking for more. I also enjoyed Skyrim and Dragon Age There's a lot to do before Project Eternity is ready!

 

So, yeah, that's my story. Thank you for wasting your time reading it

Edited November 6, 2013 by soulburner

[Hassat Hunter]

I'm proud of you soulburner

 

Not many, sadly enough, would nowadays tread the difficulty of the classics, or are shocked by 'the graphics' (who cares, right?).

[Messier-31]

(...)

But being a huge fan of Fallout: New Vegas I felt bad not knowing the originals, Fallout 1 & 2.

(...)

After finishing both Fallouts and having a few days off from gaming I thought about Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment.

(...)

 

What were you playing 15 years ago besides Duke Nukem? Rock, paper, scissors?

 

But seriously now, I almost envy you the "fresh" thoughts about your recent playthroughs.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I will admit, the mechanics of the IE games were painful to the uninitiated. I still love them despite terrible 2E mechanics.