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Why isn't the game played from a first person perspective?


Tonkka

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Hello there, i just signed up to the forums just to present this question. I haven't checked anywhere for answers to it, so chances are that i look like a big dumbo when i turn out to be the thousandth person to ask this question:

 

Why isn't Project Zomboid played from a first person perspective? From what I've seen, the isometric viewpoint doesn't add anything to the gameplay except bugs that disallow you from demolishing a piece of wall/Opening a door because it goes transparent when you're near it or because it's in a weird angle. Since everything blurs into darkness and obscurity behind you and only 180 degrees in front of you are visible, why have the isometric view? The point of an isometric perspective is to see everything all around the player character. When the game is viewed from a first person perspective, you still see 180 degrees in front of you. Nothing is really lost through that process, in fact it would actually add more atmosphere into the game.

 

Getting chased by zombies at the moment feels incredibly mundane because the isometric view tells you how many zombies are after you and therefore it's crystal clear how big the threat is, but when you look behind you in first person and you can just see one or two zombies behind you who block your view from seeing the rest of the horde, you can't make out how many of them are out there. The severity of the threat you're facing is at that point uncanny and that which is uncanny is always going to be incredibly scary.

 

It may be too late to make that change in design now, but why was the isometric view the go to decision in the first place? Did the developers just underestimate their capabilities? Is there a big change in the game coming up that makes the isometric viewpoint viable? I'd love to know.

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Actually most FPS fields of view range between 45 degrees and 90 degrees btw. Also, you can create more with less using an isometric viewpoint, the amount of resources and the definition of said resources in a first person view would make the game so that you would need gigabytes of texture data and also the rendering and shading thereof. If you have ever tried to program something you will notice that full 3d is incredibly complicated, to the point where it is practically impossible for indie studios to use without making use of a pre-made game engine such as Unity or Unreal or having people with masters degrees in mathematics programming the engine from day one... Case and point: How do you mathematically represent a shadow? A reflection? It is literally exponentially more of a PITA to do than with Iso.

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Unless Zombies are all the same size and shape, and walk in unison, you would still be able to differentiate between a horde and two zombies upon peeking over your shoulder through a first person perspective. Play the game more and you will definitely find moments when the isometric view adds to the suspense. I find it unique, immersing, and frankly more fun with the isometric point of view.

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I prefer isometric games personally.    I'm tired of only seeing a weapon bouncing up and down as I run around in a FPS.    I like to be able to see my player, and love how they made things fade out of view when you're not facing that direction.  They did a great job, and this game stands alone on originality because of this. 

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Unless Zombies are all the same size and shape, and walk in unison, you would still be able to differentiate between a horde and two zombies upon peeking over your shoulder through a first person perspective. Play the game more and you will definitely find moments when the isometric view adds to the suspense. I find it unique, immersing, and frankly more fun with the isometric point of view.

What kind of moments? Can you give an example?

 

 

I personally think that there are way too fucking many first person perspective zombie games. It would reduce originality and increase hatred, "Oh, another DayZ ripoff. Early Access? Fuuuck no."

Yeah.

 

If you're a moron. What's wrong with FPS? Is it because Call of Duty? Let me remind you, people hate that game series because of it's ridiculous rehashing and terrible "modern military shooter" jargon.

 

 

Actually most FPS fields of view range between 45 degrees and 90 degrees btw. Also, you can create more with less using an isometric viewpoint, the amount of resources and the definition of said resources in a first person view would make the game so that you would need gigabytes of texture data and also the rendering and shading thereof. If you have ever tried to program something you will notice that full 3d is incredibly complicated, to the point where it is practically impossible for indie studios to use without making use of a pre-made game engine such as Unity or Unreal or having people with masters degrees in mathematics programming the engine from day one... Case and point: How do you mathematically represent a shadow? A reflection? It is literally exponentially more of a PITA to do than with Iso.

I don't know, I'm not a developer.

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Check out our talk from this year's EGXRezzed, where Binky goes into how our the isometric perspective DOES affect gameplay :) It's these kinds of decisions that differentiates us from DayZ, which plays extremely differently from PZ even when we're the same genre.

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Sounds like you're wanting to play a different zombie game. Might I suggest DayZ? Its first person and has zombies.

The reason pz can handle so many zombies is because of its art style. Please dont try and change it :P we like it this way

Left 4 Dead handled x-20 (I don't know the actual numbers, but they're definitely in the twenties and thirties) zombies in 2008, with great looking 3D graphics and animations.

 

 

Check out our talk from this year's EGXRezzed, where Binky goes into how our the isometric perspective DOES affect gameplay :) It's these kinds of decisions that differentiates us from DayZ, which plays extremely differently from PZ even when we're the same genre.

I don't know how would i go on about watching that since a simple google search didn't give any results, and from what i found the video would be an hour long. Can't you just summarize?

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Unless Zombies are all the same size and shape, and walk in unison, you would still be able to differentiate between a horde and two zombies upon peeking over your shoulder through a first person perspective. Play the game more and you will definitely find moments when the isometric view adds to the suspense. I find it unique, immersing, and frankly more fun with the isometric point of view.

What kind of moments? Can you give an example?

 

 

I personally think that there are way too fucking many first person perspective zombie games. It would reduce originality and increase hatred, "Oh, another DayZ ripoff. Early Access? Fuuuck no."

Yeah.

 

If you're a moron. What's wrong with FPS? Is it because Call of Duty? Let me remind you, people hate that game series because of it's ridiculous rehashing and terrible "modern military shooter" jargon.

 

 

Actually most FPS fields of view range between 45 degrees and 90 degrees btw. Also, you can create more with less using an isometric viewpoint, the amount of resources and the definition of said resources in a first person view would make the game so that you would need gigabytes of texture data and also the rendering and shading thereof. If you have ever tried to program something you will notice that full 3d is incredibly complicated, to the point where it is practically impossible for indie studios to use without making use of a pre-made game engine such as Unity or Unreal or having people with masters degrees in mathematics programming the engine from day one... Case and point: How do you mathematically represent a shadow? A reflection? It is literally exponentially more of a PITA to do than with Iso.

I don't know, I'm not a developer.

 

"If you're a moron," really?  As I said, you should play the game a bit more and you will realize what I'm saying, or do as Mash says and check out their panel discussion from Rezzed. I rather not go into detail when you're obviously not here to discuss things genuinely. You were given several reasons, one quite technical, and yet you seem to be set on your obtuse assertion that this game shouldn't be isometric.

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Unless Zombies are all the same size and shape, and walk in unison, you would still be able to differentiate between a horde and two zombies upon peeking over your shoulder through a first person perspective. Play the game more and you will definitely find moments when the isometric view adds to the suspense. I find it unique, immersing, and frankly more fun with the isometric point of view.

What kind of moments? Can you give an example?

 

 

I personally think that there are way too fucking many first person perspective zombie games. It would reduce originality and increase hatred, "Oh, another DayZ ripoff. Early Access? Fuuuck no."

Yeah.

 

If you're a moron. What's wrong with FPS? Is it because Call of Duty? Let me remind you, people hate that game series because of it's ridiculous rehashing and terrible "modern military shooter" jargon.

 

 

Actually most FPS fields of view range between 45 degrees and 90 degrees btw. Also, you can create more with less using an isometric viewpoint, the amount of resources and the definition of said resources in a first person view would make the game so that you would need gigabytes of texture data and also the rendering and shading thereof. If you have ever tried to program something you will notice that full 3d is incredibly complicated, to the point where it is practically impossible for indie studios to use without making use of a pre-made game engine such as Unity or Unreal or having people with masters degrees in mathematics programming the engine from day one... Case and point: How do you mathematically represent a shadow? A reflection? It is literally exponentially more of a PITA to do than with Iso.

I don't know, I'm not a developer.

 

"If you're a moron," really?  As I said, you should play the game a bit more and you will realize what I'm saying, or do as Mash says and check out their panel discussion from Rezzed. I rather not go into detail when you're obviously not here to discuss things genuinely. You were given several reasons, one quite technical, and yet you seem to be set on your obtuse assertion that this game shouldn't be isometric.

 

Just tell me what was said on the darn panel. When i said "If you're a moron" i meant that if you truly think that a game is terrible because it's viewed from the same perspective as a lot of other games, you're a moron. I don't mean to insult anyone.

 

The "several reasons" given so far are opinions and cop-out arguments. 

 

It's also really nice that you think I'm trolling because i question the games design in a big way. Thanks for giving me a good image of the community.

 

Now if there's actually a good statement with a point in the Rezzed discussion, tell me which is it.

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Just tell me what was said on the darn panel. When i said "If you're a moron" i meant that if you truly think that a game is terrible because it's viewed from the same perspective as a lot of other games, you're a moron. I don't mean to insult anyone.

 

That wasn't why, his reason was because there are already a lot of survival zombie games done in the FP perspective. That certainly constitutes as a viable pro for making the game isometric. Honestly, save yourself and everyone some time and just check out the video we keep referencing. You claim that your google search yielded nothing yet, after spending five seconds, I found a youtube video of the panel discussion and it's only half an hour:

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Just tell me what was said on the darn panel. When i said "If you're a moron" i meant that if you truly think that a game is terrible because it's viewed from the same perspective as a lot of other games, you're a moron. I don't mean to insult anyone.

 

That wasn't why, his reason was because there are already a lot of survival zombie games done in the FP perspective. That certainly constitutes as a viable pro for making the game isometric. Honestly, save yourself and everyone some time and just check out the video we keep referencing. You claim that your google search yielded nothing yet, after spending five seconds, I found a youtube video of the panel discussion and it's only half an hour:

 

Well i searched for "EGXRessed Project Zomboid" which brought me to a very slowly loading website.

 

I'm watching the video now.

 

Okay, i stopped watching at around 17:00 mark since it seems that they moved on from their point about the perspective to talk about the general mechanics of the game.

 

I'm starting to detect an undertone here that this game tries to go as far as it can from being like DayZ. Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to do something differently for the sake of being different? Submarines have been made out of metal for decades. It isn't smart to make one out of bread.

 

If DayZ and Project Zomboid both looked exactly the same, they would still be different games. DayZ is focused on the relationship between players in a world without laws, where having a gun makes whatever you say become the truth. The zombies are simply a side aspect which serve as an explanation as to why there are no humans around. They're not really a threat as much as other players.

 

Project Zomboid in the other hand focuses on surviving (if in single player) alone in a world filled with monsters who want to eat you. To survive you must gather resources and food to build a safehouse. in short, survive and rebuild. You should actually be more worried about being too similar to Minecraft, even though Minecraft doesn't take place in a post-apocalyptic world and you're not truly alone because there's NPC villages and Minecraft is more concentrated on mining so who cares.

 

Though in general, comparing these two early-access in development titles to one another is plain stupid. DayZ could switch development direction and turn into Cooking Mama: Revelations if the developers wanted to.

 

In short, you don't need to be original just to be original. You can repaint the Mona Lisa if you want, all you have to do is be better at it than Leonardo. Poorly developed games only designed to leech off of the popularity of the games they're copying are the real worry. Zomboid is certainly not that.

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I don't know what kind of answer you're looking for, I don't even know if you're really looking for an answer at all because you seem pretty convinced about your idea that PZ should be a fps. But I can give you a simple one : Project Zomboid isn't a first person shooter game.

 

PZ is a role play oriented survival game. And since the devs seem to have a good video game culture and sweet tastes, they probably got inspired by the classic games of the rpg genre (baldur's gate, fallout, arcanum, planescape etc...) which were all brilliant isometric games, as an isometric view is pretty convenient for rpgz.

 

I can hear you from here talking about first person RPG, Skyrim and such. Well, know my friend, RP games have been "separated" -a long time ago- in 3 different categories from which they often use and re-use the clichés.

> US rpg, first person or 3rd person sandbox games generally closer to a bad action/shooter game with a poor storyline. Bethesda having made a speciality of earning shit-tones of money with those.

> Japanese rpg, you know... Final Fantasy kind of games : Cool stories, crazy charadesign and slow turn by turn combat with a sideview.

> European rpg, the classic isometric ones. those are most likely the closer you can get from "pen & paper" rp. Some of them have more than hundred of hours of main storyline, some had the possibility to finish the main scenario without killing anyone with character skills that matter.

Far from the technical reasons and situational explainations, the isometric pov is just awesome. Not everyone wants to play first person shooters and thank god we still have some developpers that share our vision.

But hear me, I love FPS. I've been playing fps and rpg since my early youth, but those are two distinct things.

If you want good fps zombie survival, as you said yourself L4D2 for exemple is pretty fun, and No More Room In Hell is a free source engine game/mode actually in development and it's worth having a try as well.

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I don't know what kind of answer you're looking for, I don't even know if you're really looking for an answer at all because you seem pretty convinced about your idea that PZ should be a fps. But I can give you a simple one : Project Zomboid isn't a first person shooter game.

 

PZ is a role play oriented survival game. And since the devs seem to have a good video game culture and sweet tastes, they probably got inspired by the classic games of the rpg genre (baldur's gate, fallout, arcanum, planescape etc...) which were all brilliant isometric games, as an isometric view is pretty convenient for rpgz.

 

I can hear you from here talking about first person RPG, Skyrim and such. Well, know my friend, RP games have been "separated" -a long time ago- in 3 different categories from which they often use and re-use the clichés.

> US rpg, first person or 3rd person sandbox games generally closer to a bad action/shooter game with a poor storyline. Bethesda having made a speciality of earning shit-tones of money with those.

> Japanese rpg, you know... Final Fantasy kind of games : Cool stories, crazy charadesign and slow turn by turn combat with a sideview.

> European rpg, the classic isometric ones. those are most likely the closer you can get from "pen & paper" rp. Some of them have more than hundred of hours of main storyline, some had the possibility to finish the main scenario without killing anyone with character skills that matter.

Far from the technical reasons and situational explainations, the isometric pov is just awesome. Not everyone wants to play first person shooters and thank god we still have some developpers that share our vision.

But hear me, I love FPS. I've been playing fps and rpg since my early youth, but those are two distinct things.

If you want good fps zombie survival, as you said yourself L4D2 for exemple is pretty fun, and No More Room In Hell is a free source engine game/mode actually in development and it's worth having a try as well.

 

 

Left 4 Dead 2 and No More Room In Hell are both arcade shooters. They're "survival" games in the sense that every game where you can die is a survival game. Linear go from point A to B while avoiding Z.

 

Also, I'm not trying to say "This game has to be FPS!!!", I'm asking why isn't it FPS and what benefits does the isometric perspective bring into the game. Unless they add some Security camera mechanic kind of like FTL where you can see everything in areas that have security cameras in them that are controlled by you (in like a museum or something)

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Left 4 Dead 2 and No More Room In Hell are both arcade shooters. They're "survival" games in the sense that every game where you can die is a survival game. Linear go from point A to B while avoiding Z.

 

Also, I'm not trying to say "This game has to be FPS!!!", I'm asking why isn't it FPS and what benefits does the isometric perspective bring into the game. Unless they add some Security camera mechanic kind of like FTL where you can see everything in areas that have security cameras in them that are controlled by you (in like a museum or something)

 

 

 

Because that's what First person view suits the most. ;p

Also you don't seem to grasp an essential point about PZ and DayZ  : their content being different and focusing on different "aspects" of a zombie apocalypse are strictly related to the technical choices of each dev teams.

DayZ wasn't supposed to have zombies as a "side aspect" of the game and focus on players being dicks to each others just because they can. But that's what it became because they can't focus on zombies with their actual engine, it would require too much ressource and ubber computers.

 

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Left 4 Dead 2 and No More Room In Hell are both arcade shooters. They're "survival" games in the sense that every game where you can die is a survival game. Linear go from point A to B while avoiding Z.

 

Also, I'm not trying to say "This game has to be FPS!!!", I'm asking why isn't it FPS and what benefits does the isometric perspective bring into the game. Unless they add some Security camera mechanic kind of like FTL where you can see everything in areas that have security cameras in them that are controlled by you (in like a museum or something)

 

 

 

Because that's what First person view suits the most. ;p

Also you don't seem to grasp an essential point about PZ and DayZ  : their content being different and focusing on different "aspects" of a zombie apocalypse are strictly related to the technical choices of each dev teams.

DayZ wasn't supposed to have zombies as a "side aspect" of the game and focus on players being dicks to each others just because they can. But that's what it became because they can't focus on zombies with their actual engine, it would require too much ressource and ubber computers.

 

 

 

Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast are both first person survival horror games, and they seem to fare pretty well. The best perspective for arcade action is third person, but then again with "Evil Within" coming out and it being a 3rd person survival horror game, the question of which gameplay perspective fits a survival game the best is a stupid one. Remember that haunted house from Super Mario 64 with the scary piano that tries to eat you? Wasn't that scary? Well it was scary because it was really subtle, and unexpected. The camera in that room is at a fixed angle, at a semi-isometric point. Silent Hill 1 was "really scary" and it was in a 3rd person perspective. The way it got with subtlety was it's genius way of using a short render distance to obscure your view and make you unaware of the locations of baddies. tl,dr: Subtle and unexpected is what makes a game scary, not camera angles

 

Now you may ask me "Tonkka, aren't you beating your own point to the ground?", the answer to that is a strong no. In all the examples i told you earlier, all of those games allowed you to see in all directions at all times. Zomboid obscures your vision to 45 or 90 or 120 whatever degrees (Oh god, i actually said "180" degrees in my first post. Durrrr). My point is: why does Zomboid use the isometric perspective when it could just be from first person? Not whether or not a 3rd person perspective is less scary than a first person one.

 

4853b51b84.jpg

Here's a game that uses fixed camera angle well. You can see all around you, and there's no reason for it to be an FPS

 

99f354caf0.jpg

Here's a bad picture made in paint representing a game that uses fixed camera angle badly. There isn't a reason for the game to be viewed from this fixed perspective, because the information you gain in first person and 3rd person is the same. The only difference is that you can see yourself and a whole lot of black.

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For what we wanted to do, it couldn't be first person.

 

From my memory, the video mentioned several points:

1) full 3d is extremely taxing, there's no way we could have as many zombies as we wanted (hundreds, thousands) if they were 3d. Think of games like L4D, DayZ, etc--there's not many zombies in area at the same time. Dean Hall also mentions this.

2) roleplaying: PZ makes use of some dice-rolling; we can say you're poor at shooting by making you miss more. If the game made you miss from a first-person perspective, you'd just be annoyed. From a FP perspective, you expect to be able to do certain things that would forego the role-playing element

3) level of abstraction allows your imagination to fill in the details: we can't provide animations for everything, but at the vantage point of iso, you can just imagine things happening (eg. in the Kate & Bob story, her being smothered had NO animation, it was just text). If it was detailed FP, you can't get away from that kind of thing. We're a small team.

4) we like iso.

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For what we wanted to do, it couldn't be first person.

 

From my memory, the video mentioned several points:

1) full 3d is extremely taxing, there's no way we could have as many zombies as we wanted (hundreds, thousands) if they were 3d. Think of games like L4D, DayZ, etc--there's not many zombies in area at the same time. Dean Hall also mentions this.

2) roleplaying: PZ makes use of some dice-rolling; we can say you're poor at shooting by making you miss more. If the game made you miss from a first-person perspective, you'd just be annoyed. From a FP perspective, you expect to be able to do certain things that would forego the role-playing element

3) level of abstraction allows your imagination to fill in the details: we can't provide animations for everything, but at the vantage point of iso, you can just imagine things happening (eg. in the Kate & Bob story, her being smothered had NO animation, it was just text). If it was detailed FP, you can't get away from that kind of thing. We're a small team.

4) we like iso.

Good! GOOD! finally a proper answer.

 

Majority of them are good points as well. I hated it when Fallout 3 did the whole missing shots RPG thing in FPS. Very good.

 

Here's an idea, it may be taxing in execution, but it will payback in immersion: Remove the status effect icons, and implement their effects visually on the player character. That way other players can see how you're hanging and the ability to see yourself in iso will finally be a benefit. Hurt? Put some visual wounds on the player character. Exertion? Make the player character produce loud breathing noises that attract zombies. Sick? Coughing that attracts zombies and pale skin. Infected? Skin turns a bit greener. Sleepy? Make ZzzzZZZzz's emit from the character. Broken bones? When a bone breaks, make it do a bone break sound. Then make the character move slower and emit pain noises - in a choir now: that attract zombies

 

Using UI's to portray the status of your character are for gameplay perspectives where you can't really see yourself.

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For what we wanted to do, it couldn't be first person.

 

From my memory, the video mentioned several points:

1) full 3d is extremely taxing, there's no way we could have as many zombies as we wanted (hundreds, thousands) if they were 3d. Think of games like L4D, DayZ, etc--there's not many zombies in area at the same time. Dean Hall also mentions this.

2) roleplaying: PZ makes use of some dice-rolling; we can say you're poor at shooting by making you miss more. If the game made you miss from a first-person perspective, you'd just be annoyed. From a FP perspective, you expect to be able to do certain things that would forego the role-playing element

3) level of abstraction allows your imagination to fill in the details: we can't provide animations for everything, but at the vantage point of iso, you can just imagine things happening (eg. in the Kate & Bob story, her being smothered had NO animation, it was just text). If it was detailed FP, you can't get away from that kind of thing. We're a small team.

4) we like iso.

Good! GOOD! finally a proper answer.

 

Majority of them are good points as well. I hated it when Fallout 3 did the whole missing shots RPG thing in FPS. Very good.

 

Here's an idea, it may be taxing in execution, but it will payback in immersion: Remove the status effect icons, and implement their effects visually on the player character. That way other players can see how you're hanging and the ability to see yourself in iso will finally be a benefit. Hurt? Put some visual wounds on the player character. Exertion? Make the player character produce loud breathing noises that attract zombies. Sick? Coughing that attracts zombies and pale skin. Infected? Skin turns a bit greener. Sleepy? Make ZzzzZZZzz's emit from the character. Broken bones? Make the character move slower and emit pain noises - in a choir now: that attract zombies

 

Using UI's to portray the status of your character are for gameplay perspectives where you can't really see yourself.

 

 

I'm pretty sure seeing someone's condition is planned, either through visual indications or hud/hoover mechanics. Like for instance I think I remind the devs saying we'll be able to see bandages, carried bags etc... Also the coughing and sneezing is already a thing that attract zombies ;o

don't forget the game is still at an early stage of development !

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