GameSpy - Should Diablo III have been first person?
I'll admit it. My first ever hands-on time with any Diablo game occurred just 24 hours ago, when my inexperienced Demon Hunter took his first fumbling steps into the Diablo III beta's dark and ominous dungeons. It took just three hours before I'd hacked and slashed my way to the main storyline's satisfying conclusion, but in that short period of time my eyes were opened to an entirely new perspective on a gaming world. As a lover of first person games, the isometric camera system in Diablo III felt very unfamiliar, and I inevitably wondered why Blizzard didn't make the leap to first person like so many other developers. This led me to wonder - should Diablo III have been a first person game, and what are the pros and cons of this approach? Let's find out.
Beamer wrote on Sep 22, 2011, 18:50:
Know what never works with FP? Randomly generated content. It works in Diablo because you're so removed from the landscape that you don't notice how sparse and repetitive it is. Zoom down to eye level and you will.