1st person view - should I model the player character too?

[Matte]

I am going to limit the view to 1st person. Should I model the player character too or not? I don't think I'm going to include any mirrors or stuff, so I don't want to put useless work in my game. Ofcourse I will use other weaponmodels for my game, but I don't think modeling the whole player is useful.

Or, because it's an RPG game, do you think a first person view isn't good?

[Jay]

1st person is fine. Morrowind is mostly 1st person and is great as a RPG. Problem would be maybe cutscenes (How do you do that in 1st person???). One game for which 1st person was a GREAT choice was Thief: Dark Project. It wasn't a rpg, but the 1st person view made you think you really were in the game! (I love the game, it's amazing how this game can just suck you in) When i was younger i always was afraid of the guards catching me, like i really was in the game. Great 3rd person rpgs are the Gothic series.

I choose 3rd person because in my game a good overview is neccesary to give your allies commands. If you want to have a 'big dark enemy' and want the player to become one with the character and/or the world, i would choose 1st person. If overview is neccesary, choose 3rd person.

[Matte]

1st person is fine. Morrowind is mostly 1st person and is great as a RPG. Problem would be maybe cutscenes (How do you do that in 1st person???). One game for which 1st person was a GREAT choice was Thief: Dark Project. It wasn't a rpg, but the 1st person view made you think you really were in the game! (I love the game, it's amazing how this game can just suck you in) When i was younger i always was afraid of the guards catching me, like i really was in the game. Great 3rd person rpgs are the Gothic series.

I choose 3rd person because in my game a good overview is neccesary to give your allies commands. If you want to have a 'big dark enemy' and want the player to become one with the mine character and/or the world, i would choose 1st person. If overview is neccesary, choose 3rd person.

Jay, you're really helping me out with my game ! Thanks for that. I think I'm going for 1st person, I also liked it when I played Thief, but Deadly Shadows, not Dark Project. I don't know if it's the same.
I think it is a necessary part of the game to be sucked into the story, and it will spare me off some modeling work (I'm no real good at modeling, that's why... ^^).

Thanks for your respons. I almost finished my first map, and when the standard weapon is modeled and included in the game, I will make some pictures.

[scott]

mirrors is not the only thing that will reflect the character windows and water would do this aswel, also you would have to have some sort of object to represent collision detection for the character.

[Matte]

mirrors is not the only thing that will reflect the character windows and water would do this aswel, also you would have to have some sort of object to represent collision detection for the character.

So you mean that I will have to model it and not just use the standard one? Because I will include water in my levels...

[scott]

depends if you want reflections on your water, if you do then you would have to model your character, if not then you can use the standard model and replace his arm with a better arm model (virgils hand isnt the best) the option is up to you.

some games dont bother with reflections, others cheat by making the water murky so you cant see any reflections, however what you dont want to do is have your world reflect but not your player.