herostratus said:
First on the 'view' issue. As many have said, top down is looking directly below.
First, there's no very strict definitions of what top down is in a videogame. Second, this debate is idiotic and worthy of gamefaqs, as you all understood damn well what he meant. Third, isometric could also be considered to be a form of top-down view.
Excuse me. I did not realize that "random people who play video games, have heard a few words and use them
incorrectly" was now official video game terminology.
Second, while people not knowing exactly what a term means is understandable, reacting to being corrected by requesting that they should have been left ignorant, then proceeding to use terms like "gamefags" (yes I am aware many of the uneducated, uncultured, classless denizens of this plase are fond of such terms, but it's ok, somebody has to flip those burgers) is enough to know ones 'opinions' are pretty worthless.
Third, I have to admire your sheer determination at remaining ignorant and flawnting your ignorance with pride. So let me offer you some more education that will no doubt go unused (but may be of benefit to someone with the skills and capacity to work in a game and would prefer to use terms correctly on the subjects they speak of). "Isometric" has absolutely nothing to do with where the camera is. Yes, isometric can be top down, it can also be 3/4 (what you actually meant when you
icorrectly used the term isometric), it can be first person, third person, it can be a camera looking out the character's ass backwards and still be isometric. Because isometric is a method or
projection not a camera view and it means that objects do not get smaller with distance (in contrast with the real world where objects get smaller the further away they are which is called perspective).
Why do we say that games like the Infinity engine games had "isometric" view? Well for starters they did. However what their view was really called was 3/4 isometric, but because most people are ignorant about what isometreic really means (do you have a mirror close by? take a look!) they tend to forget about the 3/4 part (which ironically is a much stronger characteristic of the specific view than the isometric part) and just say isometric. The reason BG's view was isometric is not because the camera was up and to the side looking downwards at an angle (that's the 3/4 part), it is because characters and buildings and all screen objects looked the same distance from the viewer regardless of whether they were close or far (almost a necessity back then when the graphics engines were 2D). In contrast games like NWN2 and DA:O that when zoomed all the way out have a view similar to BG,
do not have an isometric view because they use true 3D engines so objects do get smaller the further away they are (that effect is most obvious in areas with high elevation). They have 3/4
perspective view.