First or Third person? Options

[Renee]

Which do you prefer, First or Third person? I am mostly a 3rd person gamer for Bethesda titles. I'll switch to 1st occasionally, I'll do this while decorating or looking for something which is lost, for instance.

But here's the real reason I started this thread. I have this whacked-out theory, I wonder if there's any truth to it. For those who have played table games, especially long ago. There were two basic ways to approach table games.

-- 1). play-act everything, essentially you'd 'voice' your character.
-- 2). use lead figurines, such as these.

We used figurines around our table, back in the '80s. We'd see our characters at all times, just like seeing pieces on a Monopoly board. I think this has something to do with my preference for 3rd person. I wonder if anybody here was more of a play-acting type, and prefers 1st. Probably not, but I had to wonder aloud.

Thank you

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Third person for the most part by far, but it varies by game. Obviously, this concerns games where the option is present (so no Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard, etc.). But my philosophy is this: If you have a lot of control over the look of your character and you care so much about how they look, what is the point of playing first person? I get wanting to see it through your characters' eyes sometimes, but it seems kind of useless (to me) to predominantly play that way if you agonize over every detail of your character.

Morrowind: This is the one that I actually prefer playing in first person, but only because the game is ridiculously clunky to play in third person. It's a shame, because I want to look at my character but the controls and the combat make it much harder to play that way. That being said, I will still sometimes switch between the two.

Oblivion: While it can still be a bit clunky in third person, it isn't enough to make me prefer first person. Sometimes, however, combat gets far too hairy and I might switch it up then. If there are a lot of enemies but also allies fighting in a cluster, it is really easy to hit the friendly NPCs both because of the controls, the aiming, and the stupidity of the AI wanting to always jump in front of your attacks. I may also go first person if I need to pick up something and it requires some precise aiming.

Skyrim: 95%+ of the time, it's third person. Occasionally, I may go first person to pick certain things up or just to be a bit different.

Online: I go third person even more so, over 99% of the time. It's absolutely required to play in third person, especially in PvP. For the most part, I can aim for picking something up without going into first person, but every once in a while I'll need to do it.

Fallout 3 and 4: These are pretty much the same as Skyrim. NV is like this as well, but technically that is not Bethesda even if it a Bethesda engine. Still, for the purpose of this question, I think it applies.