You’re conflating 3D with first person, but I partially agree. Being able to explore buildings and look around, actual gun aiming and weapon swinging, getting to look at 3D models up close, that would all be really nice. However, buildings are unrealistic because of the limitation of a large tile world. Making them any more realistic without changing it to something like, say, Unturned’s style, would simply be a matter of adding more clutter furniture/items and more elaborate building parts. Fall damage is already in the game. A better view would be neat, but it would also take away the 360 degree viewpoint, which means more jumpscares and harder combat/exploration. More elaborate lighting effects could certainly be done, it’s just a matter of actually making them happen. On top of all that, I’m not sure how well the turn based system would translate into first-person 3D. It would be weird with it, and taking it out would mess up a whole bunch of the game. My point is, a first-person 3D viewpoint is basically just eye-candy. It wouldn’t meaningfully affect the mechanics of the game, or it wouldn’t be the same game.
The most important part of Cataclysm is the depth, the atmosphere, and the amount of things you can do. A 3D engine or first person viewpoint would make things a bit prettier, maybe more immersive, but C:DDA’s strengths wouldn’t be improved. Those work regardless of the viewpoint. The fact that a significant portion of the playerbase plays in ASCII is testament to this.
