[millenia]

I prefer seeing my character in all my games really. I usually like the protagonists in adventures and if I spend a good amount of time creating my character in RPGs for instance I want to be able to admire it too.

For point and click adventures the fixed bird view works well but I think I actually enjoy "follow-the-character" mode the most, like in Dreamfall or the normal setting in WoW, even if it means following the characters back most of the time (being able to turn the camera yourself fixes staring-at-butt-syndrome). I like some 1st person control schemes though, but as most people said, they are best at horror games and I don't play horror games really. I like exciting, not scary.

I don't really think "this is just a vase" or not showing paintings or notice boards is really a fault of a 3rd person view. It's just bad design or laziness. 1st person games can have unnecessary interactions (or even actual hotspots) too and all those paintings and notice boards could have closeups in 3rd person games.