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[Granite26]

take a look at the image itself.  The point of view is above and left of some things, above and right of others, and above and south of some things.  It's not generic.  DF can't really change the perspective of tiles depending on how you're looking at it, especially with a bunch of rooms on the screen at once.

[eerr]

are these the best graphical views we could use?

[Idiom]

...or we could shoot for as much as 2.5D like Doom or Dungeon Keeper with a fully rotatable camera.

Keep a consistent vanishing point please. 2D Zelda always disoriented me because of that.

[Mike Mayday]

are these the best graphical views we could use?

The way I see it, these are all the possible views:
top-down
3-4 top down
cavalier
isometric
trimetric (as squashmonster suggested)
3D with sprites
full 3D

Remember though, that for the more advanced graphics, modding will become more and more of a problem.

[Tormy]

Hm, I don't think I've dismissed it but here the deal: take a look at the mockup of cavalier and you'll notice the walls don't leave their tiles, so the problem is fixed.
On the other hand, imagine a single tile in iso with walls built all around it. No matter how you rotate the view, you won't be able to see the tile (this was brought up by someone else).
I'm not saying I don't want an isometric projection implemented- Chris' mockup was enough to sell me on it, BUT I think implementing a view that is fully playable without constant switching transparency or rotation is more important.

Yeah that makes sense indeed. I was just thinking about wall engravings to be honest...that is why I've suggested the rotatable iso/cav view.

[Align]

take a look at the image itself.  The point of view is above and left of some things, above and right of others, and above and south of some things.  It's not generic.  DF can't really change the perspective of tiles depending on how you're looking at it, especially with a bunch of rooms on the screen at once.

No need to change perspective. Zelda uses tiles just like DF, the fact that the third dimension was faked to make them look nicer doesn't really stop the graphic style from being used.
Or am I still not seeing what you guys are talking about?

[Calessa Lynn Orphiel]

I'm not saying I don't want an isometric projection implemented- Chris' mockup was enough to sell me on it, BUT I think implementing a view that is fully playable without constant switching transparency or rotation is more important.

I think rotation is insanely important no matter what approach is taken.  Even the CURRENT implementation would benefit greatly from rotation, in my opinion.  As far as transparencies, if we have rotation, REMOVING foreground walls entirely from the visual field strikes me as the best approach.  But I can definately see your point that without rotation, we need transparencies, which aren't exactly perfect.  On the other hand, I would still personally prefer the transparencies over most of the other approaches in this thread.

As for the Zelda-styled look, it's not a perspective thing at all.  I don't know what Granite's smoking.  The walls are slanted toward the inner space, that's it.  It's not rendered based on any perspective line at all, so nothing would be changing as the view scrolls about.

[Footkerchief]

take a look at the image itself.  The point of view is above and left of some things, above and right of others, and above and south of some things.  It's not generic.  DF can't really change the perspective of tiles depending on how you're looking at it, especially with a bunch of rooms on the screen at once.

No need to change perspective. Zelda uses tiles just like DF, the fact that the third dimension was faked to make them look nicer doesn't really stop the graphic style from being used.
Or am I still not seeing what you guys are talking about?

Look at the upper left corner you drew in -- the one with walls down and right.  DF would have to use that same corner for the lower right corner of the room (the part of the corner that protrudes inward), whereas Zelda has a separate tile for that.  Again, the problem is that Zelda level designers KNOW where the inside of the room is, whereas in DF there might not be an "inside" at all. 

[SquashMonster]

Squash: remember that this is per-pixel level stuff we're talking about. Most angles are not possible to draw. You have to operate on pixel increments:
one px vertically, two horizontally  <- standard pixel "near-isometric"
one px vertically, one horizontally  <- 45 degrees
one px vertically, three horizontally
and that's about it.
Oh, and I can't see your image :/

I tried this in the past with, if I recall correctly, one horizontal / two vertical on the tall sides and one vertical / two horizontal on the long sides, and it came out looking pretty good.  I only did plain tiles though, nothing fancy, so I don't know how hard it will be to make good-looking graphics (like those in your tilesets!) in those perspectives.

[Align]

Look at the upper left corner you drew in -- the one with walls down and right.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere.
Yeah, we'd need a bunch more tiles and take into account whether there's wall or empty space in each of the cardinal directions to get it to work... which may or may not be a lot of work.

[Mike Mayday]

Align: I don't really think it would be. It's really just a very basic algorithm you have to run each time a tile is created/changed.

One more mockup, for the heck of it (yeah, I'm really having fun with this projection):

[Tormy]

Mike what do I see?!...Ultima "DF" Online. 
Good old memories...

[Mikademus]

One more mockup, for the heck of it (yeah, I'm really having fun with this projection):

Tbh, I like this tile set more than your mock-up using Ultima VII data. Now, if you'd really want to make me happy you'd whip one up using the Ultima VI graphics!

[Neonivek]

The problem with some of the examples you given were that some of the walls weren't a 1x1 object and in some the doors weren't.

Also in the Zelda pic... The "O"s should be "I"

[Mike Mayday]

Hahaha, joke's on you! This IS still Ultima VII data.

Neonivek: agreed, I've even stated that myself.
Just wishful thinking, easily fixed too.
(though I don't know where the walls are not single tile objects.)