What?
No seriously, what?
How does a camera that's slightly further away stop you from doing any of those things? We're not talking about a max zoomed out World of Warcraft Camera, or an Isometric View camera.
When exploring you'll have control over the "angle" of the camera, like up/down/left/right, but you just won't have control over the zoom. I really think you're highly exaggerating the amount further it's zoomed out, and what effect that has on being able to "interact" with the world and its inhabitants.
It doesn't stop you from getting closer and observing the NPCs, but it breaks immersion (spatial!) while you're observing them from a farther perspective. I think that's pretty obvious. One of the things I've mentioned is while you're riding Roach, your POV is so high/disconnected from the world that you don't get to see all those interesting little details
---------- Updated at 04:51 PM ----------
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