http://www.gog.com/game/stonekeep

*The man that started the work on Fallout; did some work on this title first; (some of the sound/audio code I think).

The Bioshock games have first person and a voiced PC too. But without a dialogue system.

Thanks for the link Gizmo. I checked out Stonekeep and Dying Light, and although they have first person conversations, as far as I can tell they don't use the dialogue wheel.

Dying Light is more like no dialogue choices.

I guess I should have been more specific: first person conversations using a dialogue wheel.

And I just can't help but think FO4 story is going to be on rails due to the voiced protagonist. May or not be bad, due to lack of info we have so far.

I'm sorry, but these concerns about a voiced protagonist are so stupid. Have you guys ever played Mass Effect? That's what you're going to get, and that's leagues better than "unvoiced block of text," like it's 1999. In terms of the OP's specific concern, Shepherd had plenty of funny quips and one-liners in Mass Effect, and there were definitely moments where I laughed harder than I ever did for anything my protagonist did in Fallout.

Prepare your flame shield, brother.

@OP

I hate to go there, but play W3. Voiced protagonists don't prevent humor from coming through and usually help significantly with dry and sarcastic humor. Humor is just as much writing as it is delivery. Adding a voiced protagonist does give a chance that something we would have found funny would be flubbed, but it also has an equal chance to make something we wouldn't find funny more so.

but in mass effect you are playing shepherd, in every beth game to date you are playing your character. voiced protagonists work fine when they are set, but they force some personality onto your character that might not fit what you made. beth is pretty much the only developer that routinely gives you the freedom to make your own character (afaik), i'd much rather they keep that niche than branch out to being every other rpg out there

wrong; each voice actor recorded multiple personalities (angry, sad, happy, mean) for different responses to npc's dialogue

OP's specific concern was that the jokes shown in the gameplay footage are lame. I'm not a fan of the voice acting decision at all, but if they at least did it well I wouldn't have a problem with it.

I feel like there should be much more to a character than just "me mad" or generic happy response. Previous titles had much more in depth responses and I'm not sure why they decided this was a bad thing.

I would actually say that Dragon Age II is the most funny game i have ever played. Hawke was awesome, if you went with the sarcastic dialogue. To bad the rest of the game was meh.

"but in mass effect you are playing shepherd, in every beth game to date you are playing your character."

That's not really true, strictly speaking. In Fallout 3 you're playing a vault dweller who is the 19 year old son of the guy who creates the purifier. In Skyrim you're playing Dovakin, dragon slayer and general savior of the universe.

I get what you're saying, but the important freedom, that is, the freedom to go anywhere, do anything, is still in place. You are losing some freedom in shaping your character, sure, but that's a very small price to pay for a more focused, more dramatic story.

I wonder if there will be subtitles?

This is probably the best concern. New Vegas did a lot of funny things with it's failed skill-dialogue options and it would be a shame if our character doesn't have the same kind of funny options that comes with failed skill requirements in the dialogue.


Pfft show me a game nowadays that doesn't have subtitles.

Pretty sure they took skills out of the game. Look at the Stat screen when they bring up the pip-boy. RIP skills

Still have specials and perks.

It will have to be one hell of an awesome story to justify that price tag. And the price isn't small. The effect it will have on dialogue in mods alone makes it the trade-off equivalent of paying an arm and a leg.

Well that's also worrisome, because I didn't particularly care for Mass Effect. I found the male protagonist's voice lacking, and must have stopped playing before it got to any of the funny parts.

True, but the main thing that concerns me is the delivery. I have nothing against a voiced protagonist as a concept, and there are plenty of games that do great things with oiled protagonists. I just don't think it's right for Fallout, and everything they've shown of the male voice actor's performance for the game has validated that line of thinking.

The first three sound like emotions, not personalities.

After playing Mass Effect 2, I am sure that Courtenay Taylor can deliver. She is good.

Just because someone does something for a living doesn't mean that their work is always good. Or ever good for that matter. Uwe Boll is a professional filmmaker and has never made something worth watching, just like Shia LaBeouf and Jaden Smith aren't good actors.

Besides, there's more to it than just them being able to act. More on that below.

It's not just a matter of having a good actor. You also to have a good voice director leading the recording sessions and deciding when they have the right reading. You can have the best performer in the world voicing a character, but if they're being forced to give a deadpan, lifeless reading for a character whose voice is supposed to provide emotional beats, then it isn't likely to work.

This is the type of emotion, humor and expression the lead character needs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecffZBdhAUU

It ruins role play. So much for Bethesda's motto of "Be who you want to be."

My biggest concern with voiced protagonist is...The Amount of THREADS made on the subject.
I mean why does it bother people so much?
We WILL get the option to mute the voice anyway if not in-game through mods.

Roleplaying means so many different things to different people. Subjectively for you it might ruin it, but for others it might enhance it. I enjoy a voiced protagonist, it isn't immersion breaking at all (hate using that word).

Nope, there's a set definition for role play. People don't get to make up their own definitions. They are either role playing or they're not. Every character being the same cloned voice=no role play option for what you sound like. Every character (not only that you make, but anybody makes) sounds the exact same. Gimmicky feature for action gamers is gimmicky.

Edit: Bit of a rewording.