I myself was dissapointed in how little i could forge my own path and was more or less forced down the beaten path, however i did like the dialogue and overal atmosphere. How about you guys? I'm interrested in hearing what the community thinks about the story writing and how if at all, it translates into an immersive experience.
Let me hear your thoughts!

There are several paths that you can take as the survivor. A multitude of choices you can make in the commonwealth. This isn't Fallout 3, or Fallout New Vegas. This is a different story line, a bit of a variation of what we have seen in past games, but no less grand in scale. By the time your main quest line has finished, you will have been involved in some huge changes to the commonwealth area. My biggest complaint about the whole thing is the ending does not explain things in more detail. The way the endings in 3 and New Vegas did.

That's something I think they honestly should change.

It's because of the open end

A solid 4. It's nothing mind blowing and the ending was a bit of a let down, but the story kept me engaged, the factions were interesting, and the companions were great.

I find it pretty mediocre overall. Some interesting things here and there. Terminals are more fun to read, than going through the dialogues which seems very dry and unenthusiastic for the most part, especially for the voiced main character. It could be worse, but there is deffo room for improvement.

When I got to the part of the story where I had to make a choice I actually took a couple days to think it over. So imo it's better than what they've done before and I hope the trend continues upward for the dlc. Haven't run with all companions yet but with the exception of Preston I enjoy their company.

A video game isn't the best format to tell a story. But I do think Fallout 4's main story could've been an awesome movie.

so THAT'S what's been bothering me about the story. thank you.

i'd much prefer if this story was used in a live action fallout film or tv series.

It's not classic literature, but I've been enjoying the story parts I've experienced so far. I think Bethesda does quite well with characterization, particularly in side quests, so I like having as many conversations as I can with the companions and NPCs to hear everything they have to say. For me though, "The Story" happens to include not only the character conversations, but also things I overhear NPCs talking about, the notes and journals, the terminals, the holotapes...everything. It all adds together into a neat little whole!

The story seems to be one of the best yet, aside from those concerns ive beaten into the ground. I absolutely love the new direction the Brotherhood is going in, I think it makes them a lot more compelling faction when they are a very dark shade of grey, and with my character this time around being that same dark shade of grey I am having a blast working for them.

Voted "Echh". It's better than 3 but that's really not saying much.

Voted "Ech" but I find a lot of other aspects in the game worth playing for. In fairness, Bethesda's writing has suffered ever since Michael Kirkbride left, because he was simply amazing as a writer.

As someone else said in the "Fallout 4 Succeeded due to..." thread, I don't buy Bethesda games for the particularly amazing narrative.

I think the Story is poorly written

But the Terminals and little information scattered around is written decently.

It's confusing this writing.

i bore a solid 4 =P nothing that world changing but good.

And as someone said in another thread there are 5 different types of RPG/gamer.

It's weird for me because I am aware Bethseda can write. Shivering Isle still to me is one of the best works of Bethseda, imo. I know Bethseda is capable of smart, intelligent, story driven, and story telling writing. It's just they don't do it. And it confuses the hell out of me and frustrates me as a consumer and a long time Bethseda fan.

I think it was great.

It is a totally new direction, so I didn't expect it to be perfect or anything, but I really like the direction as opposed to older Bethesda games. I think good writing comes from having a clean and organized system as opposed to a cluttered system like before. It is also really weird having a one way conversation where an npc talks 'at' you as opposed to an actual 'back and forth' talk.

There is more you can do with it, yes, just look at the jump from Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2, monumentally better the second time around. I am speaking purely from the introduction of the new dialogue wheel, I obviously know it is not the first Fallout game...

But overall, as someone who is going to be making quest and companion mods, I think Bethesda gave me a great pallet to work with.

I can make a lot more depth from simple choices that branch out into more simple choices than trying to give the player 10 choices all at once. That is my biggest pet peeve with Skyrim and New Vegas mods.

I'd put it in between 3 and 4 (probably closer to 4, than 3), whereas I'd put FO3 solidly at 3, and Skyrim fully in the 2 category.

It's not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, however, Beth has clearly put some effort into improving in this area, and for that I am grateful. I only hope that they continue their attempts at improving, rather than saying, "well, we've done what we set out to do, now we can sit on our asses and let things slide downhill once again."

video games are the perfect medium to create a story, it just needs people to stop thinking of a story in such a linear way

the writing in FO4 is decent, over-all better than most of beth's other games but there has been better high points in the past and the the new dialogue system is god awful (its a bad version of an already bad dialogue system)

Disagree completely. If I were a writer I would not want to be employed at a video game company, it would possible be the worst medium to expose what I could do.

Video games need programmers, not writers, ask industry insiders if you are unsure.

I would only agree if such a thing as "Adaptive Narrative" was possible. It currently isn't, at least not to the levels that someone like Luke dikeen spoke about in his convention (Youtube) or Gratch and Douglas wrote about. Something truly interesting isn't currently possible as far as narrative in video games is concerned, it is the same regurgitated fluff but somewhat adapted to the genre it serves.

I do appreciate Bethesda's worlds in that respect, because at least they allow the players to write their own story even if an infinitesimal amount.

Couldn't agree less. The greatest game in the world will flop if the story isn't good. I've seen horrible games do fairly well even with poor programming. Alpha Protocol comes to mind.

I only want to know why they made the main character (the male one) such a freakin' wimp.
If he was any more polite, and kissed any more [censored], he wouldn't be called the "Sole Survivor", nor the "Wanderer"...he would be called "The Nanny".
Because he acts like Mary Freackin' Poppins!

I agree on the story telling part. The real power that a videogame holds is that 'you' are doing an action, not watching someone do an action. I remember the first time I played Bioshock and I harvested one of the Little Sisters. I felt like such a jerk because 'I' did that, not some character in a movie, 'I' did it.

I love Mass Effect 2 and 3 because of the way they tell stories and let me be a part of it. I would take that as a storytelling medium any day.

That is why I mod, because I love telling stories in a interactive way. People look at my writing and have no idea what is going on, because it has so much stuff going in so many different ways with so much player possibility. People think I am crazy, but I love it.

My website... I have all my writing for my mod on it, and it is such a mess to organize because of the non-linear nature of writing for a game like Fallout, but that is why I think it is so much fun. If you were to line up the stuff I have written in a linear way, I have written at least a 200 page book.

Anyways, I couldn't disagree more on the dialogue system though. I am loving the simpler look to it. I hate clutter, and I like to build my choices by having 2 or 3 branches, but then have 2 or 3 branches come off of that, and 2 or 3 branches off of that, and maybe this branch leads back to this former choice you didn't make... I hate it when you have 10 branches coming off at once, I call that bad writing.

There could definitely be more depth, such as using (Science) or (Perception) checks and such, which I plan on putting into my mod dialogue. But overall I am totally excited to be building with this new system over the older games.

If adaptive narratives weren't possible then no one would give a crap about storylines in RPGs.

Well, I wasn't familiar with that game. I googled it and it is by Obsidian Entertainment, who developed Fallout New Vegas. I assume you picked that example specifically for a reason, and it is not coincidental.

I will have to look at that specific example. However, there are many games which borrow from movies and offer a condensed plot which somewhat mirrors the original universe. Say Kotor or Arkham Asylum. I am not entirely sure how different or how more successful those game would be had another story been picked.

Video games are games at heart, and a mere backdrop is sufficient for the whole framework to hold up if the mechanics are sufficiently fluid. Or brilliant, in some cases.

A small step up from previous Bethesda storytelling, but nothing to get real excited over. If I take into account what was sacrificed to get us that minor improvement I would gladly go back to the way it was. I hate the rigidly defined character background and this horribly limited dialogue system we were given.