I wouldn't mind something like that in Fallout 4. Characters in Fallout 3 (and all of Bethesda's games really) tend to be static and lifeless. A dialogue system similar to Dragon Age would be quite nice and help conversations feel more natural and artistic. Your character's expressions were rarely noticeable in DA because most of the time you didn't see their face during conversation, and even when they did expressions were only specific when appropriate. For example in the human noble storyline when their castle is attacked they have a mournful expression on their face when walking in to see their sister-in-law and nephew dead. Unfortunately this system might get in the way for more "evil" characters; I can't imagine a sociopath would look saddened by the deaths of others much, but there are times well after the origin story where my character did take on such an expression when others were hurt or killed. It was characteristic for him, but it may not have been so for someone else's character.

In Fallout 1/2 the lack of cinematic characters and events was a technological limitation just as it was for Baldur's Gate; talking heads and cutscene movies were the best thing we could really get in 1997/1998. BioWare has made dialogue more cinematic and other developers have followed their example, so it'd be nice if Bethesda did as well. I'm all for a Dragon Age-like system as that is essentially an evolution of what Interplay/Black Isle started with their dialogue tree/talking head system back in '97.

The Fallout 1 and 2 talking heads still look better than the ones in Fallout 3, thanks to being hand-crafted and not just made in the same face editor.

to be honest im quite surprised so many people want to see a dialogue tree like system being implemented in the next fallout even though it would be different than what Bethseda is used to doing.

Yeah, it's definitely a downside. The funny thing is that the facial generator is capable of much greater variation than what is on display, if one ignores the limited facial/head hair selection. It's almost like everybody looks slightly related. So in summary, fo1&2 talking heads are more unique and interesting looking, but only a few characters get them, while fo3 talking heads are standard issue for everyone, and unfortunately, so are their looks? I can't see the series ever going back to the old system, but there's definitely room for improvement with the current engine.

Perhaps a compromise where certain core characters get some unique textures and meshes. Or even some variety in body types. You know, muscle men and women, skinny people, obese people, dwarves, hunched over stragglers. Maybe a texture system that can mix in different layers for things like griminess, sweatiness, tattoos, bodypaint and tans. It'd be especially awesome if the player was given access to this for their character.

Yeah, they could craft unique heads at least for the major characters, while generating the less important ones in the editor, just like the generic sprites in Fallout 1 and 2. The game could also use more of a variety of body types, now everyone looks pretty much the same in this regard.

I think with our current level of technology, at least, there's sort of a double-edged sword no matter what direction you go with showing the PC during cutscenes/dialogue, have spoken dialogue, etc. Either approach is better for achieving certain goals, but no matter what, you're going to lose out on something.

In Dragon Age, the problem I have when the character does feature in a scene, is that he/she tends to have rather vacant or unemotional expressions, for the most part. I can see why they leave things sort of generic - because the more specific you get with a created character's emotions, the greater chance you have of that not coinciding with what was in the player's mind. But at the same time, I do (at least for me) feel a certain loss of personality there, as well. I'm not as connected to, or have as clear a concept of, my character in Dragon Age (or Fallout, for that matter) because of that approach.

ie, when I do see my character, he/she has a calculatedly distinct lack of expression and personality. I can see how there's value in projecting the persona of what you have in mind for your character onto a basically blank slate - but in those cut scenes, what I'm left with is sort of the same problem other people have with the opposite approach. I'm specifically seeing my character being depicted as relatively lifeless - especially in comparison to the other characters in the scene. In other words, rather than leaving the details up to me to fill in, I'm specifically being shown a side of my character that I hadn't intended (that he really doesn't have very much personality,) as opposed to being free to project my own emotions onto my avatar.

On the other hand, I do see what people are getting at with games like Mass Effect, where you have a character that's much more rigidly-defined by virtue of having a specific on-screen presence that's only ever modified based on which dialogue choices you select. In either approach, you're still only ever selecting dialogue options from a limited amount of variables - but in this case the game is also providing the "character" and personality for your PC by way of on-screen expressions and voice acting. I can see how that can seem limiting to players; especially if what they had envisioned for their character doesn't mesh with what shows up on-screen.

In other words, the way I see it: you either suffer a loss of personality by virtue of depicting a purposefully generic character; or you gain a greater sense of a distinct personality at the cost of being limited to what's been coded into the game. There might be a way to make up some middle ground there, somewhere; but no matter what you're probably going to be limiting yourself in some way or another.

I do have a couple of ideas that might be neat to see in Fallout 4, in relation to this. I'm going to assume that they're not going to go the way of Mass Effect (and they probably shouldn't - I already have one game that provides that; I don't need them all to do the same thing,) and instead trying to keep the "options" as open as possible, by way of not limiting the ways in which your character is able to emote within the game. And this is also with the idea that having your character appear on-screen in some manner is always a neat thing (since I'll have spent a decent amount of time making that face, it's always nice to see it depicted in the game every once in a while.)

1) During character creation, being able to select from a variety of personality archetypes. Nothing major, just something that has some sort of bearing on what expressions your character is going to be showing during cut-scenes. The risk here would be avoiding getting into caricature territory - if I pick "angry" as a personality trait, it doesn't mean I want my character to always be looking like a parody of some scowling evil guy throughout the entire game. Just something that can give the PC a bit more life during these cut-scenes, without looking out of place. Optionally, some manner of allowing the player to pick from a selection of "emotes" to use during cut-scenes (a la Fable 2; though hopefully something a bit more refined and advanced.) Of course, the problem there would be that you're really just limiting the player's imagination even more.

2) Probably out of the realm of something we'd realistically in a game any time soon, but it would be neat - tie the game into a camera that's capable of reading and itnerpreting facial expressions. The expression and emotions your character protrays in the scenes he/she appears in would be the ones that you, the player, would be showing as you play through the game.

3) Just keep things as they are in Fallout 3, where you don't really see your character at all during dialogue and such (or only from over-the-shoulder, or obscured views.) If you can't see the specific expression on your character's face, then there's no way it can contradict what you had in mind, after all..)

Actually, it should be possible soon on consoles with things like Project Natal or PSEye, and similar stuff will likely be available on the PC too. Sony and MS have already demonstrated stuff like facial expression recognition.

Honestly I don't feel like any of the BioWare protagonists have been all that lifeless. Well okay there was the "Hero of Neverwinter", but the campaign of Neverwinter Nights itself was lifeless, so not much could be done there. Even then that was probably my own fault because I just wasn't into the NWN OC, and so I didn't much care about my character or their characteristics in dialogue. The characters in these games have about as much personality and character as you give them, and BioWare at least offers a lot of opportunities for you to develop that personality.

Well, I'm thinking more along the lines of design philosophy than any particular company, however. For example, I got a real sense of a personality playing Mass Effect, which was Bioware; and not so much with Dragon Age: Origins - which was also Bioware. And like I said, I feel that's largely because they were trying to do 2 different things with those games. Anytime I saw my character in a cutscene or dialogue sequence in DA:O, he/she seemed very aloof and disinterested - at least, that's what I got out of it. And as I said - that's because they didn't want enforce their own views on what your character was supposed to be emoting at any point.

For example - my character is leaving home for the first time, and glances back at the people he's known all his life; perhaps never to see them again. He looks more thoughtful than anything, and largely unaffected. But if they were add anything else to it, then it might not mesh with what I had in mind for what my character might be feeling at the moment. The end result, however, for me, is that instead of avoiding over-riding my own concept of my character with something more specific, they're over-riding any concept I might have, with something that lacks any real notable personality at all.

Anyway, none of that was meant as a dig any company - merely pointing out what I find to be the shortcomings in either method of presenting the protagonist. (You either have a game that portrays a character with a lot of personality - at the expense of that personality running counter to what the player had in mind; or you veer away from presenting any clear emotional states at all - leaving a character that is portrayed as a blank slate in order to avoid countermanding the player's own conceptions of the character.

Back to topic - I stick with my original suggestions. I think probably the more likely is that they stick with what they've already done in F3. ie, not really show your character, and leave everything up to your own imagination - or at best, showing them only in those instances where a distinct lack of emotion isn't going to be terribly noticeable (and by large, that's what Dragon Age does, as well...) Though, I do think it would be really cool if the game could sense what your own emotions were through face recognition; and then used those to model what emotes the PC is portarying on-screen.

I understand the argument, but to me, I'd rather see my character in cut scenes and take a hit (which, personally, doesn't affect me as much as it sees to affect you) with generic facial expressions.

I have no idea what the limitations of the cut scenes are...there are several that don't reflect the actual status of the characters...(Look at Allistar in the joining ritual...he doesn't have his sword on his back) but it might be possible to put an expression on the PC based on the dialogue choice. This would obviously require real time modification of the movie and migth be impossible. As far as selecting general attitude during character creation, you came up with the big problem there in that angry people aren't likely to always be angry.

Again, I'd rather see my character in a cutscene, and suffer, to me a minor annoyance, than remove that annoyance by not showing my character in a cutscene. In the end, though, the cutscene is just an addition to the dialogue, and dialogue is waht really needs to match my character.

Something else from Dragon Age I want to stress is the multiple starting areas. These help define the character with the backbone of a backstory for RP purposes. The key to this working is to have all these areas linked and acessable to all charcters later in the game, and for these choices to ahve impact later on in the game.

A good example of this is the Human noble starting area, which reinforces the character's noble background and provides some action in the end game.

The more these individual stories can be intertwined into a whole world-story, the more interesting the whole story can be. If you roll something other than a Dwarvian noble, you are confronted with a struggle for power and forced to choose sides with very limited, mostly hearsay information. Playing a Dwarvian noble gives you sufficient insight to make a stand.

Dragon Age does a fair job of this, but it could be taken much further.

That would be pretty cool. Unfortunately it would probably lead to people abusing it, and posting pictures of their characters with bizarre facial expressions all over the internet... and I would be one of those people.

Better dialogue (more speech challenges, more ones depending on your skills etc)
Mini games!
Bigger variety of skills, weapons, armor, aid, misc, etc
Bigger dayum wasteland
more main cities and settlements
more NPC's, quests, followers, creatures.

That's about all I can think of o.O

Well yeah, I'm not saying one's better. Just putting out my point of view - which is that seeing your character at all is going to compete with what I'd consider an appropriate reaction. That the actual emotion portrayed is generic (for lack of a better word) is substantially the same as having a caricaturized "evil scowl." In that having relatively no expression to convey at all, is still conveying an emotion - blankness.

But yeah, all things considered I'd just as soon have my character presented in the game in some way - regardless of which approach is used.

well there are 2 things that sticks out from Fallout 3 that made me go "come on Bethesda, it?s the 21 century and your game don?t have this"


1. customisable character looks: Of course what I mean is the shape of your characters body, I was greatly disappointed that stats had no effect on how my character body looks or I having the option to shape it during character creation, come on if my character has like Strength and Endurance 8 he should look like a Football Quarterback.

2. deepen the V.A.T.S system: tho the system in it self works fine there are some things needed to be worked out, first of your character should adapt to changes in the environment, I don?t know how many times my character wastes bullets shooting a raider that just ran behind a wall when anyone with a brain would stop firing. Second you should be able to decide on a firing rate, it frustrates me how I can spend a whole building taping my mouse to conserve ammo to my assault rifle by shooting single shoots but as fast a I use V.A.T.S it?s spray and prey and nothing else. Third I belong to one of those people who still think we should have a more detailed targeting system like the one in FO 1 & 2.


other then that I only have a few nitpicks, mostly weapons I feel need remaking, for example the ripper looks and sounds like one of those mini kitchen saw you use to cut threw tougher meat, I suggest looking at Fallout Tactics for a good example of how a ripper should look and sound. Also the combat shotgun looks like a toy gun, biggest disappointment for a weapon called a combat shotgun, I suggest injecting a bit steroids into it and make it look more beefy and heavy, make you feel like you have a engine of shotgun meat blending.


my two bottlecaps on the whole fallout 4 thing.

please, no more fallout 1 esque traveling system. i found it tedious and annoying to:
1: not be able to go to random locations and finding some loot/other goodies
2: the frequent random encounters, from enemies (wich i understand perfectly) to your character stumbling and nearly falling forcing you into a random cell wich you must use time to exit.

one of the joys of the fallout 3 map is being able to find some ruined buildings and being able to find some loot. i see something in the distance and go "ooh! whats there?" and then divert from my original course just to explore a random house. i would never have done that if it was a similar node system as that in FO1 since then i just want to get to my destination with as little hassle as possible.

a bit more variety in dilouge choices and more severe consequences in picking them, like in FO1 where you're screwed out of talking to some NPC if you mess up. only instance of that i remember (in FO3) is telling one of the outcasts to GTFO my strawberries, and then having to defend myself from a rather pissed off mob of outcasts...

make your actions matter more. sure, pops comments on you blowing up a certain nuke, but no major inpackt on any other quests or story elements (exept in BS that is...) for doing so. i want a bit more of that in FO4

more easter eggs (preferably involving garden gnomes and teddy bears) and pump action shotgun!

i guess that's it... oh yeah, more choice regarding housing and customisation of said housing. i liked the prewar theme for the 10penny suite, but i couldnt get the point of that random stuffed dog O_o;;

thats just my two caps on things ^__^

there are a lot of things you should be able to chose from. i think this is what rpg players want. but i also think that people that played fo3 should be able to play the game with less choses.
so i suggest that there should be only a few things that create your character. each with thier subthings you can choose to change. like 1 weapon skil. if you dont like rpg you should be able to just put points into this, but if you want to go further you should be able to tune that skil more to your own liking.

what i also think is that what your character can say and reply to the npc's should be more depended on your previous actions, the stat points and there should be a option that should determine the funny skil/serious skil.
you should not be able to be nice to people once you are more evil. and you should not be able to tell people to piss off if you are good.
also that you should be able to get respect from previous actions, (or disrespect). if i see one more time that you are treated respectless and like a stranger after just saving the whole world i will go nuts. or after killing a whole town you should not be able to be treated nice by good people.


in fo3 the humor decreased from fo1 and fo2, which is really a shame. there should be a way that your character become sacastic if you become more evil, or is that the character is able to tell little kid jokes if he has low int and siencetist jokes with high int. maybe a extra suboption in the charism stats.

i also think that you should be able to choose how fo3 ended wenn you begin fo4. if there are trees, if you killed al slavers or slaves. if you helped the gouls or just killed them all. and these should all effect how you those races would be in fo4. like if you helped the slaves and killed slavers, the slaves would have a settlement but if you helped the slavers, they should have a settlement with slavery stil there.
as for the story i thought of something and i hope it will be in like this.
i think it should start in on of those 2 settlements i stated above. you hear stories about the previous heros. and like the other games you go out and explore. but some years afer that you return to the settlement and see everything destroyed. (either by the slavers or slaveshelpers, the one you did not help in fo3 as revenge) . then you have to help to rebuilt the settlement. help the survivers, free captives and search for new people. but then you hear the enemy's will attack again so you go out and search for help. which offcoarse you wont get for free. here you can between restoring the settlement even more and help them train to survive if their would be another attack, you can go join the brotherhoodofsteel and work your way up in a long time, you can choose to go into politics which kinda restored a little bit and become either a president(good) or dictator(evil) or you do nothing and just go back to exploring. either way the enemy's will come again in a chosen time in which you can only do 1 of these things and your goal is to defeat them which you will not be able to do solo

Exactly, my favorite part of Fallout 3 was just exploring. The first time I beat the main quest I spent all my time just exploring and enjoying the rest of the wasteland/dlcs.

i think its also a shame you need guides to find all quests. i mean the aosis i would never have founded it. there were no hints or anything.

Thre were plenty of hints...at least enough. Some people out there had a MAP.

I found that one easily, and I like little surprises in a game, maybe you missed it on the 1st play through

i belive that if vehicles are added they should be done in a halo sort of way in terms of cotrol and camera angle.
but really my main concern with fallout 3 is after i went through this amazing game i ended up with a "been there tappped that" feeling. really it felt like i had just had a one night or two night stand with an amazing girl but after i hit her up again a week later it was all the same moves,.. and it just felt tapped...... lol ok but serousily oblivion just seemed endless and even after i completed the quests it was nice that npc remebered me and "interacted" with me though it was a programming isllusion. i think npcs who hand out quests, EVEN SIDE QUESTS should have A QUEST ARC, which leads to a satisfying outcome like oblivion quests did (like saving a town thats just starting and watching it grow over time).


PLZ GIVE US QUEST ARCS IN SIDE MISSIONS AND MORE OF THEM!!!!!

I think this had alot to do with the fact that very few cells seem to respawn - so once an area is done, thats it - no more adventure. As big as the wasteland is a dedicated player can still chew it up in less than a week or two, after which as you say, "it feels tapped out". I played Oblivion for almost 2 years straight, taking 5 or 6 characters all the way up and using Alot of the mods (but not modding at all myself because I was so engrossed in the game). With Fo3, it just didn't have the same staying power (for whatever reasons, respawn is only one aspect). In a way the shortness of the game pushed me into my modding project, as I just can't and won't give up Fo3!

I think Bethesda could do themselves a huge favor by focusing development effort on a more robust Random Quest Generator system. I built one for Sojourn back in the day, and they go a Long way to adding longevity and staying power to the game. If the player becomes aware that every time they go into a cell, it will be different in some way (sometimes in big ways), it will keep them coming back for more and more and more. "Oooo I havn't done that place in a while, wonder what's there now"... If the cells respawn more randomly and robustly than in Fo3, combined with a robust system of random quests (some of which the player can do multiple times over like "run this medical aid from Megaton to Rivet city"), would do the trick. The player could run into 4 or 5 different kinds of opposition when running the medical supplies, making the journey different each time and with different rewards for success.

Basically, Fo4 should be more Unpredictable than Fo3 is, and they will garnish many more hundreds of hours out of the players.

i remember a random encounter in which a deranged wastelander goes on and on about "TREES! TREES! TO THE NORTH!" before dying. that's how i found it...

I just wanna see something completely new, no more power armored soldiers or super mutants.


And maybe the Main Character could be just a normal wastelander instead of a vault dweller with a pip-boy?