No, no, no. I don't even want to think of the possibility of a voiced protagonist in TES.

The only thing I don't like about the voiced female protagonist is it isn't Jennifer Hale.

Jennifer Hale is life. Jennifer Hale is love.

(But the actual voice actress, I'm sure, does a great job, and her voice is pleasing to the ear. I just…. I just love Jen Hale so much.)

Mixed Feelings, on the one hand Voiced Protagonist is intriguing, on the other it will severely hamper Roleplaying. My gut feeling I think Beth added it in due to the extra memory that the PS4/Xbox One now have, which they never could've done on 360/PS3.

I personally wouldn't have went with Voiced Protagonist but we'll see what happens.

This looks like one of the coolest games ever, and all I see if a bunch of people complaining about it.

The Mass Effect games are not a good example. Those games are extremely linear in comparison to Fallout, and only have like 1/10th the number of speaking characters. A Fallout game with dialogue that limited would lose one of the entire central features of the franchise.

Once Bethesda introduces a "cool" feature like voice acting or killcams, it's here to stay! I know it's hard to record dialogue for 10 playable races and 2 genders, but it WILL happen at the cost of Argonian, Khajiit and Orc sharing the voice actor! What Todd said about what gamers of today expect, it became clear.

I only hope that Bethesda's design decision of 'making combat in F4 feel great' (and even employing talent from id Software to ensure it) is here to stay too and will apply to TES.

Why are you people so against change ?

To dumb the game down, in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Fortunately we'll be able to turn it off, unfortunately it's a complete waste of resources.

It's already been explained that voice acting puts constraints on dialogue options.

Not necesserarly

It inherently makes every additional line require much more time, effort, and money.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that voiced PC means less.

With no voiced PC you're only limited by the amount of data you want the game to end up having.

With a voiced PC you're limited by how much and how long you're going to be paying the VA.

Which they have?

Voice acting brought us the dialogue wheel, otherwise known as "I never meant to say that!" feature. Just to give an example: in ME1 responding to Sha'ira's gift of words with a rather innocuous "That's it?" triggers a six scene. Wait, what, WHAT?

Then there are general disadvantages of cinematic action RPGs, like limited stat and skill checks (because you don't even have stats...) and event outcomes. Origins was quite interesting with things like Connor's situation or the conversation with bandits outside Lothering. But I'm not going to compare it with DA2 because everything in DA2 was rushed and subpar, so blaming voice acting wouldn't be fair.

I don't think voice acting is the devil, though. I found the dialogue system and Social Enhancer in DXHR very satisfying, and it was fully voice acted. But again, different kind of game; I have nothing against voiced predefined protagonists.

"All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward."

My only problem with the game being voiced has nothing to do with the voice, and everything to do with the fact that he doesn't say when I tell him to say. In an RPG, I should NEVER be shocked and inclined to reload a game because the character said something I didn't intend for him to say. That happened an unforgivable amount in DA2, and some in DA:I. I hope Bethesda does a better job.

If not.. well, a mod will show what the character is going to say. Yay, PC.

That's good, I'm keeping that.

I'm one of those people. It has to do with the loss of a perceived freedom, as you made note of. Inflection, emphasis, and how it was said happens in your head when you lack a voice actor. This means that you had dozens of options despite, mechanically speaking, only having three of four. When you have a voice, you only have the four options as you lose control over the inflection, emphasis, and how it was said. The only problem that limited the old system was how NPCs reacted to your choices; that was beyond your control. However, I never had any issues with it.

Bethesda has prided themselves on this mantra of putting players in the director's seat. Their games have allowed you to: go wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want; do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want; as whoever you want.

Only now that last part has been omitted from the formula for the sake of crafting a more compelling narrative, so they say.

The dialogue wheel and the less flexible script are also grievances related to having a voice actor.

I'm hoping it pays off, but it makes me wonder if Fallout 4 will have the same value of replayability that other Bethesda Games have had due to freedom that has since been limited.

What do the dialogue wheel has to do with a voiced PC?

Developers feel that reading the lines and then hearing them spoken out loud bores people - and perhaps it does. As a result, we get paraphrases fitting nicely into a dialogue wheel with layered responses suited for a controller.

I love BioWare games and the conversation wheel, loved it in Dragon Age 2 loved it in 3 loved it throughout the Mass Effect series, loved it in Star Wars The Old Republic.

Witcher 3 showed that cut scenes can work extremely well in an open world game with a voiced protagonist. I know it is hard to accept change, but give it a chance. I think it opens op new possibilities for storytelling and conveying an emotional response.

There is no connection... A voiced PC doesn't need the wheel. And the wheel doesn't need a voiced PC.

Accused fear of change is a broad white-washing that covers up the actual concerns of those hit with it.

Once you take away the ability to read the text, you no longer have to assign any importance to it. If the developer assumes that the player is just expecting to hear some suitable response, then they have no need to provide anything but some suitable response.

There are wonderful RPGs that ~don't do this, and provide rich and well thought out dialog for the PC; replies that could even manipulate the NPCs.

For example... In Fallout 2, the PC could play up to the Vault City's leader's ego, and by choosing the most 'svck-up' respectful replies, they could get made captain of the guard at Vault City. This was not telegraphed to the player.

One shudders to think of a conversation wheel in a minefield conversation like that one with Lynette.

But the fact is ~now, you will probably never get any minefield conversations ever again in the Fallout series. This move to a conversation wheel doubly ensures it.

So, a number of people are suggesting not wanting a voiced protagonist and dialog wheel suggests a 'fear of change'..? What? Literally every other recent rpg and their (german shepherd, mabari, cybernetic) dog has a - yes, censored, I know - voiced protagonist and a dialog wheel. It's everywhere. And it's always idiotically hit-or-miss, so that's a legit concern, I'd say.

having only 4 dialogue options displayed does not actually limit you to just 4 dialogue options. Nor do you have to have a forward and back button limiting you to just 2 options each dialogue grouping.

You can get multiple Dialogue options with a few simple buttom presses (oh sure you can QQ about having to press a button but seriously if that if your gripe all i can say if get over it.)

A - option 1

B - option 2

C- Option 3

D - see more options

A - option 4

B - option 5

C - option 6

D - see more options This takes back to the original menu of choices.

With just one of two button clicks you have 6 options hadly a tragedy need more than 6?

A - option 1

B - option 2

C- Option 3

D - see more options

A - option 4

B - option 5

C - option 6

D - see more options

A - option 7

B - option 8

C - option 9

D - see more options This takes back to the original menu of choices.

With one or two or three button clicks you can get 9 dialogue choices. Miss a choice you can get back to it with two clicks. This is not a hardship or problem unless you are so against a Voiced protagonist you just want to manufactor an issue.

So why did they do this?

https://youtu.be/2KApp699WdE?t=2h22m35s

They wanted to take the open world experience they do well and give it a strong story. That is BETHESDA'S goal. That is what THEY wanted. Now you or anyone else might not want this but THEY did. And all entertainment media is both art and business and the business side of things has made vocie protagonists a standard for AAA games. Even AAA RPGs pretty much with Bethesda joining the ranks make voiced protagonists it is becoming almost required. Secondly this is part art and artist make art THEY want to make not art submitted for your approval. This is true with all art. If you like a peice of art you can buy it but you can't tell the artist what to make. Don't like it don't buy it. This is the same with movies and books and video games.

They, Bethesda, clearly felt they had mastered the open world Experience and they wanted to improve in an area that most people I think would agree they are weak in, which is story. I am happt to see a company attempt to improve an area of development that they are weak in. Did they pull it off? No idea, can't know until december after playign the game for at least a month to give it a fair evaluation.

yes but after more then 1/2 a decade of improvement those WTF dialogue moments using the dialogue wheel have been greatly reduced. It is a much improved upon feature it become harder and harer to find these WTF dialogue moments in a game. I am trying to remember a single one in DA:I and nothing jumps to mind I vaguely remember having one in ME3 and I recall hating the wheel in ME1 because of so many WTF moments. But the tech has improved it is improving because they did take feedback about there WTF moments very seriously.

SO lets not pretend ME1 is the poster boy of this system at its best. It was the first attempt at it and it had flaws(Major flaws) but every itteration of this system has improved on it. We have zero reason to believe that bethesda wouldn't or couldn't learn from what worked and didn't work and make improvements as it is done. I can't think of any time Geralt in W3 gave me a WTF moment either. The system have been more than a little refined from its debut of 2007.