I am a huge fan of Bethesda's Fallout games so far, but why on Earth would they give the main character a voice!? Not only that, but from the gameplay they showed off at E3, they dumb down the dialogue options to only 4 mapped button options. Even worse is that those options hardly tell you anything about what the character will say. This system is the same system I've seen in so many other games that I absolutely hate. You choose a vague option from a small list, and the character does whatever with that small hint of dialogue you read. You choose the "not interested" option, and next thing you know your character is killing the guy you're talking to.

Now I know Bethesda has great voice acting and that the voice actors did a lot of work to make this work; but even so, the main protagonist of a role playing game shouldn't be voice acted. I want to immerse myself in the world, like I did with Bethesda games that came before it. I don't want to assume the role of someone else; I want to be me. Having the main character talk breaks that immersion and limits my options when playing. I should at least know what my character is going to say ahead of time; but from the gameplay we've seen, we won't know.

One of the greatest things about playing Fallout 3 was reading out the dialogue option in my own voice before choosing it, and then to have the NPC's respond to it as though I was the one talking. I could play the game a hundred times over and always feel invested in the game because I got so immersed pretending I was there. The biggest problem now is I won't be able to do that.

Don't get me wrong, everything else in the game looks amazing, but what's the point if I can't get invested in it. I know some people are really excited about the main character talking, but I know plenty of other people who are concerned about this change as well. I really hope there will be an option to play the game classic style with all the dialogue text in your options and no voiced protagonist. If not, this single decision might just ruin the game I've been waiting for over 7 years for. It will be a serious disappointment if that happens.

Because Bethesda wanted to try something different?

as an alternate, try any of the million other "OMG WHY VOICE" threads.

I really don't understand why people complain about this and why they can't be "invested" simply because the protagonist speaks. From what I've seen of the gameplay and narrative pieces, the voicing is absolutely necessary.

Just because the character is voiced? Mute your television when they speak. To be honest, this was expected. This is 2015. Most games have a voiced protagonist.

It's troubling to me that the common concern is hearing the professional voice actor, and not concern for the presumably reduced line-count, and less flexible script cause by this.

I was thinking about that myself, but I do understand it... I just don't agree with it. The reason is an assumed freedom, and the perceived loss of it.

Hey now, Kiralyn2000, if you're not interested in the thread, just move along.

The simplest answer to the OP's question, I would imagine, is because it was a feature people repeatedly asked for. If more people want a feature than don't want a feature, it's likely to go in.

I'd be interested to see if, like in Elder Scrolls Online, you can pick your character's voice, though.

I don't know, I used to be very skeptical about voice acted RPG-s when they first started coming out... but I believe we've reached the point where it works really well. While in ME1 there was a time when I wanted to tell a character off, which made my character put a gun in their face, In The Witcher 3 I never had this problem.

My biggest concern is that it might pull us out of first person, which I would hate, because FO and TES are few series that really let me *BE* the character and not just an observer. Another potential problem is how it will affect the mods. We'll either have silent dialogue options which might be really distracting if every other dialogue is voiced, or worse - have some amateur record the lines for the main character.

There is only one male and female version. And your character in ESO doesn't speak, only grunts and yells are voiced, which is a completely different situation.

Using a voice actor does NOT limit dialog choices. Take a look at the Mass Effect series as well as Dragon Age 2-3. All voice acted and done VERY well. Also with a LOT of dialog choices. Your not limited in choices because you now have a voice. That's a groundless assumption.

And I am glad its voiced. reading dialog choices breaks from the RP when I'd much rather hear my character speak. Plus a speaking character is the way current games are now going. The masses want it. Don't be surprised if the next TES character is voiced as well.

And look at DAI for example. both females get two types of voices. Same with the males. I thought it was well done.

The first thing that came to mind for me was Sims 3's voice pitch changer. Thankfully the VA we heard in the demo wasn't too horrible, but the voice we had in New Vegas (for screams of pain and things) was way too high pitched for my liking. It just wasn't a voice I could imagine a grown man having. Googling it suggests I wasn't the only one as http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45434/?. It would be unreasonable of me to complain that my character has to be American, but couldn't he be one with a nice voice? Something like Johnny Cash or something.

This is true, and upsetting, because it means that if enough Fallout fans demanded guns in TES6, that it's likely to go in.
(Imagine if it were all of them that requested that. )

I can only hope that future RPGs will have something like Vocaloid embedded that can read text, so all those "not enough dialogue!", "voice not to my liking!" and also "my character is mute!" people will be finally satisfied once and for all.

Because people (many examples of which are in this very thread) clearly can't cope with complex dialogues and have to be served blips to make as little mental effort as possible. Also fully voiced dialogues are more "cinematic" and more easily directed, which equals to even more passive experience.

Because it's better.

Unvoiced is out of date.

Voiced is more immersive and conveys more emotion.

In any case, written dialogue choices were hardly long lists either.

Because even if people won't like to admit it,the 1 minute dialogue with codsworth was more enjoyable than the whole dialogue between Lone wanderer dude and President Eden.

Apologies, I didn't think that was what I typed. I gave one quick possibility, and then pointed out that there are many other threads on the topic that might have gone over the same discussions.

Well. That's certainly a profoundly negative view of your fellow gamers.

For people who prefer passive experience in dialogues and short simple unimaginative lines? Sure, no doubt.

The biggest problem with being able to choose your own voice for your character is the sheer amount of dialog that would have to recorded, and stored on your HDD. Unless Bethesda limited it to only a few voice options for the male and female PC.

It's going to be interesting to see what they do for the next TES. Assuming they keep all the playable races that were in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, they'll have to record 20 sets of PC dialog, one for the male and female of each race, and that's only giving the player one voice for each race.

How do you even know that the lines will be unimaginative?All we have seen untill now in the MC talking with his wife and a flying toaster.Not exactly the contest for philosofical talk about the future of the wasteland,you know.

I don't think a petition would work here, but if that was the "in thing" at that time and it wasn't something I wanted, it would be like every single time I get into a band and then they change direction/sell out/decide to explore the world of Ukranian nose flute ska and I have to find another favourite band.

Back on topic, I think the new game will be pretty similar to Mass Effect, and I really liked how that game worked.

I'm starting to think that I don't care if the protagonist has a voice or not. If it reduces the number of spoken lines, I will not like that.

But is reduction in lines really an absolute consequence of a voiced protagonist? Couldn't Bethesda have written the same number of lines they would have anyway, and then just record them?

They said they recorded 13.000 lines for each player character voice actor untill now.I'm pretty sure that's already more than they had in FO3 and Obsidian had in FO:NV.

No such thing. It is a feasibility matter, not what year it is. Offhand I recall that Stone Keep preceded Fallout by three years, and was a fully voiced first person RPG with dual wielded weapons, and companion NPCs ~and had a fully voiced PC.

That was in 1995. Date has nothing to do with it. But script mutability sure does. In a large RPG it means that the adventure gets locked, and they cannot easily make changes, or add new content, without schedulling new recording sessions that might not even be possible to schedule with the original voice actors.

*Has no one here given thought to the hell that awaits modders trying to add their own quests? [Those now not only need NPC voices, but need voiced PC responses.]

Oh I didn't mean a petition. You mentioned many people requested the feature... Surely that was not by petition. I meant that if it became clear that say... semi-automatic magical dwarven guns had become a hotly requested feature, that they could then show up in the next game.
(Or worse; Miniguns... like the one seen in Kung Fury.)

I have never played Mass Effect, but I probably wouldn't like if it featured abridged responses as the choices.

This.

I actually hate the entire Mass Effect series. I never played the 3rd Dragon age game, but I hated the 2nd one. I understand a lot of people say they want voice acted protagonists, but I also hear a lot of people say Call of Duty is the best game ever. Just because a lot of people say something, doesn't mean my opinion of it will change. I'm not saying to drop it completely if that's what some people want, but I really want an option to not have it for people like me.

Because its new and fresh .