Oh I agree. I hate this system as much as the next guy. I'm just proposing a possible reason for why they implemented it.

Having less options is completely different then condensing them all in one place. Going from upwards of 10 dialogue options down to 4 is not nitpicking, that's a legitimate excuse

Here's a great example:

In Fallout New Vegas you can have in-depth convos with Mr. House or any companion. You can ask them about things you're curious about and discuss various topics.

I challenge anyone to recreate the following scenarios using the new dialog system:

1) Meeting Caesar for the first time and inquiring about the Legion, discussing everything from it's origins to Hegelian dialectics.

2) Telling Veronica you found Elijah

In the first example, you'd be forced into these long-winded discussions with Caesar, since you can't really prompt it smoothly or without really slow, awkward transitions. (aka a slow, "I want to discuss things" as that opens a new menu that can hold no more than three or four options of things to discuss)

In the second example, how would you prompt this? This is a character you know well that you want to discuss news with. A new dialog option is neccesitated. Suddenly, adding the dialog option to the list is not simple, because the list has become finite. Again, this would require thumbing through pages of topics to discuss to find it.

And of course, who here truly believes there will be any thumbing through at all? I think we all suspect you'll receive dialog prompts and that's that. NPCs will speak to you about very specific topics at very specific times and you cannot change that.

Disappointed but hey, it's an improvement over the barely literate dialogue in Fallout 3. Unfortunately, they should have used F:NV as an example. They did not have to revamp the dialogue system just improve their writing.

Side-effect is that it comes with the inevitable, and woefully inadequate, 'dialogue paraphrases'. FO3 had woeful dialogue, in theme with its flat morality, too (A: I will hug the orphans! B: I will eat the puppies! C: I have no opinion and am here for caps!) - but in FONV, I could apply my own tone to the dialogue presented, and at least rationalise why my character might say that - be they world-weary, grizzled, optomistic, detached, w/e.

Having "Get food" become "uhh uhhh yeah uhhh okay uhh food I guess that sounds good uhh" cuts out all the "[censored] yeah I'm starving" or "Times have been hard out here, please tell me you have something :c" or "How about we eat together again, just like old times, pal?" or "Put three socks in it and do your [censored] job and feed me."

...aaaand of course because Paraphrases have been introduced, that's... going to be a problem.

I'm not even opposed to a voice protagonist. Or y'know, I wasn't. But that paraphrasing is going to make trying to RP a particular character 75% trial and error.

That seems to be how things work over at Bethesda.

"The thing we implemented into this game was flawed because of our own mistakes. Now, we could improve upon it buuuuuuut...NAH REMOVE IT AND DO SOMETHING ELSE."

Same could be said with the removal of skills in Fallout 4. Or even the removal of attributes in Skyrim.

Here's the thing though. This is a demo to pump people up, so why wouldn't you lead with your best foot forward? Why not show a variety of dialogue trees so that players know that some will have 4 some will have less and some will have more?

It isn't unsubstantiated to believe that we'll be limited to 4 options. That's what was presented in the demo. It's unsubstantiated to believe that other NPCs can have 10 options. It's certainly possible, but absolutely nothing indicates that is the case.

I don't understand the "I want to be surprised" thing. I want to be immersed in the character, and how often is a person really surprised by what they said?

Don't forget in a tone that you didn't want them to say it in.

But it certainly wouldn't happen with the old style.

I just went through the video again and my god, the options in a dialogue wheel should be succinct and still be distinguishable. The vapid dialogue in the demo video doesn't bode well.

"Everything's dead"?!?

http://s23.postimg.org/85w9tele3/image.jpg

THIS ISN'T HAPPENING

Said the Fallout fans.

I don't like it, it limits dialogue and responses, but I do understand to have player voiced actors do listed options then a " wheel " would cost more and would take more time to do with all the variables that could be avaiable in responses with listed dialogue. I just don't want Bethesda to make it obvious that certain buttons be for bad, good, or netural like what Bioware has been doing with their games since the first ME.

perfect.

More like "Everything's dead".

I'd be surprised if it takes long for the voiced protagonist to be modded out.

So it falls to how abridged the dialogue choices are to how they actually play out, and if conversations flow well enough to have the equivalent of what we had before with the listed view of choices, only that the conversations flow rather than jumping from one choice to the next as you go down the grocery list. Given it's Bethesda I'm not going to hold my breath for miracles, but I believe it will be workable. Good time to get a pc though, for sure.

So ... eh? I still want to see the shopping/trading screen. Much preferred FO3's to Skyrim's.

Hate it. Streamlined character representation at it's finest. As if it wasn't bad enough in Fallout 3 when they forced you to be 19 and go after your dad now you'll have a voice that has it's own personality, limited/gist dialogue system that isn't going to be exactly what they'll say, given parents again, set name, lack of skills, ect.

I really don't understand what the hell Bethesda was thinking. I mean the only thing adding a voice to the protagonist does is piss off hardcoe fans most others who were already fans wouldn't have cared or would understand because that's how its been.

I swear it's like one by one my favorite developers pull this crap.

Slight disappointment, but im fine with it. As long as saying for example "I dont like you" doesn't suddenly turn into "Im going to murder you in your sleep" like in some games.

Voiced protagonist,

dialogue choices,

male/female selection,

3rd person view.

Fantastic.

I struggle to express how delighted I am at this.

And only in November already.

I think I wet myself...

Absolutely disgusting. Limiting the dialogue to 4 options? Rubbish. This along with the protagonist being voiced clearly shows that Bethesda is trying to make a Mass Effect-esque game, but they don't have the writing skills for it and FALLOUT ISN'T A BLOODY CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE. Good job in completely ruining the series, BGS.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. I already like the female voice actress better, though.

It could be more like mass effect where you can choose a dialogue choice that branches off into more choices in the conversation. It doesn't mean that every time you walk up to an NPC you only pick one of the four and then leave, everyone needs to calm down and wait to hear more about this.

Because Todd Howard wasn't literally saying (as that happened) that you can go between first and 3rd for NPC interactions...

All these people hating on a game they haven't played and know so little about... its like finding your favorite car, but you hate it because its green. Obviously, that green makes that car rubbish, just like flame decals make it faster.

Maybe we can hold off on the hate until we've peeled back the paint a bit?

I'll be okay with it if when you choose the "Tell me about..." option, it pops open a classic list with more than just 4 options. I honestly can't think of another way for them to do it. Though if they do it that way, it might feel more like the original Fallout games. At least to me. You had an "ask about" button that allowed you to type in phrases and get more information if you used the correct subjects. I could see this new system working that way. Though if it does, I really wish they had showed it during the conference to put minds at ease.

My biggest concerns with the new system are modding limitations. It's going to be very difficult to create quest and follower mods with a character that is meant to speak, and with a dialog system like this. I would really like it if they gave us a "classic mode" that makes your character silent and gives us back the old selection system.

I'm not too worried about the "dynamic" dialog options. Actually, it would be funny if they did something where low intelligence gave you dumb/stupid dialogs like in the other games. Only if it's fully voice-acted, it could potentially be even better. though I honestly doubt they went that extra mile.

Then again, everything else they showed surprised me. The attention to detail in the game is pretty extreme. The question is whether that's going to apply to the dialog system, or whether they sacrificed that aspect to focus more on letting us play Sim City.

Honestly, Bethesda SHOULD be going that extra mile. Fallout community deserves a proper Role Playing Game - something that Obsidian gave us with New Vegas.

Let us get more info on the problematic areas and then we can completely throw in the towel.

I am not too fond of "streamlining" when it comes to dialogue options. Mass effect 2 and 3 was a massive step down and rather insulted my intelligence significantly and ad nauseam.

I know I am a minority because I prefer "Planescape Torment" esque dialogue options, and that all of that text would piss off the "Pew Pew" and console crowd. But then they only play the game a few times before the next pew pew title arrives. Ill be playing Fallout 4 alot.... alot.

I agree. I have a feeling we don't know everything there is to know about the game just yet. I certainly wasn't expecting to see everything that I saw tonight. Hopefully more information is released in the coming months to combat the speculation and rustled jimmies.

I have no issue with this system what so ever. 4 response choices is about the normal amount that we always had but it only felt like we had more due to skill checks which could add 2 or 3 more responses so its going to be jarring to see a conversation without a skill check dialog choice.

Also whats with people saying a voice protagonist will make quest mods awkward? A fair amount of quest mods in Fallout 3 and New vegas had voiceless NPCs that would randomly say "what do you need?" "bye" "later" "sure take a look" when appropriate but would be mute for their quest dialog so quest mods this time around would likely result in both the protagonist and NPCs being voiceless during interaction.