I guess they wanted to keep things simple for the console players, but it makes the whole NPC interaction feel much more shallow... you are goibg to have one linear conversation and that's it... also, no clear understanding of what I am actually about to say. Everything is reduced to Yes/No/maybe ...

I'm a console player and I liked the old way better too, I liked hearing all the dialog in skyrim and getting every single option greyed out, it made it feel more complete now I feel like im missing dialog I can never hear again...

Yeah i hear ya. It's just about tolerable for me though but man i miss the old dialogue system. My only gripe with the game, well that and no weapon holstering.

Hold down [reload] button for a sec...?

I miss the hilariously sociopathic options... 'Actually, yes, I want New Vegas to become the slave capital of the world.'

Sarcastic

(maybe I should write something more than that so that this post isn't considered as spam, but that one word is the depth of the dialogue system.)

That and the fact that player is fully voiced. That makes amount of voiceovers X 3 (one male and one female player). In other words, with full voiceovers, you can make only about 1/3 of dialogues you could make otherwise using the same developer resources.

Personally I think that voiced main character is not worth the cost in this case. I would rather have well developed text dialogues even if player would be mute. In fact I would easily accept limited voiceovers in general if I would get solid, well made dialogues. Fallout 2 was high mark so far and no other Fallout game managed to top it in this regard.

Wow, really? Hadn't noticed or paid attention til now, but I'm only 3hrs in or so. That would be a shame.

But I distinctly recall some pre-launch pics with visible weapons on the SS. Might have been artwork though, I'm not sure.

What the [censored] this has to do with console gamers? Bethseda said they wanted to make a better story. Also I loved the old system more but it wasn't complex. You make it sound like console gamers have mental issues and can't figure how to choice the option they want to say.

Heh. While that may indeed be my opinion, that wasn't what I was trying to imply

I meant having the 4 directions align to the controller thingy that has 4 directions on it.

They also have a down D-pad and they can use the left anolog stick. It's not hard picking what to say in FO3 or NV on console.

Well, let's be fair to Bethesda here: the dialogue options in their previous games were pretty bad as well.

I think NV was the best. We had more options base off our skills(guns, sneak, survival, ect.)

It most likely has to do with modification, since there's so many varieties of armour/weapon mods I guess it would cause clipping.

Regarding console:

Can you please stop spreading BS? Thank you. No offense, but statements such as yours (regarding console gaming) are simply wrong.

Some of the best RPGs or games with RPG elements have been console games for years: Final Fantasy 7,8,9,10, Vandal hearts, Suikoden, Dragons Dogma (now also on PC) and a whole bunch of old and new games.

I haven't got any hardware that can come close to running this game, so I won't be getting it for a while, if at all, but I had a little look at Gopher's 'let's play' to get a taste. He'd made a rough looking character with muttonchops and the voice seemed ridiculously mismatched (the middle-class family man back story didn't seem to sit well either). Furthermore, there's no way to know what your character is actually going to say from the text, or with what inflection. Want to RP a nervous fast talker, or someone with an unflappable laid-back drawl? Nope, your character is pre-defined middle of the road bland. Beth could have at least added a pitch slider; so you could go from Riekling raider to Hermaeus Mora. Might bugger up the lip sync though.

What I don't get, is that a voiced protagonist can work and offer complexity (see TW3). But this awful yes/no/maybe/sarcastic system needs to go.

I'm not really digging the voice.

I sometimes play a female in the other Fallouts but hearing the female voice made it feel weird for the first time. I started a male character and it's more bearable.

I miss the choices, I guess. While some of the dialogue in other Fallouts got a bit too complex for its own good (looking at you, Old World Blues), this new system feels thin.

It's by no means a deal breaker, though. I'm enjoying the game; I just avoid talking to people.

Riiiiight.

Anyway, from the perspective of somebody who's been following the series since its inception, it's impossible...literally impossible....to deny the fact that appealing to the console market has dumbed down Streamlined! the RPG mechanics almost entirely out of the series by this point.