So... you made a thread, being biased for voice, stating outright that it should stay? You can't just go "This is staying" and then duck out of the reasons both for and against, which IS the politics of it. That's like going "I'm president, deal with it." You're stating outright that you prefer voice and that you WANT it to stay because you personally think it's the "right" way to go about things. At least be honest about that. I'm certainty not saying it's the wrong way, but please don't simply say "This is why things are happening, end of story". That would be like yelling " This is why there's no god" in the middle of a sermon. This very forum being the church. Not sure while I used that metaphor being an atheist, but there you go.

Doesn't mean all have too. Some more modern text games are actually quite nice because of their simplicity (and in some cases smut. >_>), which in turn leads to more content able to be added in because of less resource management. Basically what Nedict said. Going with that "smut" comment for a moment, porm does nothing at all for me, yet very well written erotic text does. Same with voice and no voice. Some things are just simply better left to the imagination for a lot of people, even if not all. Both sides are important. Case in point, neither method works for everyone (In this case voice and not). Simple as. At least not without an option menu to enable/disable certain things/encounters and so forth, which some games actually do. As a result it manages to accommodate everyone. For example "Do you want encounters with X species" or "Do you want immunity to Y disease". Think of it in super mutant terms. some people get off on the risk of being turned into being a big, green hulk (Boy, Fallout needs to do that now that I thought of it), others want to remain as they are from the start. Can you imagine a "mute" playthrough knowing the choice of being able to talk a lot is there? That's what it comes down too, having both sides of the fence in an area there yet picking which side to be on (or on the middle), and even switching back and forth. Unfortunately, voice has come at the cost of overall dialog content, meaning the other side of the fence is now less green. Much like adding chocolate icecream with a full bowl of strawberry yet removing half the strawberry.

1: Morrowind has good story. As do Fallouts 1, 2 and NV (Which you haven't even mentioned). We all know 3 is weak in that regard. Skyrim (and Oblivion) has weaker "main story" but to begin with, those two games never managed to be a NV of the elder scrolls. Additionally ES has not yet had a voiced character and have yet to see if the amount of dialog overall will suffer as a result like it has in 4. ES has steadily gotten weaker in that area as well, so it would be a shame to see even more dialog sacrificed just for a player character voice.

Guess you skipped over the Witcher, huh? It's been done, it's not "new". Nor does "new and different" translate to "better". Additionally it's "replaced" what's been in past Fallout games. Additions are always welcome, replacements are not. Replacements cause a divide (eg: For and against). Which ultimately splits up the playerbase. There are "new" things in Splinter Cell: Blacklist for example. But when there's so many replacements it stops being like past Splinter Cell games. In this example pacing was replaced with being faster and more focused on shooting. Regardless of which way you slice it, once an element has been replaced, it's no longer a part of what has been. Mass Effect has voice and it works well, but it did it from the start. Fallouts 1 and 2 are too old to be fairly compared with newer Fallouts and are a different company but NV is recent and has great dialog which allowed multiple way of doing things. White Glove Society. Kidnap that person? Offer companion? Bust out? So many options. We don't get presented with as many options in terms of dialog in 4. And I refuse to use 3 as a comparison because NV is more recent and works better. NV worked in terms of dialog and progressed in that area very well. Not so in 4. Most likely due to the player character now having a voice, which means more work to do, plus extra funding (which can get very expensive). Again, basically what Nedict said. I'm just adding the cons of player voice beyond "We can pretend it's us". Sorry, I don't sound anything like that and go "Hon." in greeting.

I agree that they could improve on it, and it can work provided there's more variety in terms personality (voices to select) and doesn't sacrifice the overall content in terms of dialog. But why not do that with this game first? Surely it's obvious that the overall content in terms of dialog was lacking. I don't mind waiting on a game if there's going to be "As much overall dialog as there has been in past games". With a clearer understanding other then "Yep. Nope. Sarcastic" without knowing "how" it's played out beforehand. In that light it could be argued that dialog overall hasn't progress, but rather the reverse. If they had simply added voice to "some" of the dialog instead of "all" then I'm sure they could have kept as much dialog content without sacrificing anything while still testing how voice works in 4. Instead they've jumped the gone and put all their eggs in one basket. That only works if you fill the other baskets first (the ones you been using oh so long) and THEN add the new thing. Not only that, they've added TWO new things (settlements), dividing their resources. We could have had, say, a reason to have settlements beyond extra resources (along with better, high tech structures with some damn hints about how to do it.) or as much dialog as well as voice. Both have been tried at once, so as a result both aren't as grand as they could be. They could have held off one or the other for the next game they make and have made the most of both. End result? Not having either be as truly grand as it could be in this game and having to wait years for the next one and hope it makes the most of one or the other. There's only so many things you can do at once before you start going bankrupt. You'd be surprised how expensive MGS: The Phantom Pain was to make. Another example of "trying to do too much and suffering in the long run". You yourself have said "The truth of the matter is they just can't do everything."

In closing, if EVERY game does voice, then EVERY game is being alike. We already have one "mass effect" and one "Elder scrolls". I don't want every series to be doing the "same" thing that others do. I play "different" games to experience "different" things. Mass Effect for the voice and well written story (and blast a few heads), Morrowind with mods for the walls of text and lore/environment (argonaions also feel very beast like with that walk, as they SHOULD be). Kinda have no look over the combat for the most part (Four legged werewolf is very fun though), but it was being it's own thing and acing everything else. There's a reason people complain about being a copy/clone of other games. Because we want different things in different games/series. Not just more of the same. Both old and new and everything in-between. I'm sure voice will stay in SOME games yet to be made, and I don't mind that, but if it starts doing them in ALL and the dialog slips even further downhill when it's already been stronger without voice (Again NV which is newer and an improvement in terms of dialog) then heads are going to roll.

Everything's about opinion. As Einstein once said "Imagination is reality". Or something alike. If games didn't need opinion, there wouldn't be games. Because no one would have an opinion on them.

Yes. For you. But what about those of us that much prefer "being ourselves" in a game and have identified these type of games with exactly that? How you label things isn't going to be how others label things. We both need our labeled things.

I would also like to note that Mass effect 3 has an "auto response" option, which allows players to both "Watch" conversations or "play" them (allowing you to choose responses), or even in-between. A good example of player freedom of choice. And in that example the amount to be said hasn't suffered either. The game has it's flaws coughendingandmultiplayerpointscough but I can see what it did right outside of just gameplay (Which is fun overall 'till you're on at the end with no points due to no net).

Do you have any credible sources on this? I'd like to learn more about this.

Bioware might not have gone with a voiced character for anything, if circumstances had been different.

Microsoft commissioned a game for the Xbox 360 that was going to be exclusive for the console. This was Mass Effect. There was never any question of the game coming to pc for quite a while, if at all. The last time Bioware did a console exclusive game it was Jade Empire, and it took 4 years, iirc, to come to console. They created it to be more of an interactive movie/sweeping cinematic experience than a role-playing game. While you did have variations on Shepard for background, Shepard was a defined character with a voice.

While they were working on ME, they were also working on an unnamed Bioware project that had been under development for years. It was going to be pc only and was mostly done. They hadn't gotten to the point of getting a publisher for it when the company was bought by EA.

In very short order ME was going to be released for pc. The unnamed project was titled Dragon Age: Origins and promptly delayed at least 6 months until console versions could be made. I believe that if there hadn't been so much work completed, EA would have insisted on a voiced character. The first DA game made under EA's control was DA2, with the complete revamp, recon, trashing of lore and voiced characters. Needless to say, while some players liked it, a large number loathed it.

Being forced into a voice for *my* character ruins the game for me. I want the more extensive choices you can have with a good story and a silent character. Fallout 4 is okay, but I doubt I'll make more than one character. No matter what dialogue choice I make, its all gonna sound the same.

4. Because the fans (including myself) gave their irrevocable vote of approval to BGS, some of them unknowingly, that they were supportive of the voiced protagonist by buying this game at release in such massive numbers. And BGS, like any other company in the world, whether they admit it or not, their #1 goal is to make money. Everything else is secondary.

Actually, I made a thread not in favor of a voiced protagonist, but explaining why it's likely not going away. There is a distinction there you are glancing over, and I implore you to not assume the intentions of others. This is more an observation of BGS' actions rather than my own particular preference. BGS is a business and their choices, while fan feedback have an impact, will largely be driven by potential revenue.

BGS doesn't have to watch the rest of the industry at all and develop in isolation, but it wouldn't be smart. That's not even referring specifically to a voiced protagonist, but to improving the shooting mechanics, or improving crafting, or settlement building. All of the innovations BGS brought to Fallout 4 were largely inspired by other games. Settlement building was largely from Minecraft. Voiced protagonist largely from BioWare games with CDPR being a newcomer. Shooter mechanics were inspired by Destiny with help from id. Magic use in Skyrim was inspired by plasmids in Bioshock. This is largely how BGS innovates by watching the competition and deciding if they want to follow suit.

Morrowind's main story is debatable. The lore used to build the game, which also built the foundation of the modern interpretatino of TES, is incredible. The story was decent, but certainly not what Morrowind is known for. Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas were not developed by BGS which is why I did not mention them. This is a discussion solely about BGS games and why they will likely continue to use a voiced protagonist in the future.

Actually, TES has had a voiced protagonist before, just not in the main series. In Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, Cyrus was the protagonist and he was voiced. So this is definitely something BGS has done in the past, just not with the main games or in recent times.

I don't believe I ever stated a voiced protagonist was new. What I did say is it was an innovation for BGS, meaning something they haven't done in a long time in an attempt to improve their own model (which had no voiced protagonist). So while I didn't say "new," it is in fact new for BGS. Again, the focus here is on BGS games and not others. To truly understand why a voice is likely not going away is to understand how BGS games have worked for decades and why BGS decided to add a voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 at all. It's worth pointing out that Todd stated the first major feature before Fallout 4 even started development would be a voiced protagonist, so this was a known factor from the very start.

BGS always takes risks. Whether doing a voiced protagonists and settlements was too much is debatable and largely irrelevant. Sales will tell BGS whether they made the right decision or not, and so far Fallout 4 is selling very well. If I had to guess, I believe there will be more dialogue variety starting with the DLC. I think due to the nature of the long recording sessions over a period of years being flexible just wasn't as easy as this is relatively new for BGS. As time goes on they'll perfect the system and make it better, as will be the case with settlements.

I think you are making a stretch saying any game with voice is essentially the same. It's really the execution and presentation that matters, not the general principle that is used. Again, thoughts on dialogue being better in New Vegas or previous Fallout games is purely subjective and will get us nowhere. The only thing that will decide what BGS does going forward will be the sales of Fallout 4, and if its breaking records on consoles like it is on Steam, I don't see a player voice going away.

I think the only "heads" that would "roll" would be those who are absolutely against the idea of a voice and placing themselves in denial thinking it won't return. This is a business and BGS ultimately wants to make money to continue to make the games they love. If they believe adding a voice was the right move I can't see them reversing course. Either way, this is clearly a divisive issue and your post merely highlights what I was largely warning against in the OP.

Just having a voiced PC by itself isn't necessarily bad. Record a few thousand more lines so we can have more than 4 options per convo, add a toggle/option or something so we can see full lines if we want to (while leaving the paraphrases by default), make the preset backstory choices things the PC wouldn't have control over (though that might just be a one-off mistake)

BGS did not make Fallout 1, 2 or NV. Black Isle Studios made 1 and 2, and Obsidian made NV (which was founded by key BIS employees during their run with Fallout, and quite a few of their employees were former BIS employees as well)

That is one part of the separation that many people just don't get. While they at times either share the same engine, or use similar revamped engines, they are not the same games. For example: even if we go back to the old attribute systems, you can't use TES attributes in FO and vice versa, just doesn't make sense.

They play similarly, but they are not the same games.

They still have skill checks, just not as many as older games (pre-2000) and hell, Fallout has been closer to this regard than TES. For example: Lockpicking and Hacking - can't even access higher level locks and computers without the minimum requirements...but in Oblivion and Skyrim? You can have lockpick skill of 2 and still open a Master lock.

Fallout does have skill checks, just not as many as they do in older games (because they're not needed) and they are hidden carefully that you don't always notice them. What do you think VATS essentially is? It surprises me sometimes that people don't see the VATS system as that and yet that is basically what it is.


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My take on the voiced protagonist: I'm not completely for it, at least not the way it is implemented here.

1. The dialogue options are not that deep, they can be deeper. I point to Star Wars: The Old Republic which has a very similar system for dialogue interaction. They did not have a very good story arc, they had 8 above-average to excellent story arcs with very nice dialogue all around. Each gender and class combo had a different voice. They also had light and dark choices to make throughout to develop that part of the RP.

In short: BGS could have at least done 1 of 2 things. A.) Record the same lines in multiple voices, say 3-5 males and 3-5 females. B.) Have definitive good/bad type statements with the actor altering their voice to match.

2. It definitely serves the main story, but you really can't deviate too much in personality while doing so. I think what helps alleviate this is that you can still ignore that main quest and just do whatever you want in the game, and you can enjoy a voice to go along. This is still a BGS game and it does allow for you to just go off and do your own thing and completely ignore your given backstory. I have done this in every game where the character I played as really didn't match the intro (especially Skyrim where I justified having a Altmer who was a Dominion supporter and Thalmor hater as the "Dragonborn").

3. For this game in particular, it fits the setting REALLY well. This game has a more definitive art style that is better than both Fallout and New Vegas (though I loved New Vegas style) and it is leagues better than it's predecessors. In that regard, they fit it in very well.



In the end, I'm ok with their decision. I can really ignore all the downsides because there is so much upside to the rest of the game. I just hope that in the future that if BGS continues down this route with a voiced protagonist, they put more resources (money and time) into developing multiple voice options and dialogue. If they do that, they will make a game that is epic on pretty much every single level. The solution is really quite simple. (note: simple =/= easy)

Wait, Beth didn't make NV? That actually explains some things...

In terms of not allowing the player to imagine their own voice, then yes, it is "always the same" in that regard.

Implying that no voice is inferior and not wanted by half the fans, which I would think it is and the reality being that it's evenly split. But of course, "new and shiny hyped voice" will likely replace all Beth games now, leaving us "imagine it" crowed left in the dust. You could at least just say "Voice is better (And you have just said voice is "better" with that previous statement) because it's going to make more money". Personally I think money should be the last thing to be concerned about and that the forefront of things should be pleasing all the fans provided it's not resulting in negative profit. And even if the "imagine it" crowed is in the minority (Which I don't think it is), I would say minority matters as much as majority. How would you feel if I said "There's no voice because I only care about money" if voice had been proven to be at least split 50-50 or under when no voice has been proven to work in past games? It shouldn't just be about the majority. Nor just the minority. But when minority is in the "it's been shown to work this way" group then there's bound to be cause for concern. Why not have it done both ways? Or compromise with half each? The safer approach when testing a new thing in a tried and tested series.

Not any source in particular, no. My observations come from years of reading articles or watching interviews with Todd Howard and the team and merely feedback he has given to the press. If you listen to much of what Todd says, each game is a trial and error process for BGS. Story has always been something they struggled with and they've attempted to make it better with each and every game. Fallout 4 was just the first time they were willing to test out the idea of a player voice. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who actually stated the stories for Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Skyrim were amazing, if even good. Personally, I thought Skyrim was decent, but the previous games were largely forgettable.

Is that really true though? I'm aware of BioWare's history as they are my second favorite developer only behind BGS. However, I think a voiced protagonist was inevitable and always seemed to be something the doctors were in favor of. I just don't believe it was practical before for BioWare due to money constraints and being a PC-only developer. It wasn't until they found success on consoles with KotOR that they realized they could make a lot of money. Jade Empire did decent but was largely disappointing. One thing that's worth pointing out is that BioWare merged with Pandemic to even scrounge the funds to develop Mass Effect.

Mass Effect was always meant to be an RPG though. In fact, it was meant to be an open world RPG. However, due to lack of hard drive space on the Xbox 360 and lack of RAM, quite a few features in Mass Effect were either cut or stripped. That's why Mako exploration on planets was largely pointless, but the entire combat system was based on RPG mechanics. That was the problem. Mass Effect was a good RPG, but not a good shooter, which was odd for a game largely about shooting guns. Thus, the controversial move to remove most of the RPG elements and turn ME2 into a shooter. Anyways, I digress.

I believe BioWare always wanted to do a voiced protagonist. I just don't believe they ever had the money or the capacity to pull it off before. KotOR gave them an audience on consoles and Jade Empire somewhat cemented it. Microsoft was willing to help invest in Mass Effect so BioWare got more money to try and pull off how ambitious the game actually was. Being acquired by EA helped BioWare as money and resources no longer became an issue, regardless of how others may feel about EA. Truth me told, BioWare has more deference in EA than any other developer because of their reputation. You don't see EA delaying any of their other games an entire year just because the developer says it isn't ready.

Without a doubt DAO was never originally meant to be on consoles. It was a CRPG and was a callback to old school RPGs, specifically Baldur's Gate, which they wanted to continue in this spiritual successor. However, Mass Effect's popularity clearly exploded, and while DAO did well, it did not match the success of BioWare's other property. I seriously doubt EA provided any input in deciding whether BioWare made characters voiced or not, as EA has never been involved in BioWare's development process. You can watch any interview with the doctors before they left, Aaryn Flynn, Casey Hudson, BioWare had full discretion and control over the choices they made.

DA2 was entirely BioWare's fault, and while I didn't like the game play, I actually thought the story was very well-done. As far as trashing the lore, that's entirely subjective and really has no place determining whether the games became better or not. Without a doubt going the Mass Effect direction couldn't have been all bad given DAI is the most successful Dragon Age game to date, and it completely embraced the Mass Effect approach even more than DA2.

I definitely understand some will never be pelased with a voice. Again, I personally can separate my game play (which is my role playing) from story segments (which is the developer helping to further build my story and character). I understand not everybody views role play that way and wants full control over their character. I just don't believe that's the kind of game BGS will be making in the future.

Certainly the sales are going to be the main reason whether BGS continues to do a voiced protagonist or not. For one, doing a voiced protagonist is expensive. Secondly, it takes a lot of time, effort, and BGS has to structure that into their development window. Given how well Fallout 4 has done on PC and likely consoles, I really don't doubt this will become a normal feature in BGS games, for better or for worse.

While I really liked the voice acting in DAI, I Don't really think it works well with TES games. The majority of my characters don't follow any quest line, I make up my own stories. I did 3+ years of that on 360, so no mods only what the game gave me to use.

Take the character I'm RP'ing right now, She's A Breton.... in my head she has a French/creole/southern accent. It's part of her personality, softly spoken... a clipped English accent would not suit the character. .. my characters sound the way I want them to, not the way a voice actor thinks they should sound.

I read all the reasons it sounds like a good idea for a voiced protagonist to make his/her way into TES games, I just think for replay reasons it's a bad idea. It limits what the character says... even if that voice is heard by no one but my dogs. I can say what ever I want to the Jarls son about being a boot licker... and I don't think that reply would make it past the PG 13 censors.

As the poster above stated, New Vegas was developed via contract by Obsidian, of which many of their developers were from Black Isle. BGS was working full time on Skyrim after Fallout 3 finished. You could say New Vegas was really fan service to long term Fallout fans as it was a side story to Fallout 3 rather than a sequel. However, nothing in New Vegas was going to influence BGS' development for Fallout 4. Really, I don't see anything, besides maybe more developed companions, that could have been inspired by New Vegas.

That's certainly a compromise that BGS decided to make, but again context is important. There is still plenty of player agency in BGS games, far more than any other out there. The issue here is that some want full control over their character, even if the main quest and side quests in BGS games have always been secondary adventures. Either way, I would still never look at a voiced protagonist in a game like Fallout 4 being the same as Mass Effect or Halo or Bioshock. The way voices are used can be drastically different and largely depends on the story the developer is trying to tell.

I won't begin to make generalizations of whether "half the fans" are against this feature or anything of that sort. This isn't a matter of one being better than the other, but rather BGS making a decision to add a voice to Fallout 4 as they believed it made more sense for the experience they wanted to create. Again, money being the determining factor does not implicate whether one is better or not. All it does say is which is more profitable and seems to be appreciated by a larger consumer base. I wouldn't necessarily say just because more people prefer a voice in Fallout 4 would then suggest a voiced protagonist is definitely "better."

Again, BGS never takes the safe route with anything. You don't become a legendary developer and a lead pioneer in the industry by playing it safe. You take risks. Some pay off. Some don't. Largely for BGS, they haven't made large mistakes. Each and every game since Morrowind has been GotY and has bee more successful than the last. I don't criticize BGS for wanting to implement the workshop (which was originally only going to be for modders only and not in the base game) and a voiced protagonist. I applaud them for being ambitious, trying to provide more opportunities and game play, and then we can measure based on extensive playing what worked well and what didn't. I certainly don't believe the voiced protagonist is perfect, but I believe BGS could improve upon it to a point where I believe most would be content. As always, modders are already creating ways of removing the voice and certainly it won't stop modders from telling the stories they want irrespective of what BGS does.

That's the true beauty of a BGS game. This is just the beginning of Fallout 4. It will be many years in the making and who knows what creations and features will be created to enhance the experience.

I'm kind of indifferent about the main character being fully-voiced. On one hand, it's nice to hear a voice delivering your character's lines. On the other hand, if I want to do another play-through of a game with a character that I've imagined as having a different personality than my first one, hearing the same voice certainly makes it difficult for me to mentally break away from my first character.

I really liked Morrowind's story-line. Sure, the over-arching plot - when summarized in a few sentences - sounds a bit cliche, but I found the execution-in-detail to be well-done and quite interesting.

Anyway, I strongly disagree with this point. A good story and full voice-acting have nothing to do with each other. I've been gaming since the early '80s, and I've played plenty of games with no voice-acting that had great stories as well as fully-voiced games with terrible stories. I don't see the connection between good writing and voice acting. If anything, bad voice acting can ruin an interaction that was otherwise well-written.

Take Mama Murphy in Fallout 4, for example. I don't think she's a terrible character, and I don't necessarily think she's all that badly-written (she's a little bit of a trope, but whatever). The voice acting for that character, however, is absolutely horrid. She sounds like a kid trying to prank call me doing a fake old-lady voice. It really made me dislike a character that I otherwise had little reason to.

New Vegas used the Fallout 3 engine and art assets, but the content was written and built by Obsidian rather than BGS. Bethesda had nothing to do with Fallout 1 or Fallout 2.

I never implied that good voice acting means good story. On the contrary, I stated examples of more recent games I loved that had silent protagonists and great stories (KotOR and DAO). However, those tend to be more of the exception to the rule it seems these days. A story is only good if the story itself was written to be good. However, a voiced protagonist can add a more emotional connection and an investment in the story much easier than a silent protagonist, which is much more built on the discretion of the player and the credibility of the story in isolation.

Again, just a personal preference, but I didn't find the Morrowind main quest to be all that compelling. I absolutely love the lore of Morrowind and the history behind the dwemer, the nords invading, Nerevar being betrayed, the establishment of the Tribunal, etc. Those are two separate things, however. Morrowind was great for learning about all that lore and exploring such a rich world that felt real. The main quest was there but certainly wasn't a highlight for me at least.

No, but I was responding to the statement that a lack of protagonist voice-acting has contributed to Bethesda's reputation for less-than-steller stories. I'd disagree with that. I think that less-than-stellar stories and bland characters have done more to cause that than anything to do with voice acting...except maybe the spots where the voice acting was bad and/or repetitive.

If you like the voice acting I could see it being a net positive. If you don't like it I'd say it's definitely a net negative. If you want to play a very different character on a second play-through I think it's pretty distracting to hear the same voice again, but that's just my opinion.

That's certainly true, although there is nothing necessarily stopping you from playing the other gender? I've been playing BGS games for a very long time and while I'll occasionally make multiple characters, I usually only have one I seriously play the game through. The rest are usually just messing around or modding, at least for my own purposes.

It's here to stay because it's more "cinematic" and that is a nice buzz word that helps selling games. A lot of console folks really like their cinematic games.

Fixed it for you. It's not solely a console thing, it's a gaming thing.

I do agree that, by and large, AAA gaming has made it a staple to do expensive, motiion-capture, CGI-esque type work. It has become a trademark of big games and certainly it's something BGS titles have been missing. Although having a voiced protagonist with a cinematic camera that can be toggled off is hardly going to the level of cinematography found in Halo 5 Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, or the Mass Effect Trilogy.

Really, I think this is just a general testing of the waters to see how a voiced protagonist would work in a BGS game. I think it's probably something BGS has been considering for a long time. Given Todd stated they knew they were doing a voiced protagonist before development even began, that means BGS knew they were doing it as early as 2008.

Again, I personally don't believe the voiced protagonist is without flaws in this game and there is room for improvement. However, I do believe it is a stepping stone to something that many could appreciate, although the silent protagonist advocates will never approve regardless.

I'm sure there are plenty of AAA PC games with lots of cinematics, or at least multiplat games that are geared towards PC and then ported down to console. Of the 3 you mentioned, I have no idea about any of those series because well....Microsoft. Gamers will play the games they love because they love them. I know lots of console games that have next to no cinematics or just cheesy cutscenes that aren't even animated well but are wildly popular.

I agree, they are testing it and I think it'll come out as a net positive. However I think it needs a lot of work and more investment to make it truly work in a really good way (I mentioned some stuff in a post above, and highlighted the key point in yellow if you haven't seen it). And yes the silent protagonist fans will never be satisfied unless maybe one day that'll be an option as well to have no voice (and the dialogue is fully written out and differs from spoken dialogue)? I actually think that would be the least costly thing they could do to appease the other side there. I'm one of them that is a bigger fan of the silent protagonist, but again, I can live with what they've done here. Just less of a deal to me because it's such a small sliver of the entire gaming experience (I don't let the garnish on one of my sides ruin my entire entree).

I personally barely have time to make it through one play-through of a game these days...much less a long one.

Anyway, no, nothing is stopping you from playing the other gender. Then again, that's not really me playing the character I want to play, either, which is exactly what people that aren't fans of the voiced protagonist are arguing for. Like I said, I think there are pros and cons for both...I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here.

I think that allowing the player to choose their character's voice from a bank of multiple voice sets would mitigate the issue quite a bit. Generating that much recorded dialog wouldn't be easy or cheap, though. Seems like it would be easier just to provide an option to turn it off.

The first Mass Effect was certainly a Microsoft exclusive, but it was eventually released to PC with ME2 and ME3 being multiplatform. We could also look at games such as Crysis, Battlefield, The Witcher, Metro Last Light, which are PC-centric developers who have also ported their games to PC. Either way, it's just a trend among some developers but not necessarily all of them.

That's honestly the way I see it. To me, at least, my role playing never happened in the main story or side quest of BGS games anyways. It was through the open world exploration and environmental storytelling that I would build my character. Thus, I don't really see a voiced protagonist taking anything away from me, as the main quest has always been secondary and not an essential part of BGS games anyways. It might be shocking to know but I didn't actually complete most of the main stories for any BGS game for quite some time. Partially, it was because I just didn't care to due to the quality, but really I just never really felt that was the point of the game. I think BGS is trying to rectify that, and honestly I have actually played more of the main quest in this game closer to release than I have of any other BGS game. At least for me, BGS apparently did something different to make me more interested in the main story.

This is when I feel it's less about "role playing" and more about you just wanting to be the character, which is fine, but those are two separate things. A role player can run multiple playthroughs regardless of the gender and build stories for whatever they wish. If you just want to embody the character, yourself, that's more of a matter of player agency, which can be attributed to be an extension of role play.

While that would be preferred, it's not practical or efficient, which is why BGS tried to recruit two voice actors who could project voices that could be used for a variety of different play styles. Whether it worked or not is debatable, but they just don't have the funds to bring in all those voice actors just to try and give the player a bit more choice. Still, some of the silent protagonist advocates don't want a voice at all, so even that wouldn't suffice.

As stated previously, there is already an option to turn off the voiced protagonist, and you can make all the dialogue visible in subtitles. The main complaint I have heard since then is there aren't "enough choices." Personally, I've always valued quality over quantity. Having more choices doesn't necessarily mean there is more player control, as often multiple voices tend to be varying shades of the same outcome or choice. Regardless, my point is people will always have something to complain about. Not that a voiced protagonist has its limitations, but regardless of what BGS does, people will criticize anyway.

I believe that kind of feedback will be more conducive once we see what BGS does with their DLC and perhaps with TES VI if they decide to continue a voiced protagonist in their main franchise.

I believe he was saying that from a Playstation user's perspective.

Sure, I think the reasoning on all sides is pretty self-evident.

Isn't that more or less what I said...?

I wasn't aware of that. I didn't care enough to go looking for the option and didn't read this entire thread.

Control of what? Control of what their character sounds like? I think it would.

For many, it would most likely lead to more player immersion when playing multiple characters.

That doesn't automatically invalidate all criticisms, though, so I'm not sure what your point is there. Is this a thread to discuss opinions or to accuse people of whining?

Well, this is true of everything, always, and without exception.

My attitude, as far as Bethesda RPGs go (I strongly welcome voiced protags in other games). I really like having a voice now, but I definitely don't want it for every playthrough.