Dogmeat was with the minutemen.. if you pay attention one of them sais "good work dogmeat you found someone" or something along those lines. the dog was sent for help and found you.. he already had a name (dogmeat) when you found him.. he was most likely sent to bring you to help the minutemen.

.. unless you dismiss Dogmeat the second you meet him.

Bethesda gives you the option to dismiss him, but doesn't care if you do because they just cover their eyes and ears and say, "No, no! Dogmeat's your best friend! He's been with you this entire time!"

I never thought I'd be agreeing with someone who hates dogs and babies , but yeah you have a solid point OP. There are no choices in this game (other than which faction to do chores for I guess?) and you're shoehorned every step of the way. Having a set character with a set backstory, set relationships, and set personality only works if it's really well done (I felt TW3 did a great job with this though it also had choices) and in the case of Fallout 4 I feel it wasn't. None of the perks add extra dialogue options the way skills did, none of them give you extra ways to solve a quest (aside from combat style or unlocking a back door).

I feel like it's the end of an era and the games I loved are all going away. BioWare and now Bethesda have significantly changed their focus and it's away from the things that I loved. Maybe it's finally time to put video games aside and go back to reading books.

dogmeat is actually god, and he chooses certain people to become immortal profits and do his work on the wasteland.

dogmeat backwards is taemgod

not a real word but my point stands!!!

It is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE to meet Nick without ever meeting a synth or knowing what it is.

Yeah, so much this. So far it's been the biggest immersion-breaker in the game.

Not only because the name "Dogmeat" hasn't yet been told to my PC, but also because of the magic of spawning.

Edit: As a side note, I find it strange that forum moderators are complaing about players being too passionate about the game... :S

Aww poor little sweetheart. Someone forced you to play the totally optional entertainent piece called "Fallout 4" and you can't have everything exactly as you like it?

How generous of you that you can deal with all the other horrible stuff like a voice over at a dialogue interface.

Honestly though, this is the first time in a while on the interwebz I have seen anything as pathetic as this rant.

To be far to the OP, it did seem very awkward. In my game, I left Dogmeat at the Sanctuary to do a bit of solo traveling. When Nick mentioned him I thought, ‘OK, how does he even know Dogmeat exists, period?’ Then when I found Dogmeat outside, I balked. ‘How the hell did Dogmeat know to come here? Who escorted him halfway across the Commonwealth?’ I half expected to see Cait standing there with Dogmeat, not that her presence would've made any of this make more sense.

It did ruin the immersion a bit because:
? It relied on Nick and Dogmeat knowing something that, realistically, they should have no way of knowing. Nick had never met Dogmeat before, so how does he realize that this specific dog is what we need instead of a generic “What we need is a good sniffer to help us. Think you know of one?” The latter hints that we should probably go collect Dogmeat.

? For players who didn't want the dog, it forced him on them. There could've easily been an option where Nick and Nate/Nora searched for clues without the dog.

? Dogmeat, a dog, apparently has the power to not only teleport from wherever we left him, but he seems to have keen insight on when he's needed. This is not explained. It felt too much like a deux ex machina.

So yeah, this was kind of bothersome for me. I still enjoy the game and all, but this could've been handled better.

This would have literally solved everything.

Bethesda is known for doing crap like this though.

It was charming in Morrowind, but it's 2015, and every game in between has done this as well.

I remember in Oblivion, for example, how the vampire trying to take over the imperial city treats you like a lowly mortal even if you yourself are a vampire. Uhhh, why can't I join you? Why can't you at least reference that I'm a vampire and that you don't want to share power with me? Just please for the love of GOD acknowledge my character in SOME way.

It's also how in Skyrim Ondolemar will explain to you what an elf is...even if you yourself are an elf.

Bethesda games have trouble actually reacting to how you play outside of very specific circumstances.

Dog meat is a synth sent to spy on you, the institute knew you would thaw out so they placed a synthetic dog in the nearest map marker in front of you to wait 60 years for you to thaw out and become your companion sending messages to them every time he dissapears and blocking all the doors that get you closer to finding out about the institute.

Although I like Dogmeat just fine, yeah, that particular scene in the main quest was incredibly silly. I hadn't traveled with the dog for a long time since I was trying out the human companions I'd found, so when Nick was all 'what about Dogmeat?' and suddenly there he was, randomly waiting outside, I was like.... um... okay? Ideally, the scene would only have played out that way if you had Dogmeat with you right then. Otherwise Nick could have just said something along the lines of 'hey, if only we had a dog!' and you could be all 'dude, I got one!' and then a quest marker appears wherever Dogmeat is and you meet him back at Diamond City. (Behold my great dialogue writing skillz, yo. ) The travel would be a bit tedious (as I don't fast travel) but at least I wouldn't have been scratching my head at the psychic abilities of Nick Valentine and the magic super dog. Yeah, love the game, and even like the main quest a lot, but the way that one scene played out was a major weak point.

And as far as the baby plot goes... I feel like I had plenty of options to be vague about what I was searching for, or move the conversation along so I could avoid the more emotional dialogue, and I know at least a couple times I could express that revenge was my motivator. I don't know... I see a lot of complaints about people choosing dialogue responses they didn't want, but I've never really had that issue. Maybe I was just lucky enough to guess right, but, while I could critique many aspects of the dialogue system, so far the paraphrasing hasn't been one of them. I think you just have to pay more attention. Someone in this thread said the result of the 'you're one of them' option when Nick tells you he's a synth came as a surprise... But, it says "you're one of them" in the 'mean/rude' slot of the dialogue wheel - 'ew, you're one of them, creepy synth, are you involved?' was pretty much exactly what I would have expected to come out of that considering the context.