People say having a completely blank slate is the best for RPGs, but there really is something to be said for taking a character with a loosely established background and exploring the different ways someone with that background would handle various scenarios.

I'd be sort of surprised if there wasn't a switch to turn the voice off.

If not that will be one of the first mods. I can already think of one easy, albeit tedious, way to do it, and I don't even have the toolset yet.

I'm going to leave mine on though. I'm more immersed when my character has a voice than not, especially if I'm playing the opposite gender.

I'm not worried at all, as I really liked listening to Laura Bailey in Saints Row 3 and 4. As for the conversation wheel, I trust Bethesda more than Bioware with actually describing what a choice on the wheel means, as very few times have I been disappointed with how a conversation has gone down in FO3. The wheel is where more wrong can happen, but I wait to see what happens before I pass judgement.

The thing is, with a blank slate, you can invent a loose background yourself and play according to it. The only way set elements are better is if you don't have the creativity to make one up yourself. Which I'm not blaming btw, some people just aren't good at that. So to appeal to everyone, some set elements can be good. The problem some of us have with FO4's set elements is that they tell things about personality rather than just circumstance. Saying "my character would never have a father ! Especially not one called James !" makes no sense, it'd be a silly complaint. But "my character would never marry !" makes sense, because that's something a person chooses, so it's a legitimate complaint.

You've got a point, but I feel like the developers can create a stronger narrative when there's something established for them to go off of. I would have liked it if James was shown to be more of a hard-ass, or neglectful, so that our Lone Wanderer would have more reason to be resentful of him.

Are there going to be cutscenes? I got the impression from the E3 demo the dialogue is more fluid, so you can walk away in the middle of conversation like Skyrim, rather than the previous Fallout games.

It's more than that. You're not locked in at all during the dialogue. So when you look away the dialogue wheel goes away, but if you look back the wheel comes back up. At least, according to TH during the interview.

This ^

When I read what you wrote about Alpha Protocol's method, I immediately thought of the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1PKFo1fYCA. lol

They could have had the kid and the dude/chick there without it being a marriage though. Then you could RP (and affirm through dialogue) that the other advlt is your sibling, a friend, a roommate that you're helping because you're wealthier, or the opposite, or to provide a missing parent figure, or hell, you could not even live there and be visiting when the bombs drop, etc

And that way it would make more sense if you choose to not like or care about them later

I'm not feeling that dialogue wheel at all. (A) for passive, (X) neutral, B aggressive, and (Y) for more information. And you can't see what you are going to say. I'm sure a lot of people would like to know what their character is going to say.

Yup, gonna have to save before every convo I guess

At least they picked a "well rounded" voice. By that I mean I hear that voice and I can see many faces it would match with.