You're supposed to read the option before you select it.

I am not sure that simply muting the protagonist would work well. Speaking takes time, and when we select a line of dialogue, a quiet pause will follow as our character mouths his lines. NPC reactions to what we say could come somewhat later than I would like.

I am happy enough with what I have seen so far. Beth have put a lot of effort into the recording and have chosen two great voice actors. My only complaint with the system is that it does not encourage more than one play through with each gender. I could not stand two different characters that both sounded the same. But with no level cap I guess that will just mean I will have to reach for the stars with a single build.

It is hard for me to vote unless I see how Beth choose to run with it. Options like mute and written text are good but I need to see it in action before I judge.

Unless Beth is much better at coming up with the paraphrases than EABioware, you have no clue what the character will say when you pick a hint of a sort of a kind of a paraphrase from the wheel o'hints. DA2 had the never gets old example of picking "I want to be a dragon." What EABioware's character eventually says is "That looks like a useful trick. Can you teach me?" [by the way, having dialogue so far off from the hints kills the narrative for me, since I'm usually going "What the heck did he/she say? That isn't what I wanted at all." I'm not focusing on the story since I trying to make what is supposed to be my character react the way I want. In a set, not exactly my character character like Shepard, I can deal with it. I'm not really playing a character I was responsible for creating. Even so if the devs pick a voice actor who interprets the character in a way I don't like, I won't play the game if there is no alternative. MaleShep never made it off the Normandy. If I couldn't have stood Jen Hale's character, I would have passed on the game.

I believe the devs talked about ensuring that the paraphrasing is accurate when actually spoken.

But, I shouldn't use the devs as a reliable source, they're akin to snake oil salesmen on this forum /s

The paraphrasing has gotten bettter with BioWare. It was awful in the first ME but got better in ME 2 and ME 3. DA:I is good but has a few flaws. Sometimes my character will come off sounding like a whiny little [censored] when I didn't want him to.

Yeah, when asked about it they seem to be pretty aware of the pros and cons of having a voiced protagonist. It's not like they're saying "misleading dialog topics? less personal interpretation of the character? what are you talking about?"

The devs have been very upfront about it. And the voice actors spike about how many times they had them redo things and anolyze them to be sure what was shown on the screen was expressed.

I don't see the issue people are having with a voiced protagonist. I can't see any reason for this to be a bad thing?

Perhaps next gen, consoles can record our voices expressing different emotions, and use sound algorithms to generate protagonist dialog that match our own vocal tones. Allowing us or whoever we want to voice the protagonist.

To be honest, I don't know how we've gotten this far without voiced dialogue. It adds a whole new level to gameplay that you just can't get from reading lines in your head.

Well, a voiced PC isn't exactly necessary. I'd much rather have better writing for the dialogue.

I'm totally fine with a voiced PC if the VA works well. It makes much more sense for pre-made characters but given how less of a blank slate the PC in FO4 seems to be I think it's fine.

Adding those little icons to denote tone of speech (snarky, angry, happy, etc) in..... DA2?.... was a good feature. Was that in DA:I? I don't remember....

I'm going to go with "Older players are used to creating their characters and using their imagination." Really, pnp D&D didn't have voiced characters. As far as that goes, books don't either. I know that some younger people seem to be more allergic to reading text than classic vampires are to sunlight, but there doesn't seem to be a "omg, the books need to have voiced characters" outcry. Why? If having a voice is so immersive, why aren't there more audiobooks? Why are they being marketed as a convenience rather than an immersive experience that is so much better than simply reading?

Even with audiobooks, if the voice isn't at least close to what I thought the character would sound like, I've skipped the book or stopped listening to the audiobook/series. I got into audiobooks when I was trying to find a way to let my Mom keep up her reading when her macular degeneration got to the point she couldn't anymore. I've kept up with *some* audiobooks; being able to listen to books while at work and the commute to and from work is great. Have I taken advantage of Audible.com's return policy, yes. If the voice isn't right listening to the book just doesn't work for me. That doesn't mean I won't get the text version of that book if I like the story/subject. Do I still get and read text? Oh yes. Unless something happens to my vision I don't believe I'll ever stop reading reading.

I a do agree with what you're saying, and my history with role-playing does actually go back to PnP and tabletop.

My point is that, in the case of Fallout 4, it's not the fact of their being a voiced protagonist, but the way that it has been implemented. I don't know if you've heard Brian Delaney's recent interview, but he manages to get this point across brilliantly.

Locked for post count