No, it's not. 4 is a lot more narrow. Starting in a prison, or Privateer's Hold (which I always assumed was some sort of prison) isn't giving you a backstory. It's not saying where you were born, or if you have children, or you're married or had a dog.

In other words, the only thing every character made in an ES game had in common was where they started. In F4, every character has the same backstory, same kid, a wife, dog, house, etc.

1 versus 4 or 5. Simple math. Obviously 4 is a lot more narrow. It's not even an argument.

Doesn't bother me. I usually save right before the game proper (leaving the vault, for example) and never play the intro again. Far as I care, it never happened.

Voice might get annoying (Beth svcks at writing), but I can just turn the volume down (have subtitles on anyways, I read faster than characters can talk).

Never really do the MQ anyways as they are always kinda dull. Basically, I don't see a pre-set character as much of an issue for me.

I can totally see myself taking 50 hours before even starting the 1st main quest thing in Fallout 4.

Is everyone just ignoring the possibility that the PC might be the baby? Todd said that you make it in the Vault, he never said you are that guy. Codsworth names you, but you could just be the spitting image of ypur father. Beth has a long tradition of giving us a blanc slate to start with, be who yoy want. I don't think they'll change that.

Oh gee i am sorry 5 out of 6 TES games start you out as a prisoner. yeah that one exception completely negates the argument. Pfft..

Nothing about a family as in being married and having a child restricts the player's moral compass or the personality of the player. how old are you people? Seriously if you think starting your own family suddenly makes you a preset predefined person with no varriation then i have to wonder do you get out much? Do you read? have you no life experience? I have met drug addled selfish wankers that are married with children. I have read about serial killers with families. i have met jerks with children. The Allies and the Axis in WWII both had members who were married with children. Nothing about having a family has any predetermined aspect of your personality. I have met dead beat fathers and mothers both married and unmarried.

Please tell me what possible personality is restricted to you by having a child?

Having lived through the 50's, I can tell you that an awful lot of suburbanites living apparently perfect lives were far from perfect. It was a time when appearances were more important than self expression. People didn't act out but rather conformed to an ideal.

Add war to the mix and life in a vault, and it doesn't take too much RP justification to create any type of character.

Um, I think it was made very clear in the demo that we play as either the mother or the father.

Kjarista has it right. From my understanding of the 1950s, everything was appearance. It didn't matter if you lived in the most horrible household ever with abusive alcoholics for parents, as far as the outside world should be concerned, you were this polite, docile child of polite, docile parents.

So since you can't form an argument you just resort to ad hominems and assumptions, Gothfather?

1 restriction<4 or 5 restrictions. Simple math. Obviously 4 is more narrow than an ES game.

He said the baby would look like a mix of both parents. The PC, when leaving the vault, looked identical to the man before the war. Same voice as well.

I think they gave you a backstory because they wanted to focus on story telling. Doing that with a blank slate is too hard as you can never account for every players playstyle and motives. I think they just won't draw too much attention to it.

Also, if you're the baby, you'd have to really work the parent system to get exactly what you want the baby to look like. Seems like extra complication just for that.

You had to use mods to play as your 10 year old super genius, and you will have to use mods to do so again in F4. So just get a mod that mods out the back story, I'm sure there'll be one.

Also, I'm in the camp of there's always been a back story you have to roll with, Fallout 3's being more constricting. You played out your entire life up to the point you leave the vault and you grew up in a vault. In F4 everything before you are introduced to the character can be created by you. Do they ever say you are married in the game? Perhaps you could roleplay you are living with a friend who has a kid.

I've said it (or at least implied it) once before-

Always catering to the "blank slate" character actually hobbles the main quest in some manner or another. Without a backstory, the main quest will insult your mother, shoot your dog, and burn your house down in order to get you involved, because that's the only guaranteed way to get you involved. And practically EVERY game by gamesas has that scenario. You're not given a choice to do something, that choice has been made for you. And I for one welcome a main quest where the start is actually the result of an actual choice (real or imagined) by the protagonist, not because Fate came down and said "This is what you're doing, you have no say in the matter."

Very clear? I don't think so. You can customize two people and a baby is generated. So either you're the baby or you are a parent and the baby will be a plotdevice. Search for your son in FO4 instead of search for your father in FO3. I'm hoping option 1. Option 2 would be lazy writting, just a copy/paste/turn180degrees kinda thing. I'm hoping Beth is not that lazy, seeing as Todd said work on 4 started when 3 finished.

You should listen to the presentation. Todd Howards clearly said you can play as the mother or the father and he will the one you play.

He was presumably in Cryogenic sleep for 200 years imagine how crazy he could be after waking up? You could roleplay maybe the cryogenic chamber malfunctioning and damaging your characters brain causing him to become a weapon crazy pyromaniac. Possibilities are endless.

You don't start with a dog and there is a negative response to meeting the dog so you are not forced to take the dog. But hey lets not let logic and facts ruin the narrative you want to tell which is i am a poor gamer unfairly restricted by Bethesda.

Having a spouse and a Child is not a restictive background. There is nothing inherent to this background with regards to the type of person your character is. You can be...

A conartist using the marriage to swindle your spouse out of their savings

A serial killer using the marriage and kid as a beard to appear normal and defelect suspision.

A spy using the marriage to blend in while you report back to the chinese government.

A thief that also happens to have a family. You steel to provide for your family.

A disgrunteled unhappily married person thinking of leaving but... the bombs fell.

A soldier who hates this life and wishes only to return to combat where you feel you can serve your country

A reformed gang member who is trying to turn their life around.

A straight up suburban drone living the 50's dream

A crooked cop using the system to gain as much wealth before you run off with your mistress

A person who suffered a complete breakdown when you awoke in a vault filled with dead people so you imagined this perfect life before the bombs fell to give you comfort in this terrible radiation blasted distopia.

This is just 10 quick wildly divergent possible characters that work with zero effort.

The most limiting aspect of your character is not the wife, the kid or the voice actors but that you were born before the bombs dropped. As this limits any background to what was plausible pre war. You (the PC) seem to have zero knowledge of the world post war. So any background referencing post war is out. unless you do the I have amnesia trope.

Also, in FO4 the restrictions are based on choices made by the character. Twist and turn it however you like, but there will always be the "picture perfect" familylife, be it a facade or not. Being a prisoner is just a way of putting you in the game, and doesn't even have to mean you start of as a criminal. Falsely accused, framed, imprisoned for tax evasion up til murder/[censored] and those kind of things. In FO4, even the sort of relationship is somewhat predetermined in the character creating "beard or no beard honey".

That said, what has been is only a small base for whats going to be. Only thing it might be difficult to RP is a virgin! My main concern is the voice, and how it plays out. For me, it is essential to be able to play many different characters with them all feeling like different characters, rather than variations of the one. Previously, even in FO3, you can imagine your voice being that of a 40+ man if you want to. I might want to play an old veteran specialized in explosives. Or a huge black guy wielding a sledgehammer. That might prove difficult when you sound like a 30ish white man with classic newsreader voice.

1<4 or 5. Obviously F4 is more narrow than an ES game.

A friend and myself say you can create any object in your head. I say it has to be blue, but my friend says it has to be blue, rectangular and solid in form. Which has more restrictions? The person that gave you more restrictions.

I'm just here to say I like the idea of a pre determined character. The voice acting seems good and having a defined character to build around hopefully means the narrative is better told

Give me one personality that you can't play with a spouse and child.

Just one. If you can't name one then err are you actually resticted?

Really, the protagonist isn't predefined. We know exactly two things about him ... he was married with child before the great war and he survives the war and intervening centuries being a Vaultsicle.

Is it really too difficult to come up with an interesting character concept within that broad framework?

I agree. Who knows what sort of personality he/she has. All we know is that he/she had a fondness for his/her spouse and children (and you don't have to be a good person to at least like your spouse and kids.) He/she was frozen in a vault for 200 years and...that's it.

You can easily come up with a character who is morally bankrupted and couldn't give two caps about people. With his/her family gone, well, I think we all know what will happen then.

OK, so maybe making the character a pre-War citizen who was married with child can be seen as restrictive, but it's no worst than Fallout 3. In that game, you WERE a child born in the Wasteland. You WERE the son/daughter of a scientist. You DID grow up in a Vault for 19 years until Daddy dearest left you to resurrect his old project. Your mother WAS also a scientist who died giving birth to you. That was really restrictive to me, I couldn't make an aged Wanderer pushing 50 because according to the timeline, I was supposed to be a 19-year-old kid.

This is not as bad as Fallout 3's by any means.

Red herring. You said TES was narrower in terms of character restriction during creation, I showed it mathematically wasn't.

I believe Todd mentioned you are the sole survivor from vault 111, so your family is dead if they made it into the vault with you as it seemed like.

QQ the big meanie asked me to show how I was restricted when I couldn't i just said it is a red herring.

If you can't name a single way this resticts a personality then it isn't actually a limitation. And claiming it is a red herring doesn't actually make it so.

So can you actually show a single case where a personality can't work with a spouse and child?