I'm new here but i'm not new to the land and lore of fallout. All the way from black isle to interplay and, to bethesda. Also that thing with myan apoc.

The voiced protagonist worries me. Usually the character doesn't speak because he IS you. Adding a voice seems to tear me away from my character. Not to mention my character having a backstory, a wife, and child. It seems you are designing someone else and living in their bodies. Although I don't hate this feature as the whole. Since I really love fallout.

Which leads me to another point, this is just something that amuses me. You see your child and wife lowered into the vault. Todd later tells you that you are the only survivor of the vault. Which leads me to think that one your family is dead, or two they are captured by someone or something. It may be like the story to fallout 3, which I hope not, but I will still love it anyways.

This is wayyy off the subject, but I hope their are talking deathclaws. Which there has been . . . Deathclaws can say short human words, (to lure pray.) Deathclaws also sharpen their claws, (I thought at first that they were picking their teeth, but then I saw them grinding claws together, in the thorn..) That means they are aware that they need their claws sharp, and they know how to sharpen them. This means they are more smart. I doubt they are in packs anymore since this was a little bit before fallout new vegas, and the BOS is still around. Meaning there is more protection, so is it that far off that one may have learned to speak? Maybe not as good as a human, but still understandable.( I do however know that deathclaw alpha males exist if you looked at leaked photos, so packs may exist...)

please let me craft a deathclaw gauntlet . . . I NEED THIS BETHESDA...

I think its the natural extension of fallout. Fallout 1-3 to me (and it an extent NV) kept your storyline feeling sometimes less than personal. Sure your mother died in childbirth in FO3 and your father dies half way through FO3, but you could rage against them for screwing up your life by not being around or not telling you the truth.

In Fallout 1 and 2, you dont have any family bar where you come from. We dont know if the Vault Dweller has a mum and dad waiting for him back in the vault who are probably fairly ticked off with the overseer for kicking out the Vault Dweller in the end. In FO2, we know the Chosen one is related to the Elder who gives the quest, but again the game never really teases out the characters background.

But you had a set background in FO3. You were the son or Daughter of James.

So starting off with a background (and not be a random vault dweller) in FO4 is an extension of the concept started in FO3. Your character has a history. They were a Veteran of the Resource wars. It does not specifiy if the character was a medic, grenadier or whatever. Its not that specific The game gives you a wife/ husband and child.

Then they all die and you wake up from the Vault ( and are probably reanimated by some machine) as the Sole Survivor. Now you could obviously look to your past to find your future, or you could ignore the past to find the future. I just dont see how Im 'living in their bodies' if I can make my character lucky or not, strong or not, intelligent or not. You may decide your veteran was a Medic. Build up their charisma, Intelligence and healing perks. I might decide my guy was the Quartermaster and building up stuff related to speech intelligence and Charisma. Cheshirecat migh decide his guy was a Sniper and take agility and luck to new heights. The only thing set is that we were married and we had a kid. Thats it.

And I must of missed something. I didnt see the wife and child lowered into the vault (and Im looking at the E3 footage). I saw us all shielding our eyes/faces from the blast.Then fade to black. We are told WE are lowered into the vault. Nothing was said about wife and child. If we wake up 200 years later, Wife and Child or Husband and Child are dead. Humans dont live that long. We dont know what life expectancy was like in 2077 but we might say 85 years? So they are about 3 generations dead already. I dont believe for a second they are Ghouls, are store in a hard drive in a Protecteron or other. I think the cold fact they are dead should have an impact on the player.

Now could I find their descendants? Sure. That would be interesting me helping them out, and they have no clue as to why the character is helping them out. I kinda like that mysterious help kinda thing. It makes for good storytelling.

Todd says (not exact.) Don't worry, you were lowered in the vault," and your family was on the platform.

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So the main theory I have seen going around is that you are lowered into the vault with your family and you somehow make it to the cryo sleep pods. We're assuming the wife or spouse dies and the child survives, but wakes up before you by about 15-25 years and will be a man during the game.

This has not been confirmed but it makes for a solid plot. They could also go the route of descendants of your son but I believe that would make you lose a little bit of the emotional bond with that character.

Im still not convinced that your family managed to also get lowered in, maybe they couldnt for whatever reason I dont know. Something malfunctioned, you went down.. they didnt. If he had of said 'Your family were lowered down as well' then yeah they were inside. Of course they may of well have been I dont know. We dont know. I dont think the game would be cruel enough to find the bones of your significant other on the top of the vault door. I think that would be really rough if they did that. I just think you will never find them OR you will find a message on a terminal somewhere or a recording saying what happened to them after the event. You want those emotional moments to REALLY hit the player and finding the last recording from your partner would really be a kick in the emotionals.

Assuming the Cryogenics path was taken, maybe their pods malfunctioned 70 years in. The geothermal/other power fluctatuted and the computer made a choice on which pods to turn off. Its a cold path which obviously has a emotional svcker punch too as a programming code basically killed off the rest of your family.

I actually LOVE that they are giving us these issues that could happen. They are killing off our partner/child to give impetus to our character to find out what became of them and what the world holds for us now. Its psychologically a little daunting but the post apocalypse should be. There should be glimmers of light in the darkness. A laugh occasional and a shocking moment every so often.

The biggest thing Im looking forward to is finding out about the Vault Tec experiments in the area. I LOVe finding a new vault and then entering it encountering whatever it was set up to do and the logs of people affected by it. Encounter my first pod person, my first psycho affected by white noise, my first. 'Gary?'. Thats why im in.

I am so glad I am not the only one who believes in the cyro thing. This could be supported by the fact that one of the vaults in fallout 3 had people in pods, that did not seem to age. I am not saying that you are those guys, but that the technology is possible.

I agree with you on that. I am dying to know what experiment your vault as well as others are going through.

Talking deathclaws in my book was kinda silly, ya cant just boost there intelligence and automatically get speech, they also need to physically have the throat built to support the kind of vocal cords that can generate speech, then there's the part about the lips...

As for voiced player, I welcome it as a natural evolution of games with voiced NPCs, I personally found it stiff and kinda bland that you where in a way mute while everybody else had a voice.

Honestly I am least excited about the main story of the game. I am just excited to explore and find new things. The best thing about these games is when you stumble across something out in the wilderness or a cave that isn't directly related to a quest. Maybe some seance is being held or maybe you turn the corner and see some cannibals roasting someone on a fire or maybe you find some vault with a bunch of crazed bandits living in it.

Those encounters are what really makes these types of games fun for me. Questlines are great and I will complete every quest I come across, but immersion and exploration are what I play the game for.

well there have been deathclaws that spoke in past games. Not to mention they can say short phrases to attract prey, no doubt from hearing another human speak. If they can do this then why can't a lone deathclaw figure speech out. If you add this with a high intelligence, then it seems possible. Maybe not fluent speech, but short words.

Deathclaws replicate speech. THey lack the vocal chords to actually speak but can mimic speech.. basically in the same way some Birds can.

Intelligent Deathclaws are a scary thought, as for sharpening their claws... most animals like cats tend to their claws.

I also love that my character is voiced. I thought that was cool in mass effect 3.

But there was a deathclaw that could actually speak in one of the last games... like talk.

You mean the ones made by a studio that doesnt exist anymore, tho beth hasnt denounced 1 & 2 canon, they are not obligated to follow it on every point. So until seen in a beth made Fallout its not 100% canon anymore honestly.

I think he was agreeing with you.

Having a deathclaw as a companion is ridiculous enough.

Having him say things like "I put the death in deathclaw" is deadpool breaking the 4th wall levels of nonsense.

They kept the idea of the master, not only kept it but used it. Which was invented in the 2nd one. They also kept many creatures. They could have easily gotten rid of such a big detail, and started a new, so is it that really far off that they would ditch the idea, especially since deathclaws can still make small noises. I am not saying full sentences but like cut language.

"good"

"bad"

"not good"

"hurt."

"hello"

I never said anything about a follower though, you would be waayyy overpowered.

maybe a small questline, and he/she gives you items for like helping them not let local humans beat him up with tnt or something.

When even fallout fans back in the day rolled there eyes at a talking deathclaw I suspect beth, in the intrest of game tone will avoid it.

Heck in my book its more likely beth makes it a none canon easter egg that pokes fun at it if a talking deathclaw was added.

I agree with you. The main quest in Bethesda games has always proven to be low on my list of priorities. I still haven't beaten the main quest for Skyrim, and that came out almost four years ago.

Now regular questlines are extremely important to me. Personally, I find pure exploration gets dull after awhile without any context. Scenery can only do so much for me. Some ways that Beth/Obsidian counterthis is unique loot, prop placement, audio logs and terminals that tell a story, and of course, quests. Of those, sidequests obviously have the most work put into them. Those sidequests are what I'm most excited for, because 3 and New Vegas have had some spectacular ones.

Well talking deathclaws would be the best thing ever. I think it would be logical;

I enjoy the side quests more, mainly because you have to do them in order to be strong enough to do story or DLC.

your character has a backstory in every single fallout game, what you decide to do with him is up to you. I think people are overreacting to the voiced protagonist and backstory a little bit. The only thing Bethesda is doing new with this game is showing you more of that backstory in a glimpse of the pre-bomb era. It's really not that big of a deal, and it doesn't change anything.

On the issue of the "voiced protagonist" not being YOU, I feel this issue has so much less to do with the voiced conversation as it has to do with a general sub genre of CRPGs in general. There have ALWAYS been a blurry line between old school "western" CRPGs and traditinal JPN CRPGs. Those games that closely mimic pen and paper D&D type RPGs have always leaned more toward a player created character with sketchy, unknown or no background that allows the player to create the PCs back-story to some degree and this usually results in the backstory not really being important with in the story itself, but can certainly influence how the player makes choices as the game story unfolds. Traditional JPN CRPGs have always leaned more toward an existing character that the player takes control of (both developmentally and game choices) but is still a specific character placed in a specific story and the STORY is focused on more than the freedom the player has to control the character within said story. Western games include a myrid of games from Bards Tale to SSI Gold Box games to Baldur's Gate while Final Fantasy series is the de-facto standard for the traditional JRPG genre.

The more modern RPG style leans toward a hybridization of these 2 genres (Mass Effect is the most popular example....Shepherds Story). The fact of the matter is, most players simply do not realize just how close Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim leaned toward the JRPG formula compared to the traditional pen and paper D&D formula and as games tend to lean more toward an interactive narrative rather than a D&D session they will certainly alienate some old school RPers (to some extent, myself included). However, keep in mind that while I or others may not like this trend, it is another aspect of creative and enjoyable entertainment for a wider audience and I cannot blame any company for going in a direction that increases their popularity and income. ESPECIALLY if the game they develop still turns out to be a good, rounded product that provides me with hundreds of hours of entertainment.

I get that some players are emotionally invested in the Fallout Universe and feel "betrayed" by the path it has and is taking, but bottom line, this is Bethesda's game (not YOURS) you have 100% control over your purchasing power and opinions of the final results, but NOT the development of the game.

*claps* good god on a pogostick its nice to see someone with there head screwed on straight.

Well, you do have a (very small)degree of control in development by paying with your wallet.

If enough people didn't buy the game due to the VP, it would change in future installments.

Of course this won't happen, as the people who care are a minority on the Internet.

I have thought the concept of a voiced protagonist is the natural evolution of western style role playing games. While you lose the customization and creative control of a pen and paper system, games like Fallout and Skyrim create a memorable gaming experience for me, voiced protagonist or not.