Will it return for real this time?

Will it be fully voice acted?

Wouldn't it be fun as hell?

I think intelligence as a stat, in general, is rather stupid. Outside of negating potential alternate options for dialogue, I don't believe there should be dialogue that encourages a lack of intelligence. I'd rather they just toss the stat and go another direction.

S.P.E.C.*.A.L.

Nah, you need that "I" there.

I don't think you've ever done a Fallout 2 play-through with 1 intelligence. It's funny and challenging.

Game design trumps a silly acronym.

Fallout 2 was not developed by Bethesda Game Studios. It was developed by Black Isles Studios, which is defunct. Again, Fallout 3 rebooted the Fallout franchise, so what came before is irrelevant. Based off of Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, intelligence largely prevented the player from having certain perks. Charisma is already there for dialogue alternatives, so intelligence overlapping with that is superfluous and unnecessary.

A post-apocalytpic environment should be about survival and not some arbitrary stat with little purpose. BGS should do away with intelligence as it did with acrobatics, athletics, etc.

Even if it weren't for the voiced dialogue, I'd doubt it. Two reasons: 1. Beth didn't do try to do anything like it in FO3, and 2. the new skill/perk system seems built around the idea that it'll be easy for you to raise your stats (so as to access stronger perks). If it's relatively easy to bump up your Int via leveling, having a whole array of "dumb" dialogue becomes a lot less viable.

(But with it needing to be voiced, in both male & female flavors? Definitely no. There's no way they would almost-double the size of the Player Character audio files for that.)

That was a joke.

Then it wouldn't have been called "Fallout 3" It would have just been called "Fallout".

That's true of all the stats.

No, they're different and that's just wrong.

Why should it be only about this thing you want it to be about? That's dumb.

On the other hand, while charisma might effect one set of dialogue options or perks to do with boosting NPCs opinion of the player or persuading them on a purely emotional level, intelligence could effect a different set of dialogue options and perks associated with rational argument and deduction.

For instance, lock-picking would be effected by agility and (to a lesser degree) intelligence, while hacking would be purely effected by intelligence. No room for charisma there. Enthusing followers into taking a risk would be charisma, persuading a faction leader of the benefits of a negotiated settlement would be charisma and intelligence, and solving a theft/and-or/murder mystery would be intelligence only.

True, the differences would be subtle in some cases, and that sort of subtlety in character creation might just not be well suited to the simplicities of a CRPG, but I don't think intelligence should be just dumped without careful anolysis of what playstyles are to be supported.

Oh look. Someone who doesn't actually know crap about what he's talking about. Liking that internet voicebox?

But they did in New Vegas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXMYRhApW6c

I'll be extremely disappointed if there ain't no 1 int tribal walkthrough!

BGS can call the game whatever they want. It's still clearly a reboot of the franchise. BGS considered doing a true sequel to Fallout 2, but decided against it early in development.

This is true, but my point is intelligence has less value than strength, precision, agility, luck, etc. Again, measuring intelligence, to start, is incredibly stupid. It's merely an indication of an antiquated progression system from the 90s that hasn't been revamped nearly enough.

You are bringing "lack of intelligence" into dialogue. Charisma is the main stat for dialogue. Intelligence is primiarly used for perks, science, hacking, etc. In other words, this is a silly thread.

It's a stat with little value. If it doesn't add anything of substance, better to toss it out and do something else. BGS has been doing this with its systems for years. Intelligence should be next.

I think there are better ways of instilling "intelligence" without having an arbitrary stat. If intelligence should ever come into play, it should be the player's intelligence and not some limit in the game itself. I think more interesting and creative choices as well as a variety of means of solving riddles or issues would be a far better use of "intelligence" without necessarily needing a stat. The only thing intelligence served to accomplish in Fallout 3 was preventing you from having the ability of doing certain things. BGS needs to find a more creative and dynamic way of determining whether someone is skilled at something or not proficient at something else rather than saying "you don't have enough of X stat."

Oh look. Someone insulting someone else over the internet and not actually providing any substance to his post making an even more invalid response. Liking that internet voicebox?

It's also worth noting that much of the Obsidian team was comprised of ex-Black Isles (FO1 and FO2) developers. Are you certain Fallout New Vegas was made specifically to fill a gap between Fallout 3 and Skyrim? It was only three years. If anything, I have a feeling Obsidian pitched an idea to Bethesda Softworks and they liked the idea giving them the go ahead. As far as I'm aware, that's generally how Obsidian gets work on AAA properties they don't own.

I think they'll just add more funnier dialogue as an option regardless of intelligence level for the comedic/goofy element of the game instead of encouraging people to have low intelligence. They are essentially trying to encourage you to keep increasing all your s.p.e.c.i.a.l stats throughout your game so I doubt they added a whole bunch of dialogue for low intelligence.

Hopefully they do like New Vegas and every special and stat have a speech check.

With a voiced protagonist, I seriously doubt that Low Intelligence playthroughs will be a viable option for comedic entertainment. Can you imagine the voice actors spending hundreds of hours sounding like a complete idiot? It seems like New Vegas had the Intelligence fluctuate far too much. There were some coherent and intelligent player responses, then the next player response was uttered by a complete moron from what I have seen of those videos. If you are playing a Low Intelligence character, then the coherent and intelligent player responses should be removed. The original Fallout games seem to have kept the Intelligence more consistent.

Don't mess with my Int stat. That's my favorite attribute. It has rp range. You can rp a chemist, engineer, diplomat to anything in between with the Intelligence stat. That's what it's there for. It isn't arbitrary.

On topic: Hope it's in. Dumb characters were hella funny in the old games.

Never stopped you from drinking some whiskey until your Intelligence bottomed out before talking to people.

And it was more of a Fallout 3 than Fallout 3. The only thing That made Fallout 3 seem like a sequel was Harold being in it.

Really, New Vegas felt more like a true sequel. They really should have called Fallout 3 like, "FALLOUT: EAST COAST - A tale of water purification... again, you know like the first one... but with more useless bible quotes"

I guess that would make Fallout 4's true title:

FALLOUT: EAST COAST 2 - The lone 200ish year old survivor, but not necessarily a wanderer since there's some towns to be built, so maybe let's say settler

Definitely hope so! (To the OP)

Why is it less valuable than luck? Also, there ain't no precision in this game.

Explain this sentence, it seems like a word salad. Nah, that's too rude, it just needs some points to back it up.

Given the voiced protag and the fact that they didn't do any low intelligence dialogue in 3, I think I can safely say RIP to my 1 intelligence [censored] strength runs.

I think I'll do another play-through of Arcanum later. Even that old Sierra game had fun stupid character dialogue. You could even have high Intelligence and take the Frankenstein's monster Trait, so that you would always have the fun dumb dialogue the whole game. I wish Someone would do a remake of that game. I mean I know Sierra is trying to redo King's quest, but they should be working on Arcanum. I wish Bethesda would buy it off them or something. That'd be neat.