@talaran

Yes it is new. Beth have never done voiced protagonist.

We've never had a voiced protag for FO or TES? Then no one knows what it's like.

I know some people think it will break immersion and whatnot, and it probably will, but until such a time comes when we can actually experience it, I don't think we should be lightning fires.

New for Bethesda, yes. Not new for games. How many people have said a silent protagonist is so "whatever year", and all the new games have voices for the main character(s).

Come to think of it, that might be why I don't have many new games. Pillars of Eternity was the most recent I got, come to think of it. [silent protagonists]

I don't. E3 is a giant commercial, and Bethesda spent 30 minutes of its 2 hour commercial talking about Fallout 4, trying to get people to buy it. Obviously Bethesda finds the voice acting a selling point, since they punctuated their trailer with it, so why is it displayed so awfully in this half hour commercial?

The context I'm judging the voice acting is "In this commercial, was anything that this person said something that may me interested in the prospect of playing a character voiced by this man?"

And to that, my answer is no. Because nothing the commercial showed me that man saying sounded like quality voice acting, and the idea of spending dozens or even hundreds of hours hearing him sounds less like escapism and more like punishment.

I know it might have taken a while to program and it might seem like a waste of time, but I would have preferred them to actually show us a full quest that wasn't actually going to be in the game, so that you could see the mechanics and maybe actually get something that sounded like a halfway decent delivery from the voice actor.

There's a reason some people don't like followers, and so Bethesda wanted to pass annoying traits onto our character? Why don't they just go the extra mile and have him shout "Bounce pad!" or "These are ramps! We can use these as ramps!"?

Eh, to be honest Fallout 4's not too high on my priorities anymore. There's plenty of stuff that looks appealing, but I don't see myself getting it in 2015. Maybe next year, or the year after that. The GOTY/Ultimate/Whatever you want to call it edition will probably be out by then.

Right now I'm hoping the game does well, but with enough people (both here and beyond) decrying the (currently seeming) awful voice acting enough that it stays the hell away from TES VI.

A matter of personal taste, but here with a well defined protagonist, it certainly makes sense.

They have been doing the voice work for the protagonist for over two years now, so I expect it will add a lot to the game.

Which with over 400 hours of game play, we have seen the merest fraction of.

And if your tastes differ, I expect a voiceless protagonist will be one of the first mods out.

It gives me hope that Fallout 4 will be much more than just a simple shooter.

I'm game for the voiced protagonist. I've never had a game feel substandard for having voiced characters as opposed to silent "Player Avatars".

At the very least, it ought to help keep our character from being a drooling idiot in regards to dialogue choices determining the advancement of the story.

What would really make it better is live people on the other side of the conversation. Multi player chat ability so to speak.

Beth just hire's a 24-7 bunch of customer service reps who role play to your specific game instance.

Why can't they make my vision happen?

But there's the stick.

Mass Effect basically gave you a pre-made character, Shepard, with limited to choices to modify it (gender, facial features).

Same with the Witcher - you're not designing a character, you're playing a pre-made character and can chose details around the edges.

Fallout is more free-form, you could so far design your own character and "fill in the blanks" as needed to make him/her work as you picture him in your mind.

Now that the main character is voiced it essentially takes away some of your freedom of choice for the sake not having to read/ use your imagination.

Both designs have their merits, no argument. I still hope that Bethesda includes the option to turn the main character voice-overs off. Works better for me with RPGs where I'm given *blank* characters to design.

I can say with almost total assurance a Day One mod for Fallout 4 for both PC and console will be an option to disable the protagonist's voice if Bethesda doesn't include the ability to disable it along with the "conversation camera" that they've already confirmed will be optional.

Even though I like to play the game from a 3rd person perspective, I have to agree, it doesn't make the game better , it just makes the game-play experience different. It takes quite a bit away from the 1st person person perspective, which role players like, and makes the game more cinematic - more like watching a movie. I just hope they make the game so you have the ability to switch between voice and text so that more people can enjoy it to it's max potential.

What exactly is the argument here? The OP asked for an option to turn it off, why is that a bad thing?

That is problem with the story Bioware wrote and does not really have anything to do withe voice acting. Bioware decided we have to be Cerberus's ally now and we have to live with it. And we don't know how Bethesda handled it, only a few lines of dialogue that don't tell us what we need to to judge it.

We don't know how accurate the words describing the option actually represent the sentence tied to it, we don't know if there are skill checks, we don't know if the character talks appropriate to the situation, we don't know if there are enough options for various kinds of character, we don't know how well the dialogue is written or if the story will be better because of it. We don't know anything at all. Judging it based on the material we have is silly. Bioware did some mistakes,but their games are still great(for the most part), but they worked with a very different way of telling a story and overall type of game. We will have to see the dialogue system in action for more than 1?lines to see if it is worth it, and i doubt we will see much more until release.

We know. Read the description of the Charisma SPECIAL. It clearly confirms skill checks. Or better... SPECIAL checks. And we most likely see on in the dialogue with COdsworth (a dialogue option in a different colour)

I think that the differently colored dialogue option is something they stole ftom the Witcher 3 and will just progress the main quest. If it was a skill check there would be an indicator for what skill was used i think.

If they are confirmed its great,but we have yet to see them in action.

I just hope the voice and dialogue will sound like that metal vocalist guy from the game "Hatred."

{ In Beavis's voice } (from Beavis and Butthead)

Hehe ya ... And with my idea for 24-7 customer service reps voicing npc dialogue. They can just roll some dice for skill checks. And keep their pee & poop in little jars below the desk ... Hehe.

LoL sorry for the vulgarity. But honestly skill checking a dialogue choice for an outcome is no big deal. Since it was a part of the last games ... I see no reason it wouldn't be used in this one.

BUT !!!! What they might do is just leave the skill checking behind the scenes , not letting the player know outright it was being used. Therefore letting the player imagination/second guessing ... color the story perception.

I was unsure how I felt about it when they first put out the trailer, but after seeing it in action at E3 I am welcoming the change. For me, it'll definitely add to the story telling and the attachment I have with my character.

This rather misses the point.

The protagonist's voice is not something to be judged against an otherwise imagined voice or tone, because that's not necessary.

The protagonist's voice is their voice.

Does a voiced protagonist make the story better? I think so.

But regardless of that, it's happening, so I hope in practise, that it works for you.

Better writing makes the story better, voiced [censored] dialogue would still be [censored] dialogue. Good dialogue will be good regardless of being voiced or silent. But if you don't like the voice then it takes a dump on your immersion.

Can we come over to your house and make sure your playing the game with PC voice turned off ?

Finally someone with a reasonable request. With voice effect modding software , I'm sure your dream will come true.

I can't believe there is so much reaction to the voiced protagonist. I am looking forward to it, but Bethesda should put in a turn it off optio,n so we can stop the crying. I am guessing that if you play on PC some mod maker will remove it.

Disagree, Voiced Protagonist is no better then Silent Protagonist. Origins and Fallout New Vegas proved that you can have a good story without it being a voiced Protagonist. All the voiced Protagonist is going to do is be more emotion at the cost of Roleplaying since it's not your voice. Emotion is overrated and while I'll give Beth the benefit of the doubt and it'll be different, past history says otherwise.

i'm not against the concept of a voiced protagonist, but i will not support it until it is implemented with a huge amount of voice actors that emulate various personality types. my biggest concern is that the voice actor will define the character greatly, especially in a way i don't want the character to be, the seconds biggest concern is the dialogue system in general but thats a different topic

The way I've been thinking about this is if Bethesda is doing so much work just to give the pc adeeper personality imagine how the NPCs will turn out. I'm pumped haha.