We all watched the stream last night (or whenever), and we all know it was full of awesome stuff. I mean, come on, did you SEE the weapon customization?

I don't have to go through all that, though. You know how great those parts were.

I just wish I was actually excited for all that stuff.

Fallout is my favorite game series not because of that awesome new stuff stuff, though. It's because of what was already there. Loads of freedom, the ability to do what you want and control who you are. The ability for it to be you that's doing it.

But... that's gone. Anything resembling roleplaying or immersion is gone completely.

Before you get a misconception that this is about the backstory (which it isn't), let me explain. This is a blank-slate backstory. Finding out that your family and everyone and everything you've ever loved is dead and has been for 200 years is enough to make anyone snap. The player has every bit of freedom to decide in what way the player character snaps. My problem is that, well, if the way you've decided that the player character snaps is that he becomes a drunk or any other way that would affect the way he speaks... welp, too bad. You get hollywood actor person.

No longer are you telling your own story in the body of an arbitrary character. No, you're telling the story of Vault 111 survivor person and you're guiding him along it. You're not allowed to know what it is that you're going to say until after you've already said it. From the conversation with godsworth, the dialogue option says get food, but for some reason the character decided that he needed time to think, with no input from the player. Maybe the player just wanted food, since when are canvases allowed to decide that they need time to think. I'm no painter, but I'm pretty sure they don't.

Not being able to know what it is that I'm saying means that I can very easily say things I don't want to say. It's bad enough if there's no option to say what I want, but it's a whole lot worse to say the wrong thing because you weren't actually told what your options are in full.

Let's say for a moment that that's just a console problem, maybe the PC version will have full dialogue options since we don't have to have controller limitations. That's one thing.

With that assumption, I'll know exactly what I'm going to say before I say it. That'll be great... Until I try to actually make it me that's saying it. I'm not that guy. I mean, good for that guy. He made loads of money from those 13,000 lines, but I wasn't the one who did that, and I don't want what I'm saying to be what he said. I'm sure there's people who very much enjoy having someone else put words to what they do, but the lack of that is something I've always loved about Fallout. It's not the Courier who murdered Benny brutally with a gatling laser, it was me. It's not the Lone Wanderer who told General Jingway to commit completely wrong culture doku, it was me. It's not the Chosen One who went on an adventure with a super mutant, a deathclaw, and a dog, it was me. It's not the Vault Dweller who made the Master blow himself up, it was me.

When the time comes to play Fallout 4, will I be able to say it was me who did anything, or was it all Vault 111 guy?

I don't want to stop the people who prefer it to be Vault 111 guy. I mean, again, just imagine the money the voice actor was paid.

I want to be able to turn it off. I want to be able to stop him from ever speaking, before I even hit New Game. I want to be in that mirror, making my character as he stares wordlessly into the mirror, mayhaps with his wife making fun of how quiet he's being... until I switch to her, at which point she stops talking and he makes fun of her. I want to be able to make it be me who talks to the vault-tec guy. I want it to be me who thinks to himself, hey, look sugar bombs, not be me listening to someone else explain to me what sugar bombs are.

TL;DR: I want an option to turn the voice off and have the entire dialogue option written out for me BEFORE I select it.

Even if you can turn it off, the bigger problem of it restricting the number of lines Bethesda can give the player is already done damage.

Eh, 13,000 IS a lot. I think that's near the amount that there is in other Fallout games. With a number like that, I feel like limiting the amount they had to record wasn't something they cared about.

To get such a number, they had to record everything they wanted recorded, which means they made every option they wanted to make.

I'll be happy as long as I don't have to hear him.

I have to agree. Let's look at the demo for a moment.

111 meets Godsworth for the first time in 200 years. The option chosen said, "You're still here", but he says, "Godsworth? You're still here? So...other people could still be alive, too."

"That's impossible" turns into, "No. No, that's not possible, I wasn't out for that long!"

You have no real way of knowing exactly what your character is going to say, and worst, it may not even match the personality you chose for your character. How would I know if my calm, assertive character isn't going to explode and say, "YOU'RE LYING! 200 GODDAMNED YEARS?! YOU'RE A LYING BALL OF BOLTS!!!" once I hit the "That's impossible" option button.

Well, Fallout New Vegas had 60,000 NPC lines, and 90% of those were responses to player lines.

That means we may get less than half that many dialogue options here.

Both systems have pluses and minuses for roleplay.

A silent protag can sound however you want, inflect however you want.

A voiced protag has the ability say more than one line at a time, can stand infront of a crowd and give a motivational speech.

Neither system is perfect as far as roleplaying is concerned.