Giving the player a voice must have taken up a huge amount of time and resources during production, and for what? For limitation and nothing more. A voiced protagonist has added nothing but limitation. Bethesda have got too busy trying to be like other devs that they've forgot what made their games great.

I found it a slight improvement. I thought it would not work out when the news came out that the protagonist would have a voice.

Everyone is going to have their own opinion.

I like it. YMMV.

I don't mind the voiced protagonist, though I thought I would. Still, I question whether it added enough to the game to have been worthwhile. Too many existing fans don't like it, and the average gamer probably wouldn't have thought twice about it with or without the voicework.

For most people, it doesn't feel limiting. A lot of people like it because it makes conversations more engaging, makes them feel more immersed in the story, etc. I do not like it much myself and definitely prefer non voiced but there are reasons they added it.

Skyrim had even more limited dialogue tbh

Do you guys remember Oblivion?

I will say I'm still undecided if I like the change. Granted it did lead to the change in dialog(paraphrasing the responses), however if I do not feel it is a complete negative, just very poorly executed. I would have like to have more options in voice accent and more control over the personality of the character but then again that comes into the conflict with one of bethseda's weakest qualities (branching content and lasting player choice)

Limitations are there to be broken. Put a little more faith in Bethesda.

I enjoyed the dialogue change if I'm to be honest, but it's not without it's glitches. Some of the characters discourse overlaps, like having two people talking to you at the same time which makes the chat indecipherable. Plus it's annoying when I'm conversing with a trader only for a brahmin or settler to get in the way of the camera and just stands there blocking the view of the person I'm talking to. Very annoying.

I like it, what I don't like is that there are only two voice choices. I understand the amount of lines that are read by each actor, I truly do, but two voices? Really? Your choice as a player: MALE or FEMALE.

C'mon. I'm not asking for a multitude of accents here, but atleast give me a level of diversity.

I made Will Smith's character from I am Legend for my first run through (Seemed appropriate with the dog companion option and all), and while I got a face to look *somewhat* like him, the voice was outright a white dude.

I like the voiced protagonist, it adds immersion to the game since I feel like I'm a part of the game rather than taking the passive role and wait for the NPC paraphrase what I mean.

I have more concerns with the male protagonist's voice, with such a big investment, you can't get a competent voice actor? His acting is all over the place, he changes from monotone then angry in mid sentences. A lot of the deliveries are very cringe worthy.

With the true dialogue mod

http://i.imgur.com/Svt4P6w.jpg

The Voiced Protagonist can only take money and resources away from developing more game content. What an unnecessary waste.

I think this whole subject is very similar to the polarizing reception movie adaptations receive from their hard-copy counterparts.

When you read something, you set the tone, the feel, the everything. When something is defined for you, you're either gonna love it because it fits within your realm of thought or you're going to reject it because it doesn't feel the same in your head.

I'm on the fence when it comes to having a voice for our character. It helped create more of a compelling story but paired with the cinematic camera (which I quickly disabled in the options menu), it really makes me feel like the player's conscience rather than the player themselves..

http://s.pacn.ws/1280/nx/dragon-age-inquisition-game-of-the-year-edition-430761.1.jpg?nv4adu

I understand the dialogue can be pretty shallow at times, but as been mentioned many times, this is Bethesda's first time treading these waters. And I think the result is pretty darn good if they were trying to follow Bioware.

Totes kewl with the voice protagonist.

Not totes kewl with the not-varied-at-all dialogue options and branches they provided him. I'm fine with only 4 options for a given conversation, but make them 4 distinct options with a few different and noticeable outcomes. Right now it's:

1) Person in need of help: "Oh ya, I can provide more details if you want to help me."

2) PINOH: "Well, you were just a jerk to me, but since I need your help I'll just ignore it."

3) PINOH: "Great! Glad you want to help."

4) PINOH: "You may say no, but your endless zest for XP and caps says yes."

Treading what water? The only difference is that the PC actually voices his question. It's otherwise the exact same mechanic of talking to people.

Fact is that hiring two voice-actors for the entire game was time consuming and expensive so they limited the available options and hide them behind a bland descriptor rather than providing the full text. It's a lie, and a [censored] one, and branching dialogue and actual conversations with NPCs have been thrown onto the sword of a stupid gimmick.

Or in an alternative point of view.

The game now has dialogue as opposed to a mute imagining things and npc monologuing.

So it added things.

The same argument could be made for graphics or even txt based roleplaying.

There are mods which turn it off.

They should have had the character on Dishonored have a voice...and offered more dialogue options on FO4 and leave it to the player to imagine the voice themselves..thems my thoughts

He wasn't mute, obviously. You just had to use your imagination. That's like saying that the people in Fallout 2 were mostly mute because that was all text dialogue and (spoiler alert) it was perfectly fine for conveying the story and having interesting characters. The players voice is not important.


Doesn't bring back branching dialog trees or lengthy dialogue. Look at everything you can ask President Eden in Fallout 3. All the backstory and reasons for his actions that he gives you, or speaking to Elder Lyons. Can you get any of that from Maxson or the others?

There are branching dialogue trees, though. There are just more opportunities to speak and that makes it seem as though there are less branching points. Most dialogue in Fallout games lead you by the collar with opportunities to ask further questions and one or two opportunities to go into a different direction.

You can still do that in Fallout 4 and sometimes, refusing quests has impact! I want to double exclamation mark that, but my inner editor would scream. I refused to accept a quest to help solve a lover's quarrel, because my character has a code that forbids him and his from solving domestic disputes. Paul asked me to help him impress the bartender his wife was cheating with. I refused. Later in the game, the wife comes up to me and asks what happened to Paul. I found out the bartender killed Paul because he started waving a gun in his face.

That's not something you'd find in New Vegas or Skyrim, but rather in games like Deus Ex. If you *** around too much while you are supposed to be helping people, those people will be killed. Of course, Fallout 4 is much more limited in that regard, but it does happen that way and that's mindblowing to me.

In New Vegas, I am constantly reminded of the illusion and in Fallout 4, it feels more natural (with the exception of the Silver Shroud dialogue, which made me put the game down for a while).

I don't really see the voiced protagonist as a bad thing. It's mostly the limited amount of dialogue that comes from having a voiced protagonist that bothers me. If Bethesda had all of the dialogue options that the original Fallout had or even just New Vegas but now they were voiced I would have zero issues with having a voiced protagonist.

Maybe next time have multiple voice actors for the protagonist with different accents to help add some variety, and give the player some choice.

For instance since Fallout 4 is based in Boston it would be nice to have different Boston accents for our character, or an Irish accent like Cait has. Although not having these doesn't really detract from the experience for me.

I know all of this would cost more money but really better allocation of time, money, and resources is something Bethesda needs to work on anyway. I feel like too much time and money was wasted on making the game feel 'new' and not enough time was spent on making it feel like Fallout or an RPG game.

1. Offcourse the player character were mute and/or selectively mute. There were no words audibly uttered.

2. No person can abstract from that.

3. Mute and / or selectively mute.

4. The text were so limiting... I mean where's the option to speak... with your ass... while mooning? Completely rpg limiting.

5. It is and you can just use your imagination, to imagine it to be whatever you need it to be.

...

Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but everyone of the points are valid points and equal arguments, fundamentally no different from the points you and similar people make.

It's a matter of personal subjective taste of what works and what doesn't for any game. There is hardly any objective truth in that.

What can a company do?

Well, personally? I'd say... make the best possible game for the most possible people. It will be a compromise and utter crap to, hopefully, a minority.

What can a customer / potential customer do?

Realise that just because something isn't for oneself, does not mean it's crap or not for someone else and that is ok. The world does not have to revolve around me all the time...

And it's ok to give feedback in what you or I like/dislike, but by god I am tired of subjective taste being elevated to universal objective truth and the... sense of entitlement, that comes from: My oppinion is truth and "obviously" representative of most people and if not they must be idiot, not true fans, have no idea what an rpg is, lacking in taste and what not...

All it takes to fix it... is to clearly preface with "In my oppinion xyz..." ...

PS: And I'm sorry if it felt like I'm jumping on you in particular... Not my intention, it just worked as an example.

PPS: And I do respect your oppinion, agree somewhat on some of your points, but personally prefer eg. a little less options and voice, because that's how I work and enjoy my games.

It's not that a voiced protagonist means crappy dialogue, just look at witcher 3 for an example of both, it's how dumbed down F4's dialogue is compared to previous Bethesda games. It feels half-assed. You have few choices, often leading to the same result with very little idea of what you're about to say. When I met a mechanic one of my options was "got legs". Is a complete sentence too much to ask? This voice actor couldn't have cost them that much because he's awful. Listening to him try to show emotion makes me cringe. It's like they paid an intern $40 to voice the lines.

You'll definitely retract this when you eventually hear me doing all the lines for the female protagonist in a "Tiny Tim" over-the-top falsetto.

Oh that is right, you couldn't possibly make "Protagonist Voice Mods" in any previous Fallout . . . so devolved . . .