I have no realm qualms with the PC getting a voice.

Fallout is not like TES which has 10 races, and both genders for all the races, where the number of VA recordings needed would be so astronomical it would be detrimental to the game.

You are, and always have been, stuck in the body of a human in Fallout, giving it a voice doesn't change anything to me.

Why is fallout the game where having a voiced protagonist is evil?

Is it because you think you're RPing you're own character? Because you aren't. You've always had a back story, (though very small)and now with a voice it gets more fleshed out.

Should people who want a voice have to deal with mute characters because you want to RP as something that isn't the PC?

If you want to RP as whatever, a voice isn't stopping you. You've already ignored entire parts of the beginning of the game, continue using your imagination.

You can't ignore a voice that keeps droning on and on and on and on and on and on.

Besides, just because you had a past in previous games, that doesn't mean your PC had a predetermined character. The LW could become a canibal after leaving the vault, just like they could become messiah or evil slave trader. They were always the Lone Wanderer, but each Lone Wanderer was different and unique in ways prerecorded voiced characters could never be. Being voiceless helped prevent your actions from coming across as counter to your character. The minute you add a voice you are grafting a personality onto a character for no justifiable reason.

Back story does not equal personality. The previous characters all had backstories that we could only slightly modify, but their personalities were all our own.

I think Fallout has a bunch of logistical issues with voices you aren't thinking about because of S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Charisma and Intelligence obviously should have an impact on not just what you say but how you say it, but even the other stats should play a role as well. And that's before getting into Karma and just basic personality differences along with race and age.

That's a lot of variables that should impact voice work, which is why we should remain mute.

If you've got a voice, you've got a much more established character. He may not sound as rough as you'd like him to be, but that's because he isn't that rough. You're playing the sarcastic/witty/angry wanderer, just as if you'd play as master chief in halo or whatever game you'd like to use.

Does it get in the way of doing your own thing with the character? Absolutely.

Could it result in a much more deeper narrative? Most definitely.

Variables that have very little impact on the game itself.

Almost no one I can think of would actually care if having 1 INT doesn't make you sound like a total moron or other such things. This is a RPG, not a life simulator.

Not to mention factors like

-Never being able to make yourself so old as to make voice a problem.

-Race not mattering much as [Insert race here] can sound just as "American" as any other race, so long as they grew up in the same area and thus learned to speak like everyone else.

-Karma is more off a perception, not a stereotypical " I sound me le evil now" character trait.

etc. etc.

Not to mention that, if you go by the definition of some people here, RPGs are supposed to be you playing yourself, but you playing an established character, and thus his voice/manners should be pre-set already.

It could. But it could also work to the narrative's detriment. Voice acting isn't inherently better.

Besides, how can I play the sarcastic or witty wanderer if my Intelligence is at 1 and I can be outsmarted by rocks?

But that line about Master Chief is really the main thing to focus on. I don't want to play a Fallout with a Master Chief or Link or Shepard or Booker. I want to play a Fallout game where I get the bare bones of a character, and get to mold them as I see fit, determining what they look like, their stats, their personalities, and so on. Not getting that runs counter to what I think a Fallout game should be.

That want is fine and dandy, but what if one wants a fallout game where the protagonist isn't open ended to lend itself to creating a better story? If the protagonist is indeed voiced it seems the higher ups would agree with this sentiment.

And you could play an intelligence 1 character in 3 and NV, and the speech changes weren't super common. I imagine getting a voice actor to sound stupid is pretty easy, so crisis averted.

It's a gamble, but after people complain about story for a few years, it seems natural that it would be fixed. Creating a fixed point to write a story arch around is a pretty good start on making things more interesting.

I would. If I had a character of low intelligence, I'd want him to use small words, choppier sentences, and in general come off as incredibly thick compared to what a high intelligence character would sound like.

As for age, I don't know about you, but I certainly didn't sound like I do right now when I was 18, and I doubt I'll sound the same when I'm in my forties. And as for Karma, that brings up the fact that even there it's not a one size fits all kind of deal, which is what we'd be getting if we only had one voice to (not) choose from. We might be getting the soft spoken sadist, but lose the option for the manic fast rambling lunatic, or the guttural growler, or the jovial and polite affably evil. We'd be locked into a road that would render the other choices we could make nonsensical because they run counter to the personality forced upon us by the voice.

As for that last part, see above. Just because you were playing as a pre-established person, doesn't mean you were a pre-established character in terms of personality. That's always been free for you to shape and mold, and I feel it should remain that way.

The problem is you're treating the lack of a voiced character as the problem of bad stories rather than the actual problem: bad writing. Samuel L. Jackson voicing your character would not have saved Fallout 3's nonsensical ending, but having Gilbert Gottfried saying all of the Courier's lines would have crippled New Vegas.

Also, pointing out that Fallout 3 failed in regards to dialogue reflecting S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skill checks isn't really a winning argument to me, because ideally Fallout 4 would improve on those areas. And it's not just getting them to sound stupid as opposed to smart. It's getting them to sound practically brain dead, thick-headed, slow-witted, dumb, kind of slow, average, a little bright, smart, very smart, genius.

The key to a better story is better writing, and while a defined protagonist can lend itself to that, the more important thing is the world around that character, the conflicts that are going on in it, and how the characters react to you tackling those conflicts.

Giving the protagonist a voice and saying it makes for a better story is akin to trying to fix a dripping faucet to keep from wasting water while ignoring the busted water pipe in the basemant.

Part of the busted pipes problem is the open ended-ness of the character, so I'd say this is a lot more than just fixing the faucet.

Both NV and 3 lacked when it came to low intelligence conversation, and even if the game isn't voiced, I imagine a low intelligence PC will have few unique interactions.

In a perfect world, yes, writing like that would be stellar but it isn't realistic to expect that much dialogue to be in any game.

FO hasn't had a stellar story yet, and better writing is the obvious solution, that isn't a realistic one; it just isn't that easy to write a better story, especially when your main character has the potential to ignore it entirely.

I think this is a step in the right direction;RP takes a hit but you'll just have to use your imagination. I'm sure a mod will appear to mute the PC in dialogue but that's just a workaround

That's partially why the games only really let you chose an age that looks somewhere between 20-30. Or at least sets you, canonally, near a specific age.

That implies that

A. Karma is something more then a magical force like luck, it isn't.

B. That people talk in hilariously cliche methods depending on their personality.... they do not.

I would rather not have my game be set up to use terrible cliche voice archetypes like old D&D game had, I still try to scrub that terror out of my mind.

Not really, even Skyrim let you usually chose between

>ass

>neutral

>nice

You would still have said options, along with "witty" responses just like you do now.

And no one is fully advocating a fully controlled personality.

A voiced protagonist contributes to childhood illiteracy. Has anyone thought of the children?

I think in a perfect world we would have multiple voice choices with multiple starts at multiple ages but sadly that isn't feasible.

I think this will be a fun experiment. It's a huge risk, especially considering the fan base of Beth(people enjoy writing their own story) and its good to see stuff like this happening in the industry.

It'll either go really good or really bad, but running off skyrim money is a huge leg up since that is essentially unlimited monies.

Skyrim let you make characters who looked fairly young through quite old. Not as old as the elderly "race," but still more than 30. And that's before getting into the age range of Mer.

Karma is more than that in Fallout. It's part of the vibe you give off, which is why evil Karma characters couldn't contract good followers and vice versa.

The way people speak does reflect on their personalities. Some people don't curse, other people drop "g" from -ing ending words, some people don't use contractions. And yes, the tone and volume of the voice is chosen to fit an objective (e.g.: a drill instructor screaming at army recruits). The good thing about text box choices is that

A) It prevents the redundancy of you selecting an option and then hearing it verbatim rather than getting the new information.

It prevents the ambiguity of choice that comes up when you get single worded choices to choose from that don't provide context

C) It can operate as a skeleton for what you would say, helping you fill in the blanks in a way that voice acting can't do.

You know how best to avoid that? Throw the freakin' voice acting for your character out the window.

But they'd be said in a singular fashion and tone, which is likely not to be the way my character would say it.

HighestPrimate seems to be heading in that direction, given that he wants to be playing Fallout 4 with a character akin to Master Chief. That is to say, a rigidly defined character that you just move from place to place without any real agency on the choices they make. And I'm fine with that in a lot of games. I don't complain about playing as Batman in the Arkham games or as Booker in Bioshock Infinite or as the casts of most Final Fantasy games. Those games you are playing as predefined personalities, and they come from a tradition as such.

I just don't want that for Fallout or TES.

Absolutely not.

Assuming the Main Character is voiced...

This will be the "official" Bethesda is ruining the franchise topic for FO4.

In FO3 we had the 鈥淔irst Person perspective?!?! WTF you are ruining Fallout. This game will fail!鈥?And we all know how that turned out.

In Skyrim we had the 鈥淣o attributes!?!?!?! You can't Roleplay without them you have ruined the Elder Scrolls this game will bomb!鈥?And Skyrim turned out to be their highest grossing game ever. 6 months after release i had completely forgotten about the fact there were no attributes, It has zero effect on my ability to enjoy the game.

What is the moral of the story? Bethesda should ignore gamers when it comes to making changes to their IPs because so far two major changes on the fundamental level have not ruined their Ips even though gamers QQed and Ranted and predicted all kinds of doom and gloom.

Not totally against it, especially if there were different voice options. But seeing as you're choosing what to say anyways, it is repetitive. I think character sounds could be effective for gameplay survival elements however. Different noises for exhausted, dehydrated, shivering, etc.

I'm curious as to how he will say each line. There are times when you're able to reply sarcastically, which I read in my head and reply as I normally would, so I really hope they hired a great voice actor to nail those witty lines and make them sound realistic in the situation.

Truthfully, I would prefer not to have a voice actor as to continue with the trend in Fallout games and having a character with no voice. With that said however, I am sure as hell not going to let it disrupt me from playing and who knows, it could even be a welcomed change for the series. We shall wait and see!

Last one definitely. In an RPG where it's 1st person type of Protagonist, you don't want voiced. It will limit dialoge and choices. I can stand voiced protagonist if it's done well but not in a game like Fallout, Silent is vastly superior.

Meh, I don't care. Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Far Cry 4 all have voiced protagonists and they play out OK.

Yup, the one time I played them they played out fine. Same with Mass Effect ... played it once, had a blast, never been back to it. If Bethesda wants to create a one and done game, then defining the PC for the player and giving him a voice is a great place to start. On the other hand, if they want to create a huge game that the players will sink hundreds of hours into modding and repeatedly replaying, they should probably continue with what has proven to work in their past open world games.

The voice-over probably goes as far as simple phrases just for your companion there. "Let's go, pal". "Stay put". "Paulie wanna cracker?" Wait, wrong reference. That's the most I'd be willing to accept. Silent protag is the BEST protag.

Those complaining actually predict that the changes will make the games sell more, not less, because the changes target the gaming masses. They aren't predicting the financial failure of either series, but the spiritual failure.

Even if the protagonist is voiced, I have faith Bethesda will include an option to turn it off.

I'd prefer the protag NOT be voiced, so I can imagine them as different nationalities, speech impediments, playable ghouls, etc.

But saying "VA is a plague!" is going much too far.

Pointless.

Unless its Kermit the frog.