@Gothfather,

None of that addresses the problems players are going to have that play these open world games for hundreds of hours and use many PC's. The same voice, is going to get old. Shepherd's story was on rails and while you can act good or bad you are still Shepherd. Not a whole lot you could add to that other can your class choices and some in game decisions. Try playing ME and never touch the MQ for example.

The open world has just so many possibilities that giving the character just one voice is just the wrong decision IMO. I just don't see how that's going to change as I go into my 2nd, 3rd or 4th PC and find I'm using the same dang voice yet again. Maybe it's fine for you, but it kills replay value for me.

lol really?

If you think adding a voiced protagonist excludes every person in the world that doesn't sound like the two actors or in other words everyone on the planet but the two actors you are so deluded there isn't anything to talk about. The massive protests of everyone in the world demanding Bioware stop their descrimination by using Jennifer hale and Mark Meer must have been so loud i missed it. I know i felt discriminated against and i know there were countless people saying they were discriminated against... oh wait no there wasn't. But the whole premiss of your argument is we were discriminated against we just don't know it cuz no one taught us. WHAT CRAP. people who are discriminated against are not blind to it. But your argument only works if the gay agenda taught everyone how gays are discriminated against and that keeps the rest of use from realising seeing a voice actor voice a game equals discrimination. I have heard some bat sh!t crazy things before but that is way out there. i would watch out you know them gays are coming for ya. They are gonna turn ya if you don't look out, You are being discriminated against right this moment but you don't realise and that is the first step gayaphying you.

I voted anti voice, but I do believe it wont matter that much. Ofcourse, that relies on other things, and for me it relies mostly on how linear the game plays out; How forced will start of the game be? The two games that I have replayed the most: New Vegas and Skyrim, both are rather unrestrictive in the start. You go through a short introduction without much conversations, and then you get somewhat left to yourself.

The voice used seems quite neutral, and as long as there isn't too much comments as you go through the world, will be unnoticable. About the lack of descriptions, I do agree that it svcks that they are so short and undescriptive. However, using a voiced protagonist, I think having full sentences written out and read before selecting the option, and then hearing it said, is a bit much. That would probably cause the voice to become more annoying, as it will repeat something you've already read.

I think there will be a sollution to this quite quickly, if not by release:

There will be subtitles available, meaning that the written text will be in the game. This could probably quite easily (?) be set as conversation options instead (mod?), leaving your character mute.

I also believe that there at times will be more dialog options than up to four. Based on pure speculation.

Kinda off topic:

Do you think it will be easy to edit the voices? Speed up/slow down, or edit the tone of the voice? I am no modder, nor programmer, but adding a code that plays the audio recorded by Bethesda in an edited way seems to be much easier than other stuff done. Also, adding variability to the voice is probably something that will be very sought after.

I am sure this move will cost bethesda some fans. Every change they have made has done so. The question is will this be countered my greater gains? i think it will based on their track record.

I am not trying to convince people their subjective dislike of the voiced protagonist is wrong. if you beleived that was what i am saying then let me be clear that isn't what i as saying or intended to say. I am saying that the industry is changing that sales show the people who dislike it are a smaller and smaller group. Sales of voiced games have been very good. And none of this matters if Bethesda isn't intrested in improving their storytelling but they are. They clearly state that they want to bring strong story and the examples for it in games all have a voiced protagonist. So this is a natual progression for them.

Will this make people who dislike the system like it? No, but their is absolutly nothing anyone can do to change it.I think the only way Bethesda will stop using the voiced protagonist is if FO4 fails to sell. Given the responses i have read on the net i don't see this happening.

I would estimate about 20% of the fanbase does not like Voiced Protagonist and I think about 1-10% of that number would not buy it because of that choice (Estimations, not facts). I know I'm getting Fallout 4 regardless of whether it's voiced or not. Voiced will not stop the sales of Fallout 4, the good will outweigh the bad, I just hope we still have the wiggle room that the previous games had, time will tell.

People do complain about voiced NPCs. Adding voices is a budget constraint that directly affects what can be written and included with dialogue. Look at Planescape: Torment and tell me something with that much depth and rich dialogue would be feasible with voices. Voiced PC is yet another constraint to worry about that is wholly unnecessary. Do you really think the game would have suffered if the protagonist had no voice? I don't think so. I think people would be equally hyped. Even more so, because the voices alienate a portion of the fan base.

Well don't know if the conversation tree will look different on PC yet. If we will get the window with full dialogue, or we can hold a button to show everything under each option. If that is the case or modders can do something with that, i have no problems with the game anymore. Everything shown so far looks amazing to me, it is just the conversation tree.

I dont care. I am sceptical of the whole voice thing, but we know next to nothing about it and how it plays out in the long run, so people whining about now should just wait and see, it won't change now and i seriously doubt that there will be a way to go back to the classic dialogue system(at least official) considering that they seem to have put a lot of work in to this(13.000 voiced lines is a lot,now times 2 for both genders)

The bold-ed part. I am surprised that Bethesda caved in and went this direction. After decades of perfectly fine games with silent protagonists, it just caught me by surprise that they would make this step. Silent protagonist is probably the number one reason I love TES and Fallout. I guess all good things must come to an end. Not saying that Fallout 4 is going to be terri-bad ... just will take a lot of getting used to, hearing the same voice for every character I ever create. If I buy it.

A better story is a noble and necessary goal. I'm not really sure what Todd is trying to say here--it does not seem to be that he thinks a voice is necessary for the better story, just that there is a precedent for modern RPGs to have voiced protagonists. The thing is, Bethesda kind of sets industry standards with their games. Dragon Age Inquisition and Witcher 3 were created after aggressively examining Skyrim. For Bethesda to keep a tradition that has good reason to exist would not hurt their bottom line. I personally haven't ever experienced someone complaining about the voiceless characters (have heard them complain about having to even deal with dialogue, which is a separate issue entirely) and I do not think that anybody is excited for Fallout 4 because of the voices alone. I can't conceive of someone thinking "this open world, weapon customization, and settlement building looks cool and all, but the character doesn't talk so I'll pass." It would have been admirable if they had the courage and integrity to not give into industry trends. It's not always necessary, and certainly not necessarily a step forward.

It's not remotely the same thing. People don't hate a voiced protagonist because they hate voice acting.

They hate it because it restricts what kind of character you can play as.

Most of Bethesda's games that I have played let you adjust the different components of the sound. I personally adjust the sound effects down because I do not want to disturb the downstairs neighbors with a lot of gunshots and canon sounds.

My guess is that you will be able to do the same with Fallout 4 and turn down the voice and turn on the subtitles.

I don't see why anyone would protest to the option to mute the character. Its kind of like the hide helmet button. I hated covering up my characters awesome faces with helmets and so I just wouldn't wear one. Now, with this option, I can still get the armor. However, my husband loves helmets and would hate if they took that away for weirdos like me.

A little check mark would definitely help all those people out there who don't like the idea of a voiced protagonist. However, I'm not sure if there would be some kind of issues with the main 2 voice actors.

You will, but it will probably effect all voices rather than just the PC voice. I want to hear the NPCs talk, I just don't want to hear my own character talk.

Personally, I'm less concerned about voiced dialogue than I am random commentary while exploring. In the tutorial, the character comments out loud when the player moused over nuka-cola and sugar bombs. I don't want to hear my character rattling off randomly on everything he comes across in the wastes.

Wouldn't be as easy as that though. After selecting your 'choice' your character would stand there moving their lips, so that would have to be fixed. The 'real' response would have to be displayed typed so you can read it since what's spoken and chosen are different. Etc. So it's more than just muting the voice. I would prefer the voice muted, the dialog with NPC's being first person (so you don't see your guy/gal just standing there (DAO comes to mind)) and your responses would be read like prior games. But unfortunately that's more than just muting the PC so I don't see them really putting that much effort into making this option unless there's a real &$^%storm over it.

I personally think it is an option for MMOs not for actual RPGs but I wouldn't rage if they included that option.But honestly if you want your head to be safe use a helmet if you want to look good don't fight,or take the helmet off when not fighting.

It's not like you will see the face in third person fighting to begin with.

Not gonna lie, the fact that it's Jack voicing the female protag is pretty dope. She has a raspy/smokey quality to her voice which I think will be absolutely PERFECT for a post-apocalyptic setting.

As for the idea of voiced protags in general? ~shrug~ It feels inevitable at this point really. At least for AAA games. I don't have anything for or against the idea inherently. All about how it's handled.

Wait, what? A guy is voicing the female character?

No, shorthand for "the same voice actor who did Jack (female character) in Mass Effect".

Yes.

No. I meant Jack from Mass Effect whose a she. I forget the actress' name.

EDIT:

Courtney Taylor voiced Jack, a female follower, from Mass Effect 2. She now voices Female!Sole Survivor.

Ah, thanks. i was surprised there for a moment.

I can't help but reject the idea of a voiced protagonist. Already by thelooks of it the freedom of role-play in this game has been reduced tomake way for this "story driven world" witch in my opinion svcks assThey reduced Rpg complexity and replaced with an objective and linear emotional story. I don't like it particularly because, the character's emotion projected through the responses might not fit the character type I am trying to make. I still don't understand why everyone is just cool with this. One voice actor for each six grossly limits player immersion AND diologue options; effectively killing all RPG elements that made the first games great. A scripted personality would really hurt my immersion.The second thing I don't like was mentioned, that the return dialogue doesnt match the shown lines. In the conference, the dialogue was emphasized to be more a more quicker and faster mechanic but a lot of how this is set up feels constrictve to me.

Unless there is a voice toggle with, tone, speed & pitch: it will be hard to feel convinced your character is truely personalized.

Not all games with strong stories have voiced protagonists. Bioshock didn't have a voiced protagonist, and it was praised for its story, as were many of the Final Fantasy games, which, prior to Final Fantasy X, didn't have voiced protagonists either. Fallout: New Vegas had a compelling story without having to give the character a voice. Both Portal games have a silent Chell, and both are praised for their writing. There's also the works of Team Ico, which don't even use an actual language for their voice work. On the other side of the spectrum you have games like Ride to Hell, a game with a voiced protagonist that has a story seemingly made out of garbage.

My point is a voiced protagonist is not the thing that defines a strong story. Games with strong stories can certainly have a voiced protagonist, and indeed some do, but it isn't the thing that made the story strong. Arcs, themes, characters, interesting plots. Those things make a good story. Saying it's just the PC speaking that makes a story strong is like saying a person is a badass because they are wearing a leather jacket.

As for Bethesda being interested in improving in terms of storytelling? That matters little. What actually matters is if they've actually improved it. And if the "evidence" that they have is that they've given the PC a voice, then there's nothing to make me think that it's actually happened. To me, they've just bought a new jacket.

Edit: It should be obvious, but for the record, I'm not against voiced protagonists in video games as a general rule. I don't want it in Fallout or TES, games where you make a character to play as, but I'm okay with defined characters being voiced as I play through their story, rather than making my own like Fallout and TES seem to want to let me do.

I do like the fact that my character has a voice now, aldo i do hope it is done well enought so different personality quirks can be represented, from gruff and thought, to downright sarcastic for example. Haven't heard much of the female protags voice work, but going of the male sofar it has neither blown me away not disapointed me greatly. In the end i realy woudnt have cared one way or another, but i do feel i can imerse more in the game now then when clicking awnsers on a dialog selection UI and having the NPC awnser asif magicly having heard your words mentaly.