The difference there however is you are already playing Shepard. You are a colonist, an armed forces space brat, or a street rat running with a gang. You are a war hero, a brutal butcher, or the sole survivor of a massacre. You are NOT creating your own character. I played ME and ME2 through one time for each class. I'll still play once in a while, but not anywhere close to how often I play Skyrim or even Morrowind.

I don't feel discriminated against. I feel really restricted. I won't be able to play the way I want; the voice may not fit the character I want to build. The restriction of starting from a vault is part of the game I can deal with, just like the tradition of starting the ES games in jail. You still make your own character however. You aren't playing a preset character like Shepard. Or Hawke. And you did miss the protests when people found out that DA2 was going to have voiced protagonists and the "Wheel of maybe close to something I might want to say" dialogue. The voices and the wheel are part of the reason I never bought the game. I'm not really looking forward to FO4 at this point. I will get it eventually, but compared to the literal hundreds/thousands of hours I've put into Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim Dragon Age: Origins, NWN, and all of the other unvoiced games I play, I'm looking at limited replay value because of the voices. No matter what character I make, If I make the same dialogue choices, I will hear exactly the same voice and inflection. Why bother to play it more than once?

I agree with you here, however i'm more conserved about the 4 option wheel than the voice, except that the fun fact that he don't say that you select for some reason, yes probably as its not room for text then the options are arranged as an wheel and not a list.

Four options is far to little for the hub npc it would require cutting option down a lot or have an deep branching making it hard to get all information.

The voice will probably just be an annoyance.

Hmm, interesting.

I guess it may just be a combination of the way I make characters (like I mentioned somewhere else, I've never actually imagined a particular "voice" for an unvoiced char that I've made) and the way I think about the games. Sure, I have more freedom to deviate from the story in a Beth game, unlike the more linear-story Bioware games - but I'm kind of seeing the Lone Wanderer or Sole Survivor kind of the same as Shepard or Hawke. That's the character I made, no matter what personality/alignment/skillset/class I pick. Not entirely the same thing, but close enough.

Maybe that's why I've never felt the need to try any of the "alternate start" or "live another life" mods for OB/SK/FO3. Every character I've made has been the Champion of Cyrodiil/Dragonborn/Lone Wanderer. They just may not have pursued the main quest all that rigorously

To make different choices? To explore the world in ways you didn't the previous time? To try a different skill mix? To try a different mod mix?

edit: and hey! There are two voices - male and female.

edit2: DA2 really wasn't as bad as it's reputation says. Yes, it's got some flaws (like, they made the dungeon-tile reuse way too obvious. It's still not, effectively, all that different than any other RPG with dungeons built out of recognizable map chunks), but a good bit of the backlash was due to it not being what the "DA:O was the Greatest Game Ever Made!!! " crowd wanted/expected. I enjoyed the game well enough, but I 1) didn't necessarily love DA:O, and 2) went into it with much lower expectations due to all the hate it got.

My biggest gripe is that it sounds like they added voice becuase "that is what is expected". Not because it would fit the game best. I find that very weak. Skyrim was hugely popular, and Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. They don't need to look what other do, just do what they do best and be unique and they will continue to do as good as they have been doing with Skyrim and Fallout 3, NV. Adding voice just made their project look less unique, it looks like every other linear on rails rpg out there. That is not what Fallout or Elder Scrolls is about (I really hope that will not be a "feature" in the next Elder Scrolls also)

There are two reasons why I'd prefer silent protagonist:

1. The already well argued ability to play the character you want

When the voice is read, you can read it in whatever voice you want. Like reading a book, you put a voice to a character and to dialog. Many people react negatively to movies made based on books when the characters miss match their expectations. From the trailers I have seen this far however, I think the voice is neutral enough so that you still feel like different characters are actually different. Still, putting a weakness in a type of game where this seems unnecessary.

2. The lack of being able to understand what you're going to say before you say it

When the protagonist is voiced, it will be annoying to read exactly what is about to be said, before it is said. If you know what you're going to say, and have chosen it, what you want is the response, not to listen to what you already heard (read) before. If you read what you're about to say, the voice is unnecessary.

For me, voiced protagonist only has the potential to make the game weaker. If done very well, it will be on par with the interactions of previous games. Because of this, the time used to write, record and edit the voices is time I would prefer used on further expanding on branching and number of choices. And the reasoning given, "If you haven't played the previous games you would expected a voice" is ridiculous. Voicing the protagonist retracts from the series strength, one of the ways that it differentiates itself from other games. It is the games that for me has given the sensation that I made the choices I make, not that the game make them for me.

But it is done. And I will most definitely play this game. Probably for hundreds of hours. One slight disappointment, countered with many more excitements. Now I cross my fingers that there will be revolvers and blades in the game, and that the Gauss-rifle will be either craftable or lootable!

Do not care. In a Fallout game, I have no problem with a mute protagonist... but then I also have no problem with the voices we all heard. Sounds like the actors both got chops.

That's my feeling as well, it's disappointing that Voiced Protagonist is a thing but it's not going to stop me from Playing Fallout 4. It's 1 bad thing out of 19 Good things.

Let's see if I can explain this coherently... it might be tolerable if I can deal with the voices. But it still restricts the characters I would want to make.

I make a male character; think typical Nord type, tall, and strong. I have his voice imagined as clear, deep, with a snap of command in it. When I start to play the game, I find that Gilbert Gottfried is doing the voice. Might be the best performance in the world, but it doesn't fit what I wanted.

I make a female character, again for the first one think typical Nord type. Tall, strong warrior type. When I start to play the game, the soft dulcet tones of Lady Isolde from DAO sound forth: "WHO IS ZIS WOMAN, TEEAGAN??" in a tone that could cut glass. Sooo not what I wanted.

And I will have to respectfully disagree about DA2. I thought it was far worse than the reputation. For me, there were a lot more wrong with it than the reused bandit/smuggler/bad guy cave. You had to decide whether you wanted to choose your party or your class; you couldn't do both. The story had holes big enough to fly a high dragon through. TEH AWESOME BUTTON!!!!!!!!!![that wasn't really] FIGHT LIKE A SPARTAN!!!!!!! [if it was a Spartan jumping around like a kangaroo on crack from the film 300] THINK LIKE A GENERAL!!! except you couldn't for a couple of reasons; Kirkwall Airbourne Enemies, Ltd. {We drop from the sky, even indoors!}, enemy waves in every single fight appearing from nowhere so trying to set up tactical formations was pointless, no overhead tactical view, allegedly because the artwork on the ceilings was so awesome the devs didn't want you to miss it, sudden unexplained weapon restrictions [your warrior was so incompetent they couldn't figure out how to use a bow, your rogue could use a dagger that looked like a sword but couldn't use a sword] and the pointlessly flippy kicky combat where spin-kicking a fragile glass bottle across the field of combat so it breaks on the enemy but not when you kick it. Everyone was batcrap insane, basically. Including Hawke, especially if you supported the templars.

So... the combat was bad... what had this to do with dialogues or a voiced PC?

Pointless waste of money, like voice acting in general, has always been my opinion
Don't really care about muting, since i just read the subtitles and skip the voice acting

Sarcastic Lady Hawke however has been one of the voiced characters i've really liked. Well, she and Sheogorath in Shivering Isles

Oh and please don't have unskipable voice acting in F4 like you had in Skyrim.

the only time i will approve of a voiced protagonist in a beth game is when there is 10 different voice actors for each gender, using the same voice for all my characters will be annoying

There isn't anything you can do about it except make a character concept that fits the parameters of the game. If you wanted to play a Nord wizard in FO4 cuz you know freedom to role play. You are going to be hitting your head against a brick wall. now this example is only given to illustrate that all games have restrictions and your imagination isn't the only arbiter and shouldn't be the only arbiter of character creation. Bethesda wants to create stronger story and they felt the only way to do this is with a voiced character. Given that they are the artist they are going to make the art they want and the only thing we can do as customers of said art is buy it or not. So your only choice is to make character concepts that work with in the new system, or move on to indie RPGs because the voiced protagonist is pretty much a standard of AAA studios now.

No, you can certainly give out critique, people aren't sheep that mindlessly accept. If no one ever voices their concerns then how can Bethesda learn to do any better? Lets not pretend that the strength of the story will have anything to do with the voiced protagonist. It's needless limitation, and it's clearly an unwanted feature as evidenced by this very poll and common opinion. While you can compare this to art, it's also a business with a specific customer base that you're trying to sell it to. The feature fails if the audience dislikes it, it's quite simple.

We're a sliver of their audience. We can make 15 forum threads if we like, but the game will still sell 20 mln units. Voiced protagonist isn't an unwanted feature, thousands of people out there love it. But you can't see it in your poll.

You can put anything into the game and it will sell because of the franchising, bad features included. Just like CoD, Halo or Madden. A poll of 250 people is large enough to give an indication of the general reception, so I'm willing to bet that while a lot of people will fall into the "I don't care" camp, there aren't many that will actually tell you that it's a good feature, as opposed to the people that find it obstructive. I'd rather believe something concrete no matter how small, than the opinion of a random guy on the internet, no offence. As it is right now, it's unwanted. It's also time and resource consuming so it's all around a poor decision for everyone involved.

No it's not.

But a poll of 250 is undeniably more indicative than your opinion.

But the poll indicates that most people don't care/don't want the option to mute your character.

I never said my opinion is more important. But a poll of 250 people is NOT representative. Especially not if you only ask in the forum. It would be like asking 250 Democrats 'Which party will win the next election?'.

The most players are not on this forum. So it's only representative for the forum members. Not for all players.

I don't really know what to say. It doesn't really get clearer than it already is, and if you don't get it I'm not sure me explaining will help. The biggest portion is made of people that Prefer reading text, the second highest portion doesn't care and the portion with the least amount of people consists of the people that like the change. You're simply incorrect.

42% say they would like the option to mute their character, 23% say they would not like this option and 34% percent say they don't care either way. 23 + 34 = 57% of people aren't against the idea of a voiced protagonist.

This is not the unanimous opinion or statistically meaningful result you are looking for.

What it means is that you're making a change that 23% of the audience likes whereas the remaining 77% doesn't like it or doesn't care about it, while 42% actively dislike it. It's 42% vs 23% and the people that don't care. It's not as hard to interpret as you're making it out to be.

If you're not understanding this as a "poor decision" you're simply misinterpreting the poll. 77% > 57%

Nah bro. You make statements like this:

and this:

When the results of this poll are largely ambiguous. You're acting like 77% of people don't want this when 42% said they don't, 23% said they do and 33% lack a strong opinion. As in a strong opinion that would lend itself to 'I do not want a voiced protag' standpoint that you just justifieid schlepping them into. And THAT is ignoring that the last game Bethesda made sold 20 million copies and apparently http://www.vg247.com/2015/06/18/fallout-4-skyrim-pc-ps4-xbox-one/. Tie that in with the fact that this forum has just over 300 000 members (and that's for ALL Bethesda games) in total and you're taking a micro-opinion of a microcosm and using that to project your opinion on the masses to try and objectively justify your dislike of a voiced protag.

Stahp.

Yep.

Two big examples of this, for me, are:

- Mass Effect. On the net, people gush all over about how awesome FemShep & Jennifer Hale's voicework were. You'd think huge number of people played FemShep based on internet comments. Bioware put out gathered statistics after ME3 launched..... the split was 80/20 Male/Female.

- New Vegas's hardcoe mode. Based on forum comments (bah, unkillable companions! magic stimpacks! no needing to drink/eat/sleep! How awful!), you'd think there's broad support. Steam achievements show that a whole 4.6% of players played through NV on hardcoe. And that's across all playthroughs that people did. (yes, it's not a perfect statistic, due to some folks playing offline. But that's another "loud on the forums" sub-fraction of the playerbase. Even if it somehow doubled the number, that'd still be less than 10%)

Sigh, you're not understanding the simple fact that there are people that are given the opinion to "say nothing". Lets say you have a presidential election and you're voting for 2 possible candidates, if you go into the booth and vote "I don't care" it doesn't count towards anything. If the voting is a yes or no, strictly. There's a clear consensus that it's an unwanted feature. In this case where there are people that don't care either way, it doesn't count towards anything. The people in opposition to this are almost double the amount of the people in support, it doesn't get clearer than that.

If you have another measure of support for this feature somewhere, then please present it and we can discuss it. But relying on a crowd that's not present or to be heard of anywhere, to somehow make things different, when all of the feedback I've read over the internet over this is negative, is just something I can't accept.

You also have to understand that FO and TES are different franchises and that within the FO franchise NV is both better liked and better selling. The evolution that NV brought to the series was universally considered as extremely positive and Bethesda is now taking a step backwards in that formula. TES and FO are different games and what works in the other doesn't directly translate into something else, as is apparent by the reception of NV and FO3.