That was one of the best parts of Red Dead, in my opinion. Especially considering it was a Rockstar property.

I have no doubt that there will be a barber and someone like a Pinkerton that will have a machine that will alter the face in Fallout 4. One Of the things that was added with Dawnguard in Skyrim was a character that could change your face. I don't see Beth not having that in the game.

Desiring to have certain freedom on your character is one thing.

Another thing entirely, is desiring that your character is a complete blank slate with nothing that makes him related to the world just so you can headcanon a gay raider turned great khan that migrated to the east coast because he became a psychopath is going completely overboard imo.

There i said it.

I'd prefer a pre-made backstory to the umpteenth amnesia/prisoner/stranded nonsense.

But what if I want to roleplay as a stranded, amnesiac prisoner?

I can and usually do get pretty bent out of shape when something I love or expect is changed or messed around with, but for some reason I'm pretty hopeful about Fallout 4.So the character might be on his or her own path before we get a hold of him. I loved Mass Effect series. In fact I found Mass Effect series a far more fulfilling RPG than other Fallout games in terms of RPG elements alone.

Then you, sir, are nonsense.

Then TES would be right up your alley.

It baffles me how people want to strip away content from a game just so it leaves the character blank enough that they can make up some outlandish backgrounds. You can roleplay with FO4's protagonist, there's no need for all this.

What if I want to play as Codsworth? Beth is restricting my freedom to play how I want.

Because Fallout isn't about telling your own story. Its the Vault Dweller's story saving his home and stopping the Supermutant army.

Its the Chosen One's story of rescuing his tribe and as a byproduct destroying the Enclave. The sequels even make certain choices cannon. So it doesn't matter what your Vault Dweller or Chosen One was like, the creators made a decision as to what the canon character was like.

You could play it like Codsworth has take control of his master, and through mind manipulation throws him/her into the line of fire for his own twisted amusemant.

Ulfric Stormcloak...he's a rebel of some kind?

The thing is, that freedom was already there and made the franchise stand apart for 3 games already. (and partially there in two others)

It is not complaining about something we would like to add, but being worried about the partial or total loss of a freedom that was already there in the first place.

(A regression that is isn't in line with the dev words about player freedom/agency.)

which is entirelly different than the Codworth/prisoner stuff...

Yes, because in a game where I can develop my own settlement and weapons/armor from scratch, having a preselected backstory is just ruining the entire experience.

Once again, you have every right to be totally in love with that removal of freedom.

I am not arguing about your feeling about it. I am only mentioning facts, likely possibilities, and why some people are feeling it.

You are not meant to share that feeling if you don't want to. Never the OP said that everyone should love/hate that phenomeon.

And those building/crafting things are off-topics, as the size of the map or the iron sight. They don't define your character and its choices.

That's a good post, and I understand it.... It's true, I am not worried, and it's because I have never seen that [mentioned above] as a requirement for any RPG; nice feature, but not a requirement that they should allow an entirely free-form character, or be on the hook to support one. I would say that they would be generous [and it would be appreciated] if they allowed an 'out of the wastes' mode, where the PC simply arrives from somewhere, and has no connection with anything in the game world; and of course the game disables the story in favor of a sandbox. Whether or not they allowed that only after completing the story, is a separate argument. (I'd be for requiring the completion of the game first.)

The only problems I speculate with the game, [aside from focus and gameplay mechanics of course], is the likelihood that the story is simplified, and that the conversations might partially be on rails; and that your PC replies with dialog that the player doesn't know in advance... which means that there will likely be no subtlety of language having any effect in conversation. Which means that conversations are going to be pretty tame and straightforward. "Me friend; you friend", "Me hate you if say No to me, me attack"...

What would both impress (and disappoint ) me, is if the story rips off the beginning and ending of Prey. I don't expect anything like that, and yet know exactly where it comes from if it's there.

I have never seen a worse example of trying to spin a fault as a feature.

This is probably the most solid argument I've finally seen to this subject. I'll admit, it's not irrational to believe this.

But you are looking at this as if there could ever exist a game where the player has true freedom. Things will be determined, and you can make a better light of this. And forgive me for being blunt, but I can only see this as an excuse to creativity and thought.

Through all of the fallouts, no pre-war house had their own personality. Many of which were left untouched. There was always the same "mass produced" touch to them. But should you go into businesses, subways, warehouses, and post-war homes. They all seem to have their own character and story. You can easily assume that many of these homes were just model houses in Suburban areas. This is probably very true as, if you look around the entire US seems to be dominated by monopolies. Corvegas are located everywhere with outrageous prices. And other than that, there are only a few models of cars that really differ. And many of which are military vehicles. Robco is the leader in the Robot industry, as well as the creators of Terminals, and a variety of toys. Robco owns RocketCo. Vault Tech is pretty much the only company capable of creating fallout shelters. Nuka Cola machines are peppered everywhere. Sunset Sarsaparilla is owned by Nuka-Cola. Just about everywhere are returning names.

For the robot, I doubt there was much of an option to how the Mr. Handy behaves. All of the Mr. Handy's seem to bare the same nature, which suggest that they two are mass produced, and options were not a thought of Robco. Want a big four legged tank bot that's just a nice guy? TOO BAD! You get the overly serious murder machine!

Truthfully, the marital status is not the end all of your character's background. I've said this before, but you can come up with just about any reason you want to explain a marriage and a baby. Google around, it's not always willing, mutual, honest, ect.

But, I will fully agree with you on the voice actor. Yes, it removes freedom of personality. And this is something I don't personally mind. The execution is all that matters to me.

Then finally what Todd mentioned. They always had to make sacrifices in their games.

So, they sacrificed some Before-Fallout character creation, for a better Post-Fallout character creation.

Instead of being only a mercenary or law bringer. You can now be a gunsmith, a weapon smith, a constructor, a mayor, run a town of raiders, run a town of slavers, run a town of civilians, lead caravans, ect ect.

Which... in all honestly, is probably better. As what you do in the game shapes your future, not the past.

Well, it's merely a viewpoint right? ^^'''

You don't have to follow every viewpoint of an accept-it-all guy you find out there...

It gets in the way of reading the text; which can be done faster than listening to it parroted.

I do marvel at the potential nightmare of localizing brief mini comments that indicate tone and intent, with what the PC ends up saying at length.

I think the feelings that may come of that, could well rival the feeling from choosing to activate the toilet first time in FO3.

Just wait until you discover you're an android with implanted memories.

the disconnect between what todd howard wants (a good story that meshes with open ended, open world gameplay) and what todd howard has done (forced the player to have a voice set and restrictive backstory and restricting dialogue to just 4 buttons) is as wide as the grand canyon

The clue will be talking to someone who recalls watching a spider's nest one Summer.

Just how many fallout games have you played?

Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics you had a choice of prerolled characters with supplied backstory. Fallout 3 you had a teenager raised in a vault with a father that has gone missing. Fallout NV wasn't the "blank slate" that everyone claims it was because it saddles you with one hell of a RP disadvantage.

There is no single Fallout game that has ever allowed me to "tell my own story". This one won't either. There have been a few NPC's in some of the Fallout games that would have allowed me to "tell my own story" but if any of those had been used, you probably wouldn't be able to "tell your own story". But the thing is, I have never been interested in "telling my own story", because I would prefer to rollplay than play myself. I play games to escape reality, not to recreate it.