You can't skip it? That blows. I'm only ~10 hours in, so I haven't even tried. And so far I'm liking it.

Compared to Skyrim the dialogue just zips right along. Did you play it? Remember how all the characters spoke their lines like they were in a play or something, all slow and dramatic. It was awful.

Even the Witcher 3's dialogue is so slow and boring I just don't give a [censored].

Did I play Skyrim? Only some 1,500+ hours (according to STEAM). I didn't recall it being that slow ... but I could easily skip it also (when hearing something for the umpthteenth time). Except that one Daedric Lord who, for whatever reason, couldn't have his dialog skipped ... and he talks so damn slow...

I for one thought Inquisition was horrible, as far as DA games go. I played it once, never felt like I wanted to play again. And I played the maligned DA2 at least six times.

It was pretty looking, but that was all it had going for it. The Inquisitor didn't even feel like a character to me - he was neither a blank slate for me to fill, nor a character in his own right. Just a bland, boring vg 'entity'.

Yes...

The character talking dose not bother me at all. I kind of think they got some good actors for the voices. I would say it might be nice for those who do not like it to have a option setting to turn it off. I would not use it but now a days it not hard to make that a option.

Voted no, but don't really mind the voice acting, it could even be a good feature. Bus since it seem to come at an expense of good dialogue from the character I have to say no. Compared to fallout 3 the lines for the character seems much shorter and it's also annoying to guess what your character is going to say. I understand the last part though, what's the point of having a voiced character if you already read the lines before he says it? But that's also the biggest reason why I don't like the voice acting, having to guess how my character is actually going to respond based on one word - which I guess is also the reason for the short lines.

Not really related to the voice acting but sometimes the dialogue seems a bit off.. For an example I've played for quite a long while now but just discovered abernathy farm and the first dialogue is a question what caps is. Which gets very odd since I've traded alot since then and been picking up that trash apparently without knowing what it is. That introduction should have been part of the first main quests.

It's not my character's voice, but an actor's voice. It's like being back in kindergarten, with a teacher reading stories to us.

has anyone noticed there are a lot of the same actors from skyrim. I keep hearing the voices and then picturing a character from skyrim in my head. The voice actor for Valentine is a male voice that was used for multiple characters in skyrim, e.g. Enthir from college of winterhold. I have also heard a notable female voice that was used in skyrim, and when i hear it in FO4, what I'm really hearing instead is "Thane Bryling, at your service"

lulz

Just a general observation, more or less OT. When it comes to RPGs, I very much prefer games where the main character is MY unique spin, individualistic personality. As such, I am NOT fond of RPGs where _every_ character has the same attributes, or even worse, is just ONE character (e.g. Mass Effect's Commander Shepard). Along those lines, I would prefer that any voice acting associated with the character I create is also unique. In FO4, we can create VERY unique characters, but no matter how unique they are, ALL share the exact same voice. (As well as the same dialog choices.) More immersive than FO3, but less immersive than something like the voice acting choices of Baldur's Gate. My personal preference for FO4 would be a voice that sounds borderline hysterical -- barely keeping it together while saving the nervous breakdown for later, when things calm down (which they never do).

The more I play the more I realize that dialogue quantity and SPECIAL related dialogue opitions were sacrificed for the voiced PC.

I am currently of a mixed opinion.

Honestly, it doesn′t bother me at all. Playing as a female and enjoying it thourougly

Guess I'm in the minority on this one. It's not a deal breaker, have played plenty of gave with a voiced protagonist, but would have preferred it the other way

Thank you for the discussions, everyone. I want to remark how I think that Bethesda should make their next game include the ability to have a silent protagonist as well, not just voice acting mandatory for your character. Having both options available would be best, I think, even though I like the new character voice acting feature. However, cutscenes should be consistent to a silent main character, without the lips moving as if speaking. That detail could be a challenge for Bethesda, although they could just make the cutscenes different for each setting; one with moving lips (speaking) and without (silent).

I suppose it's okay, at least it's not annoyingly bad or anything. But I do usually prefer silent protagonists in games. Even in games where we can choose between several different voices I usually just go "my character doesn't sound like that!" and unhappy with all of them

Yes to both. I tried play oblivion, fallout 3 and skyrim and was almost sleeping in all 3 games because of the monologue.
Voiced protagonist brought breath of fresh air for me and brought Bethesda to 2015.
Voiced protagonist is here to stay.And I love it.

There was no monologue. All the npcs spoke. Your character was silent.

I'm honestly curious; what is your age range? When did you start playing role-playing games?

The voiced protagonist that brought Bethesda to 2015 also brought the first Bethesda game that I might not bother to finish. I've spent thousands of hours in Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, Oblivion, and Skyrim. I've played hundreds of hours in FO3. At the absolute most I can see myself doing is two runs through FO4, if I can get interested and invested enough to finish it at all. After that there won't be much point in it for me.

I feel I just kind of lucked out this time through - it happens that the voice acting fits my character concept just fine, and I usually go through these sort of games with a pretty open-ended backstory. I like to flesh things out as I go along rather than having a whole filled-out backstory before I even sit down to play.

I also generally prefer the Mass Effect-style dialog, but I play games in third-person when given the option and just kind of like having a voice for my character and some interesting cameras angles while people are talking. I also found the set up to the main plot quite interesting and it gave my character a lot of motivations. I'm finding no issue with roleplaying the character I have.

So overall things just kind of fell into place for me. Were I wanting to make a different character or wasn't interested in going along with the story then maybe I'd feel different. But then I'd be going into hypotheticals, and opinions are based so much in context and preference. I knew as soon as this feature was announced that it was going to be a love or hate sort of thing - it's a big departure for Bethesda and there's just no way everyone was going to be on board.

That said, I do have to admit that they could have worked on making the choices available a lot less vague. I'm starting to grok that the upper choice is usually "more info," the left-hand side is sarcastic or non-committal, etc and even then - yes it can be hard to figure out what you're going to say. I don't generally worry about specifically what my character is going to say, but I'd like to have more info to make these choices usually. There's plenty of screen space, not every option needs to be arbitrarily limited to two or three words if you need more to place these comments in context.

And to be honest, I probably wouldn't have minded some color-coding or other ancillary information about the choices I'm about to pick so as to make a more informed decision. (Would have made a great Charisma Perk at the very least.)

Age 31, played tabletop RPG from 13 to 20 and console/PC RPG since 13.
Silent/mute wasn't a problem until mass effect. After it nothing was good enough. Something was always missing.

Then I realized how much the narrative and the storytelling improved with a voiced protagonist and how much more attached I was to the protagonist and the surrounding cast.

I'm not terribly different from that myself (a bit older though.)

It should go without saying that obviously a lot of this is just personal preference - if you don't liked having a voiced protagonist then you just won't. But I'm like you in that I think it adds a bit more... life or personality to the game. That's just how I approach these games though. Even in Skyrim I really loved making characters and obviously it's not like they're actually mute personalities but the "blank slate" approach to RPGs just makes me wish I had some more ways to "emote" into the game world.

I don't really think that these new dialog wheel systems are the end all/be all to conversations in RPGs (still strikes me as odd that after so many decades of evolving videogame mechanics that dialog - even the dialog wheel - is systemically no different than it was way back in the day.) But I do prefer having my character be able to display a bit more personality on-screen.

At first I was really apprehensive about the Fallout 4 adding a voice to the character because, without the right voice acting, that could have been a horrible decision.

In this case though, I think it worked out fantastic. It feels much more normal and fluid rather than just standing there with a blank look on my face and talking through text. Almost the equivalent to Wyle E. Coyote holding up a sign right before falling from the cliff.

Don't get me wrong, I love the "blank slate" character RPG's are known for because, of course, it is your job as the player to flesh them out and determine who they are in the world around them. But, I think Bethesda made a good choice here.

The only thing I think it could have used, is different voice options. That said, being such a huge game with thousands of lines of dialog - getting one actor/actress to do it is an achievement. Adding three or more, on either side of that, could have been a waste of resources.

And THAT is the main reason I voted no for each question. It basically backs quest modders into a corner. I'm hoping that the 4 dialog options they are using will allow for more characters so we can at least mod in meaningful sentences. However, I AM digging the cinematic effect of switching views between the people in a scene, and I'm also digging some of the new animations that people do during dialog. For example one that stood out to me is as follows:

Thank you. I was wondering how the ages of people who think voiced is imperative and the ones who prefer it mute differ. That might have something to do with it. I don't know. I'm 22 years older than you.

I think personal preference has a lot to do with Mass Effect as an example. Male Shep mute would have resulted in at least one playthrough for me. Voiced maleShep never made it off the Normandy. I suffered through the opening, and made a new character before Eden Prime. If it had been a different actor than Jen Hale, I don't know whether I would have played it at all.

Voice actors might enhance a story and narrative, if you come up with one that fits the character. Without the good story/narrative, the best actor in the world can't save it. In my case, the voices have had the opposite effect; less attachment to and investment in the character. The surrounding cast can go either way; either they are written well enough to be interesting, or they are not.

Well, I guess I am once again alone against the world. I always dreamed about a bethesda game with a voiced character. Bioware style. And it really hurts me deeply that when I finally got it by some miracle, many people are so against it. (meaning that I might not get it in future bethesda games) Yes, Bethesda didn't do a great job with it. The choices are simply non existent and the writing is bad. And I hate that. And I wanted so much more. But it's still 100x more enjoyable to me than the personality-lacking PC in skyrim and previous fallouts, no matter how much dialogue choice there is in these games. It's simply characterless and...empty experience. And making a ton of choices when you have a voiced PC is not something impossible. It is expensive, but Bethesda CAN pull it off If they really want to. Especially with the ammout of money they make.

I have waaay bigger problem with the linearity of the story than the VPC. To me that's what ruining the roleplaying experience. (I wanted to join the raiders in Concord for example)

I can't believe the majority of people want elder scrolls to be voiced, i guess straight-jacket linearity is the future.

In the case of TES I feel like the unvoiced protagonist, while letting you make any kind of imaginative backstory you want, does not let you define your character in the dialogue. It's extremely simplistic. So ironically, I feel like a player voice would improve the quality of storytelling specifically in the case of The Elder Scrolls. It would be at the cost of flexibility for the player, though, as many will say "that's not what my character sounds like!" They can still leave out a backstory and it may not be as bad as you might think.