Add to that one:

- Conversations take place in first person and are not Mass Effect style third person cut scenes.

Honestly, as much as I'm looking forward to this game, third person cut scene conversation would be a deal breaker.

Agreed. Dying Light was no RPG, but it had strictly first person dialogue with pretty good voice acting. So did the DLC for Dishonored. Am still strongly against the concept in Fallout, but if it must be done, do it like this.

I prefer the protag of games not to be voiced. Why?

• In just about EVERY SINGLE GAME with a voiced protag, they either get the tough as nails leader voice or the [censored] bag voice, which is rarely the type of character I want to play in an RPG.
• VO always limits dialog options, this isn't debatable and has been confirmed by many devs from different studios.
• Dialog are dummed down one liners, which is bethesda's style for a while, so seeing it even more dumbed down makes me shake my head.

The cost vs benefit of VO is not worth it in my opinion, especially for the protag for which if you get stuck with a bad VO, that can ruin your game. I have this suspicion that bethesda will strip even more RPG elements out of the game for the VO, turning it less RPG and more FPS game like they did with skyrim.

Very true, staying in first person is a must for immersion.

If that's the role, then I see nothing wrong with it. The witcher series are among the best RPGs in their decade; with few competitors. Roleplaying is about playing the role ~right?
Since when was it [ever] about playing the whim? Custom PCs are nice, but not a requirement of RPGs, and the game's story and environment almost always fall short of RPGs that feature a tightly integrated character PC.

Voiced protagonists are a problem only when they are immensely mutable; series like the Witcher don't have that problem.

*For [minor] instance... Geralt knows people; and they know him back... they can speak his name to him, and have shared memories that can play a part in the story. Clean slate PCs like Bethesda offers, generally have no past; no friends, no aptitudes, no profession; past education; goals , or aspirations... Effectively no way to have survived to advlthood. That's terrible from a story telling standpoint.

Don't really care one way or the other, but voted no because I'd much rather resources be spent in other areas.

... This is Fallout, not Witcher. Fallout has never been about a set protagonist. Bethesda RPGs have never been about a set protagonist. Set protagonist=shoehorning and limiting role playing.

Create what you want, play how you want. The motto of Fallout and Beth RPGs since the beginning. And just how it should be, like a table top RPG.

Voiced protagonist will always lead to less dialoge options, that is a fact. I vote no.

Fallout has always started with a fixed past, goal, family, and standard education.

*Have you never played a table-top session where the GM/DM assigned the player's characters for the adventure?
(Characters that had pre-planned hooks in the narrative.)

With the exception of the Courier since his/her's past isn't 100% set in stone. There are some things set like going out to where Lonesome road is and droping off the bomb (Which you don't know it) and meeting with Johnson nash but the rest is flexible.

Fallout has always allowed you to do whatever you wanted and make whoever you wanted.

As for the second question, good god no. I couldn't think of anything less creative. Just like with a voiced protagonist.

Edit: I should add that there may be planned events, but you always create your character. One of the best parts of any RPG is character creation and sticking with your role and playstyle. And in tabletop even more so as there are no limitations like a cRPG has.

Merged with the next post... Please delete this one.

He or she was guaranteed having hired on and worked as a courier; and had obligations as such; and a goal.

It has indeed, and until FO3, those choices had significant impact on the remainder of the game. In Fallout [1 & 2], the PC had to live with their choices; and the limits and regrets that come with them (if any).

That's rather prejudgmental, wouldn't you think that a DM/GM can do a lot more with known quantities, rather than a team of unknowns that have no bonds between them.
*Granted, eventually, as the PCs progress, they tend to acquire those bonds... and not surprisingly, they become the assigned characters for each new game.

He or she also extensively traveled the NCR, has been to New Reno, traveled the Divide prior to its ruin, and fought at least one Deathclaw and one super mutant prior to the game. The Courier is an established badass before we even take the reigns.

It also get away from the entire sense of Fallout's SPECIALs. Is a voiced protagonist going to do tons of low intelligence lines? Tons of charismatic lines? So my dapper, suave playboy is going to sound just like my giant, idiot raider?

If they give Mr. 111 fully voiced INT< 3 dialogue for every situation in the game, I will take back every negative thing I've said about a voice acted protagonist and hail this as the greatest game of our generation.

They should... but then... it probably wouldn't happen.

Count me in on that gamble.

In 3 you didn't even have to go through the story line. You could literally make anything and played how you wanted. There was only an overarching narrative if you wanted there to be one. Just like in an ES games, really.

Who plays table top with random strangers, every time? Again, part of the fun of any RPG that allows character creation, is getting to know the world/lore enough to create your own unique being that fits in. Hand holding from a DM isn't required.

Unforgivable too [for a professed Fallout title]. (That was the problem; it's not supposed to be a TES game; but it plays just like them.)

I don't know where the 'random strangers' part comes from; unless you meant my mention of crafting original PCs ~which would mean strangers.

But I honestly haven't cared about the custom part of PC design (though I've made some that I liked). All that matters to me in any RPG, is playing the part, and seeing how their personality and approach to the world serves them, and how they end up because of it.

IMO The better the part, and the better the game supports it; the better the RPG tends to be.

I find myself of mixed opinion.

On one hand, a non-voiced character allows you to better insert yourself into your characters shoes. It's always you talking, not you talking through a filter. It feels like you have more control over who your character is, even if the lines are still pre-ordained.

On the other, a non-voiced character never gets to make epic speeches. They never get to rally your allies for the final battle. You never get to have longer conversations. You're just kinda there. You get a single, quiet line than can fit in a dialogue box. And while that works for some characters, it doesn't work for others, and can make you feel detached from the ongoing drama.

So, in the end, either way I could live with.

Er, in F 1 and 2 you could go off and be a raider or play how you wanted. Murder half the town, save the entire town, etc. All making for various different character creation options.

A team on unknowns you say, like if the characters don't know each other you can't create your own. That made no sense to me. And the hypothetical DM you're sticking up for is me most of the time in my games and I would never presume to create characters for other people. Yet another great part of the table top experience is seeing what others create, what they did differently than you would have and how they play that character.

It boils down to this. After you make a second character the novelty and "immersion" dies. Every character is your first character's twin? How creative.

This. I was saying the same thing earlier. Speech, Intelligence, Charisma- anywhere you need a skill check.
It isn't just gender, age and other physical attributes that will determine the pitch, language, pacing and intonations of speech for a believable VO- or the monetary and asset costs, IMO, but many other things.

Not only do I think they wouldn't do it right, I think at a meeting if it were brought someone would say, "what's the incentive with this? And why does it matter enough to even attempt to make work?"

Extremely happy. It's really going to up the narrative game and really help build the emotional tether to the player and the wasteland. Troy Baker is also maybe the best VA out there.

*Pukes*

But at the end of the day, you were still the Vault Dweller who drew the shortest straw and still the Chosen One of the Arroyo tribe. They both were sent out of their homes with specific tasks, and those tasks are what lead them into the stories of their respective games. Going off and dikeing around pretending to be a raider makes no sense in the first Fallout because the game establishes from the start that that's not what you are, and that you are only in the wasteland at all because you are on a mission. Avoiding said mission for too long has consequences, as eventually the timer runs out, and your vault runs out of water. Game over.
Fallout 2 doesn't have the timer, but the urgency is there. You are away from home on a mission to save your people. You aren't in some giant post-apocalyptic playground.