Why do people like being surprised by their character's dialogue?

They are simply approaching the game in a different way. Being surprised by what your character says is a flaw because it can undermine the character you are roleplaying or can affect the world in a way that you didn't want. If someone is playing Fallout 4 as an open-world action game with character customization and a dialogue wheel (not a role-playing game per se), then being surprised by dialogue obviously isn't an issue for them since they either aren't roleplaying or just aren't very invested in that aspect of the game.

Also, just in terms of mechanics, it would be annoying to hear your character speak a line right after reading it in your head and hearing it in your internal voice. That would also ruin the delivery since you already knew what the characters were going to say, having just read it a second before. I don't know if Bethesda decided on the dialogue wheel or the voiced protagonist first, but I think a voiced protagonist pushes the game toward this feature where you get a description of the line that will be said rather than the line itself.
 
Walpknut said:
It's almost as if a voiced protagonist just ruined everything. Who would've thought.
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I think you can make a voiced protagonist work in a roleplaying game. You need to focus on two things though:
1) A really fantastic vocal performance (Jennifer Hale's work as Shepard actually makes Mass Effect better)
2) Make sure there are enough options for expressing distinct viewpoints, so people feel like they're still roleplaying (this is why Geralt works.)

Fallout 4 kind of fails both tests though, the voice acting is pretty much bog standard for the video game industry, and "three flavors of yes" doesn't really enable anybody to express themselves.
 
I don't consider Mass Effect actual roleplaying games so I don't agree with voiced protagonists working.

And in any case, the voice acting itselfalready limits the amount of choices you get, so even with that criteria we are still getting less than with an unvoiced protagonist.
 
I rather prefer voiced protagonists. It detracts from immersion to have a game with pseudo-realistic graphics and player characters with no voice.

It's fine in indie art-style RPGs and isometric ones, since those leave a lot to imagination anyway. But an RPG with realistic graphics and animations may as well have a voiced protagonist, because otherwise there's just an obvious imbalance in the focus of aesthetics.

New Vegas gets away with this in my eyes because you don't see your character when speaking and it's still old enough to get away with no voice. Dragon Age: Origins already pushed this, since it was fairly annoying to see graphics like that and a detailed character face but no voice coming out of it, despite the PC having voices in combat.

When it comes to stuff like voice, don't be inconsistent. Mass Effect wouldn't have worked with a no-voice protagonist, and Wasteland 2 wouldn't have worked with a voiced protagonist. I found Divinity: Original Sin fairly annoying for its dual protagonists' voices. Just go with one or the other, guys.
 
I prefer no voiced protagonist when it comes to RPGs, I don't want to pick a line only to have my character sound like some generic asshole(Fallout 4). I don't buy that immersion crap either, it's thrown around by Bethesfans so often it makes me want to bash my head off my desk.
 
Walpknut said:
Immersion is a meaningless buzzword.
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I start to think no one had any "immersion" in older games without voiced characters :wiggle:.

I don't know if people really like being surprised by their character's dialogue or not, but what I know is most people don't like reading... It seems that a trend had formed on game forums and even steam reviews for games that are text heavy: "I will not buy this game because it has too much text" or "LOL no1 like 2 read" or "I would buy this game if it had a voice so I wouldn't have to read so much", etc.

I blame that weird thing that the USA has called something like "Leave no child behind". :scratch:
 
Immersion, like all buzz-words, have an origin of meaning and value. I love immersion, but yeah, in the end, we keep going "nope, that's not it - " to all these half-assed attempts at mimicking that.. immersion..

"Nope, a bunch of colors, teddy bears, and skeletons are not immersion."

Tell Beth that a book can be immersive. A fuckin book!
 
If there's one aspect that doesn't work, it would be the dialogue system. I've heard arguments against it from both those who praise and decry the game. It worked in Mass Effect, at least at the time, but Fallout 4 proves that you need to put more effort in if you're going to implement a brand new feature.

Interested to see how the next Elder Scrolls turns out. Maybe there'll be another dialogue system, maybe there won't; maybe it will be improved somewhat, maybe it won't, who knows.
 
I can't think of anything that breaks "immurshunz" harder than my black dude with big Afro, Handlebar Mustache and huge sideburns sounding like a generic white dude. I rather make my own voice for him than having to sound like a Troy Baker impersonator.
 
Oh, for fuck's sake, you all know what I meant. So I used the word immersion, and it didn't have a definite meaning to it. Fine.

What about consistency? A game like Fallout 2 that leaves a lot of visuals to the imagination might as well leave the protagonist's voice to it too. But a games in the Mass Effect or Dragon Age series for example - they would not work without one. Likewise, I felt that Divinity: Original Sin detracted from the experience with voiced protags. That's my point. Please, stop going off topic and just use common sense with your replies.

Unless, what, every RPG game ever should have no voiced protagonist? So the Witcher series shouldn't have it?

"Oh, but the Mass Effect and Witcher series aren't really real RPGs... They're more action-oriented". Oh well, in that case, we're not only delving into the argument of "what makes an RPG" again, but we're also just generalising.

So Fallout shouldn't have a voiced protagonist. Fine. But firstly, that does not, should not, and will not ever apply to all RPGs, considering how vast the genre is. And secondly, going back to no voiced protagonist after Fallout 4 is going to be a no-no for the target audience of Bethesda, and will probably still be a requirement even with Obsidian at the helm of a spin-off.

Unless Bethesda falls apart or gives Fallout to Obsidian (which, just finally admit it, isn't ever going to happen) then the no voice dream is over. It's a dead wish. And it's not going to happen again.
 
Many people have given negative feedback on the voiced protagonist and dialogue interface, even people who liked the game. The game is also the worst reviewed Fallout game, not to mention the amount of money they will save from ditching the Voiced protagonist thing, it can only benefit them.

You got really angry, about us making fun of the Immurshuns thing but that was your argument in the first place, so maybe choose your words better?
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Oh, for fuck's sake, you all know what I meant. So I used the word immersion, and it didn't have a definite meaning to it. Fine.

What about consistency? A game like Fallout 2 that leaves a lot of visuals to the imagination might as well leave the protagonist's voice to it too. But a games in the Mass Effect or Dragon Age series for example - they would not work without one. Likewise, I felt that Divinity: Original Sin detracted from the experience with voiced protags. That's my point. Please, stop going off topic and just use common sense with your replies.

Unless, what, every RPG game ever should have no voiced protagonist? So the Witcher series shouldn't have it?

"Oh, but the Mass Effect and Witcher series aren't really real RPGs... They're more action-oriented". Oh well, in that case, we're not only delving into the argument of "what makes an RPG" again, but we're also just generalising.

So Fallout shouldn't have a voiced protagonist. Fine. But firstly, that does not, should not, and will not ever apply to all RPGs, considering how vast the genre is. And secondly, going back to no voiced protagonist after Fallout 4 is going to be a no-no for the target audience of Bethesda, and will probably still be a requirement even with Obsidian at the helm of a spin-off.

Unless Bethesda falls apart or gives Fallout to Obsidian (which, just finally admit it, isn't ever going to happen) then the no voice dream is over. It's a dead wish. And it's not going to happen again.
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Dragon Age Origins didn't have a voiced character outside of ambient combat lines and it's miles better than it's sequels. That said a character like Geralt who has lore and history that makes him a complete character does fine having a voice, but a game like Fallout where the character is supposed to be your own makes having a voice ridiculous. Lets stick with Dragon Age, DAI had two voice options for each gender and for the male dwarf and Qunari it sounded stupid, especially in contrast to The Iron Bull. So if a game developer wants to give total freedom to the player on building a character a voice hinders that.
 
Spacemunkey said:
Dragon Age Origins didn't have a voiced character outside of ambient combat lines and it's miles better than it's sequels. That said a character like Geralt who has lore and history that makes him a complete character does fine having a voice, but a game like Fallout where the character is supposed to be your own makes having a voice ridiculous. Lets stick with Dragon Age, DAI had two voice options for each gender and for the male dwarf and Qunari it sounded stupid, especially in contrast to The Iron Bull. So if a game developer wants to give total freedom to the player on building a character a voice hinders that.
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Except a game developer does not have to give total freedom to the player. And personally for me, like I said, DA:O was painful for me to get into due to the fact that the game literally points the camera at a detailed character's face, but has voiceless dialogue, yet in combat that same character has dialogue. It is pure inconsistency, and it is one of the many little things that cause enough annoyance for people to want voiced protagonists in the first place.

We're not talking about Fallout alone here. Drop that. Fallout fits better with no voiced protagonist, but it is undeniable that the voiced protagonist, along with Bethesda's iron grip on the series, is here to stay.

We were discussing whether or not all RPGs should have non-voiced protagonists. They shouldn't. Period.
 
"The game dev doesn't have to give freedom to the player"

And the Player doesn't have to like the game or call it an RPG either.

I think a voiced protagonist is something only adventure games and linear story based games should have, it really has no place on an RPG.
 
Walpknut said:
"The game dev doesn't have to give freedom to the player"

And the Player doesn't have to like the game or call it an RPG either.

I think a voiced protagonist is something only adventure games and linear story based games should have, it really has no place on an RPG.
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Never said that the player had to like it or call it an RPG. And as much as we would all like no voiced protagonist in a Fallout game, it isn't going to happen again. Neither is Fallout in Obsidian's hand without Bethesda's influence. Neither is an isometric Fallout. It's just one more thing to add to the list of permanent tumours added to the series as a result of the cancer Bethesda gave it.

If Bethesda lets Obsidian at a spin-off and lets them use a non-voiced protagonist, I'll eat my hat. Not literally. I'm no fun. :P
 
MercenarySnake said:
I'm not sure why anyone would want to be surprised by what the dialogue options say. I'm not a fan of the paraphrasing or whatever the hell Fallout 4 is doing. I do remember when a Bethesda fan said "They like it when they're surprised by what they're gonna say since they don't know what they're going to say before they say it in real life". I just like when the options are straight to the point, some of those options like "sarcastic" are so vague, I'm not sure if it's suppose to be sarcastic angry or sarcastic funny as you don't know until the character already says it.
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Which doesn't surprise me actually, since a lot of them seem not to think before they speak. So that makes kinda sense ...
 
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