Fallout 4 (PC/PS4/XB1) | VR (Vive)

[Green]

Surprsingly, the Xbone version is getting mod support. Sony better step up. Shiiiit.

[Tidane]

I'm having a hard time understanding how voice acting isn't as advanced as text? Surely it's the opposite, but either way, if it makes the story more interesting but less Mary Sue personal I'm alright with that.

I said voice acting isn't advanced enough to compare to text. Voice acting imposes additional limitations beyond writing ability that have the potential to negatively impact how much player agency you can provide. With sufficiently advanced technology, you could generate voices for each of your characters without having to have actual humans record thousands upon thousands of hours of dialogue. That is, obviously, the idea scenario. Fallout was one of the first "choices and consequences" games and when you start peeling the series' identity away to add superficial things like voice acting, I am of the opinion that you're making a mistake. Having a good or bad story is unrelated to this. Voice acting can certainly add a lot to a game (Uncharted and The Last of Us are two of my favorite games), but that doesn't mean it is a good idea for everything.

I'm not ignoring what makes Fallout good, but it's a super fast and easy way to describe Fallout games with the main difference being VATS vs...Magic? (I'm hesitant to say nothing) if you aren't talking about the first games and why would you when the game is no longer going that direction? Either way, it's a process that either hits or misses, but I wouldn't say it was particularly bad, just different and it's hard to demonize that without experiencing more of it.

You mentioned reduced game complexity and how it was essentially just Elder Scrolls with guns. The point I was attempting to get across is that the combat system used in the game is essentially irrelevant (to me, anyway). The mechanics that (most) people enjoyed about Fallout and Fallout 2 could be applied to nearly any genre of game. Fallout 3 showed that it could theoretically work, but they did a poor job with actually making a Fallout game. Not as much with the systems they implemented, but in the world that they surrounded it with. What many had hoped was that Bethesda's second attempt at a Fallout game would embrace the roots of the series more than their first. Removing skills and the potential negative impact of a voiced protagonist on the ability to do choices and consequences are warning signs for people who were looking forward to something else. Ignoring the Fallout 1 and 2 because the series is moving in a different direction is silly. If it moved away once, it could just as easily swing back the other way.

Like I said, that doesn't mean that it will be a terrible game, but it may very well be another "bad" Fallout game.

[Elcura]

I said voice acting isn't advanced enough to compare to text. Voice acting imposes additional limitations beyond writing ability that have the potential to negatively impact how much player agency you can provide. With sufficiently advanced technology, you could generate voices for each of your characters without having to have actual humans record thousands upon thousands of hours of dialogue. That is, obviously, the idea scenario. Fallout was one of the first "choices and consequences" games and when you start peeling the series' identity away to add superficial things like voice acting, I am of the opinion that you're making a mistake. Having a good or bad story is unrelated to this. Voice acting can certainly add a lot to a game (Uncharted and The Last of Us are two of my favorite games), but that doesn't mean it is a good idea for everything.

You mentioned reduced game complexity and how it was essentially just Elder Scrolls with guns. The point I was attempting to get across is that the combat system used in the game is essentially irrelevant (to me, anyway). The mechanics that (most) people enjoyed about Fallout and Fallout 2 could be applied to nearly any genre of game. Fallout 3 showed that it could theoretically work, but they did a poor job with actually making a Fallout game. Not as much with the systems they implemented, but in the world that they surrounded it with. What many had hoped was that Bethesda's second attempt at a Fallout game would embrace the roots of the series more than their first. Removing skills and the potential negative impact of a voiced protagonist on the ability to do choices and consequences are warning signs for people who were looking forward to something else. Ignoring the Fallout 1 and 2 because the series is moving in a different direction is silly. If it moved away once, it could just as easily swing back the other way.

Like I said, that doesn't mean that it will be a terrible game, but it may very well be another "bad" Fallout game.

You totally lost me on the voice acting. You know that this isn't a thing right? Text is literally just words you can read, there's no level above or below that. You see text, you read it, I don't get how voice acting isn't advanced enough when it's just text you can hear. Nothing about this advanced technology stuff, having voices in your game is generally a good thing unless you don't have the time, money or space to include it. You're bitching that you can hear the text rather than read it...I mean...you can still just read the text. This isn't a thing. The story could be less complex, it could be just as complex or even more (same with the characters) but voice acting has little to do with it and in many cases makes it even easier to get into the world.

And if you aren't talking about combat, you're talking about elements that as you've said could be in any game in some form or another...so why is more or less of any of that important compared to actual gameplay like combat? If your problem is "they didn't get it right the first time they tried it" then fair enough but just because it's trying to improve on what it did (as well as in general) doesn't mean it's going to be bad as a Fallout game. You're overstating things, it should be fine but I was never very nostalgic for Fallout.

[Tidane]

You totally lost me on the voice acting. You know that this isn't a thing right? Text is literally just words you can read, there's no level above or below that. You see text, you read it, I don't get how voice acting isn't advanced enough when it's just text you can hear. Nothing about this advanced technology stuff, having voices in your game is generally a good thing unless you don't have the time, money or space to include it. You're bitching that you can hear the text rather than read it...I mean...you can still just read the text. This isn't a thing. The story could be less complex, it could be just as complex or even more (same with the characters) but voice acting has little to do with it and in many cases makes it even easier to get into the world.

I realize I didn't come out and say it so I can forgive you for completely missing the point. Synthetic speech. "With sufficiently advanced technology, you could generate voices for each of your characters without having to have actual humans record thousands upon thousands of hours of dialogue.". It isn't that voice acting itself (as in people talking) is not advanced enough, but the technology surrounding VA is not. There is a point at which having voice acting in every game will make sense, but we have not reached that point yet. There are still some games in which text-based dialogue allows greater freedom to the developers, which will allow them to create a better story and with it, a better game. Voice acting doesn't instantly make things better. We can argue where that point is, but you obviously are a fan of more limited, directed choices, which is not what I want in a Fallout game. Fair enough.

And if you aren't talking about combat, you're talking about elements that as you've said could be in any game in some form or another...so why is more or less of any of that important compared to actual gameplay like combat? If your problem is "they didn't get it right the first time they tried it" then fair enough but just because it's trying to improve on what it did (as well as in general) doesn't mean it's going to be bad as a Fallout game. You're overstating things, it should be fine but I was never very nostalgic for Fallout.

Bethesda was able to make V.A.T.S work within their system. It was no longer turn-based, but they took the system and formed it into something that fit their engine and the type of games that they make. They took other gameplay (but non-combat) features and kept them (S.P.E.C.I.A.L. checks, skill checks, perks, etc) and worked them into their game. What they weren't able to do was actually take the setting, lore, charm, and general aesthetic of Fallout and put it into their game. With this iteration, however, there is concern that they're decided to remove Skills (reduced complexity in terms of scope) and are adding voice acting (something superficial which has the potential to be a detriment to the type of Fallout experience they were looking for). The same trap that DA2 fell into, really.

TL;DR: People like different things.

[Tyrath]

Is adding voice to the MC really that big a deal? Everyone else already had it since FO3. I'm tired of the silent protagonist cliche. It's no longer charming. It just feels oddly muted in a world full of life.

[Elcura]

I realize I didn't come out and say it so I can forgive you for completely missing the point. Synthetic speech. "With sufficiently advanced technology, you could generate voices for each of your characters without having to have actual humans record thousands upon thousands of hours of dialogue.". It isn't that voice acting itself (as in people talking) is not advanced enough, but the technology surrounding VA is not. There is a point at which having voice acting in every game will make sense, but we have not reached that point yet. There are still some games in which text-based dialogue allows greater freedom to the developers, which will allow them to create a better story and with it, a better game. Voice acting doesn't instantly make things better. We can argue where that point is, but you obviously are a fan of more limited, directed choices, which is not what I want in a Fallout game. Fair enough.

Ugh... I didn't miss the point so much as skirt around it. I mean who cares if they can't do synthetic/automatically generated voices (which would likely still be inferior to proper VAs) when talking about VA vs text? If you wanted to say what you said just now, cool but it's the same either way.

I mean seriously who cares if they can't do that, automatically generated text isn't exactly doing you any favours either. Your concern is that text based dialogue gives you greater freedom when shit, voice acting is literally just speaking the same text.

That's my entire point, you're just saying what you could read instead. The difference is literally in whether you have the resources to do that, there's no rule that says if you have voices in your game you can't have text, or that everything has to be voiced, or anything in between. It might be easier for developers who have no money or no time, it might allow more freedom in the sense they don't have to worry about it physically but other than that.

Nope.

And to say I'm a fan of limited and more directed choices just because I like voices (hell, I could go as far as to say I don't hate them, I honestly don't care) is utterly ridiculous.

Bethesda was able to make V.A.T.S work within their system. It was no longer turn-based, but they took the system and formed it into something that fit their engine and the type of games that they make. They took other gameplay (but non-combat) features and kept them (S.P.E.C.I.A.L. checks, skill checks, perks, etc) and worked them into their game. What they weren't able to do was actually take the setting, lore, charm, and general aesthetic of Fallout and put it into their game. With this iteration, however, there is concern that they're decided to remove Skills (reduced complexity in terms of scope) and are adding voice acting (something superficial which has the potential to be a detriment to the type of Fallout experience they were looking for). The same trap that DA2 fell into, really.

TL;DR: People like different things.

Like I said, they're trying to get the setting right, and while you can consider FO3/NV a failure I think they did a fine job changing things up and would rather they improve this than they're previous formula. The removal of skills might be replaced by other things, it might have been combined with something else or just taken another form. Streamlining one process (or removing/simplifying it) doesn't necessarily mean the game has gone casual for lack of a better word.

And the problems with DA2 had little to do with giving Hawke a voice or personality, but DA:I proved that they could take that formula and do something much better with it.

[Lucavi]

I can build a town and hire security guards to protect it. That's all I need in a Fallout. Day 1, and I don't say that often; maybe twice a year. Last year's day 1's were Smash and MK8.

[Anoat]

I want to create a town for ghouls named Zombie Town.

[6souls]

Or a farm. Have pens of feral's and herds of glowing ones.

[Tidane]

Is adding voice to the MC really that big a deal? Everyone else already had it since FO3. I'm tired of the silent protagonist cliche. It's no longer charming. It just feels oddly muted in a world full of life.

No, not really. Adding a voice to the MC and then having a dialogue wheel with four abstract choices was disappointing to me. It won't stop me from buying the game, since I do think it will still be a good game.

Ugh... I didn't miss the point so much as skirt around it. I mean who cares if they can't do synthetic/automatically generated voices (which would likely still be inferior to proper VAs) when talking about VA vs text? If you wanted to say what you said just now, cool but it's the same either way.

The more VA you have, the less text you can have. Content is cut because of budget and time restrictions all the time. Does anyone honestly expect a dialogue set specific to low intelligence player characters? I'm not saying that it is technically feasible to have synthetic voices in games, but that every game doesn't need to be fully voiced. There seems to be this pervasive attitude that if your AAA game doesn't have VA, it is somehow of less quality. In my opinion, that's a negative that the industry needs to get over.

I mean seriously who cares if they can't do that, automatically generated text isn't exactly doing you any favours either. Your concern is that text based dialogue gives you greater freedom when shit, voice acting is literally just speaking the same text.

That's my entire point, you're just saying what you could read instead. The difference is literally in whether you have the resources to do that, there's no rule that says if you have voices in your game you can't have text, or that everything has to be voiced, or anything in between. It might be easier for developers who have no money or no time, it might allow more freedom in the sense they don't have to worry about it physically but other than that.

Nope.

...no, it isn't a one to one relationship. That's the benefit that text has over voice acting. Recording dialogue for all of your dialogue takes time. If you decide to change something after you've recorded it, you've got to record it again. There is a set speed you can record at. When you have more money, you certainly have the ability to take more time to record the additional dialogue, but the freedom I referred to was more closely related to the amount of divergence you could have within the world. Without voice acting, the writers don't have to worry about cutting lines because there won't be time to VA them. Obviously, that can also be a negative if you have undisciplined writers. There are pros and cons to each, so acting like voice acting has no drawbacks is strange.

And to say I'm a fan of limited and more directed choices just because I like voices (hell, I could go as far as to say I don't hate them, I honestly don't care) is utterly ridiculous.

Not because you like voices, but because you mentioned The Witcher and Mass Effect. They're much more focused and directed than what I was expecting out of Fallout 4.

Like I said, they're trying to get the setting right, and while you can consider FO3/NV a failure I think they did a fine job changing things up and would rather they improve this than they're previous formula. The removal of skills might be replaced by other things, it might have been combined with something else or just taken another form. Streamlining one process (or removing/simplifying it) doesn't necessarily mean the game has gone casual for lack of a better word.

I don't really include New Vegas much. Obsidian did a great job with what they had to work with, but I had no way of knowing how much Bethesda would really take from that. The fact that New Vegas seems more widely liked did leave me with the expectation that they would look to NV for advice on how to make their next game better.

I wouldn't say that FO3/NV were a failure, but that they didn't truly live up to their potential. FO3 was certainly good for a first outing and I'm interested in seeing how they've taken the criticism and feedback to improve FO4. With that said, I've never had much faith in Bethesda's skills as game developers, as a lot of the decisions they make in terms of game design are odd, to me. I do buy TES (and now Fallout) because of the ability to mod them and correct the things that bothered me.

And I think I said Biowarization, but I don't believe that means casualization. They're certainly trying to appear to the widest possible market and I have no problems with.

And the problems with DA2 had little to do with giving Hawke a voice or personality, but DA:I proved that they could take that formula and do something much better with it.

Well, that's another topic, but DAI was also not what I had hoped it could be. They really pushed it as a return towards the Origins roots, so I was a bit disappointed by it after my first playthroughs (which was probably documented in rants in that thread). I felt that it was better than DA2 by far, but different than what I had thought it was going to be. That doesn't mean it was bad, just not what I was expecting.

I can build a town and hire security guards to protect it. That's all I need in a Fallout. Day 1, and I don't say that often; maybe twice a year. Last year's day 1's were Smash and MK8.

Seriously, I can't emphasize that enough. Base building on day 1 instead of modding to get it is the thing that got me most excited.

[Waraji]

I'm getting Cancer from Radiation the longer this conversation goes on. I might grow an extra limb, keep it up, I could sure use a third hand to masturbate with while I post on this thread with the other two.

[Elcura]

The more VA you have, the less text you can have. Content is cut because of budget and time restrictions all the time. Does anyone honestly expect a dialogue set specific to low intelligence player characters? I'm not saying that it is technically feasible to have synthetic voices in games, but that every game doesn't need to be fully voiced. There seems to be this pervasive attitude that if your AAA game doesn't have VA, it is somehow of less quality. In my opinion, that's a negative that the industry needs to get over.

...no, it isn't a one to one relationship. That's the benefit that text has over voice acting. Recording dialogue for all of your dialogue takes time. If you decide to change something after you've recorded it, you've got to record it again. There is a set speed you can record at. When you have more money, you certainly have the ability to take more time to record the additional dialogue, but the freedom I referred to was more closely related to the amount of divergence you could have within the world. Without voice acting, the writers don't have to worry about cutting lines because there won't be time to VA them. Obviously, that can also be a negative if you have undisciplined writers. There are pros and cons to each, so acting like voice acting has no drawbacks is strange.

Not because you like voices, but because you mentioned The Witcher and Mass Effect. They're much more focused and directed than what I was expecting out of Fallout 4.

I don't really include New Vegas much. Obsidian did a great job with what they had to work with, but I had no way of knowing how much Bethesda would really take from that. The fact that New Vegas seems more widely liked did leave me with the expectation that they would look to NV for advice on how to make their next game better.

I wouldn't say that FO3/NV were a failure, but that they didn't truly live up to their potential. FO3 was certainly good for a first outing and I'm interested in seeing how they've taken the criticism and feedback to improve FO4. With that said, I've never had much faith in Bethesda's skills as game developers, as a lot of the decisions they make in terms of game design are odd, to me. I do buy TES (and now Fallout) because of the ability to mod them and correct the things that bothered me.

And I think I said Biowarization, but I don't believe that means casualization. They're certainly trying to appear to the widest possible market and I have no problems with.

Well, that's another topic, but DAI was also not what I had hoped it could be. They really pushed it as a return towards the Origins roots, so I was a bit disappointed by it after my first playthroughs (which was probably documented in rants in that thread). I felt that it was better than DA2 by far, but different than what I had thought it was going to be. That doesn't mean it was bad, just not what I was expecting.

The choices you're talking about have nothing to do with VA and everything to do with what you want for your game. I don't expect what you said to be done, but I don't doubt they can do it with voices. Sure you have to be more careful with voices and you're more locked in, but provided you aren't rewriting the entire script it shouldn't matter. We've gone over this, but the only reason to have voices rather than not is budget and time.

It also has nothing to do with divergence, since dialogue isn't the thing that restricts size or potential in games, it's graphics and gameplay. If you were making a text based game or visual novel I would agree that voices could distract (aside from the fact that I mentioned not everything has to be voiced 100% and you acknowledge that) but this isn't that. What levels of realism and depth are you expecting from conversations? Because it's likely that it wouldn't be met even in just plain text, it's not like having voices changes how you tell a story, just whether you can hear it.

And I only mentioned Witcher and ME as examples of how I'd like to see cutscenes in Fallout, nothing more or less.

Overall everything is looking good, but what game lives up to the potential we have in our heads?

[Pringles]

As a Yankee's fan, I hope they let me set fire or explode some part of Fenway in the game.

[6souls]

Fallout Mods on PC & XBone First (2015), PS4 next Year
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/06/...fter-xbox-one/

[Cail]

So damn excited...loved NV

[Zeb]

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/610286429390811136

[Tyrath]

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/610286429390811136

It would be boring as fuck?

@femfreq imagine if you could craft a better opinion on things

I lol'd

[Cail]

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/610286429390811136

fucking lol

[Tidane]

I don't want to continue after this, because it appears it won't be very constructive to the topic of Fallout 4, but a few closing thoughts, Elcura.

The choices you're talking about have nothing to do with VA and everything to do with what you want for your game. I don't expect what you said to be done, but I don't doubt they can do it with voices. Sure you have to be more careful with voices and you're more locked in, but provided you aren't rewriting the entire script it shouldn't matter. We've gone over this, but the only reason to have voices rather than not is budget and time.

As I said, your budget and time are one of the factors that influence what you can do in your game. VA does impact these decisions as well. Recording VA for a game with this sort of scope is both expensive and time consuming and it does influence the decisions you make with regard to the choices I spoke about. These decisions are not made in bubbles. If you want a fully voiced game, you need to make sacrifices in the type, style, and amount of dialogue that you're presenting. We can argue about this, but the simple fact is that the decision to be fully voiced or not is made early in development and influences how the game is written.

It also has nothing to do with divergence, since dialogue isn't the thing that restricts size or potential in games, it's graphics and gameplay.

No, this is incorrect. Dialogue is something that introduces restrictions. If you have ten thousand pages of dialogue, you need to record ten thousand pages to be fully voiced. There is no magic way to record dialogue any faster than having a person read (multiple times) for each line. Again, acting like VA has no overhead is misunderstanding everything that goes into having good voice acting. The more branching dialogue you have, the greater the number of lines that a player may not see becomes. The cost of having the player miss text is less than missing voices.

And I only mentioned Witcher and ME as examples of how I'd like to see cutscenes in Fallout, nothing more or less.

Which, in my eyes, equates to a more directed experience. I don't want cutscenes in Fallout. You may recall Todd mentioning that during dialogue you have the ability to walk away at any point (or pull out your gun and shoot the person). This is important to me because it leaves me in control. I want the freedom to make the choices I want, not to be driven down the path the developer wants. I'm not saying that either is better than the other, but that is what I was looking forward to in a new Fallout.

Overall everything is looking good, but what game lives up to the potential we have in our heads?

I agree completely. I think that the game is looking like it will be well received. I was voicing my opinion on what they showed vs what my expectations were from the next Fallout were. There were things that I saw that worried me, so I talked about them.

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/610286429390811136

That one really knows how to latch onto just about anything for attention.

[Elcura]

Well it was fun, killing time during/before conferences.

I don't want to continue after this, because it appears it won't be very constructive to the topic of Fallout 4, but a few closing thoughts, Elcura.

As I said, your budget and time are one of the factors that influence what you can do in your game. VA does impact these decisions as well. Recording VA for a game with this sort of scope is both expensive and time consuming and it does influence the decisions you make with regard to the choices I spoke about. These decisions are not made in bubbles. If you want a fully voiced game, you need to make sacrifices in the type, style, and amount of dialogue that you're presenting. We can argue about this, but the simple fact is that the decision to be fully voiced or not is made early in development and influences how the game is written.

No, this is incorrect. Dialogue is something that introduces restrictions. If you have ten thousand pages of dialogue, you need to record ten thousand pages to be fully voiced. There is no magic way to record dialogue any faster than having a person read (multiple times) for each line. Again, acting like VA has no overhead is misunderstanding everything that goes into having good voice acting. The more branching dialogue you have, the greater the number of lines that a player may not see becomes. The cost of having the player miss text is less than missing voices.

Which, in my eyes, equates to a more directed experience. I don't want cutscenes in Fallout. You may recall Todd mentioning that during dialogue you have the ability to walk away at any point (or pull out your gun and shoot the person). This is important to me because it leaves me in control. I want the freedom to make the choices I want, not to be driven down the path the developer wants. I'm not saying that either is better than the other, but that is what I was looking forward to in a new Fallout.

I agree completely. I think that the game is looking like it will be well received. I was voicing my opinion on what they showed vs what my expectations were from the next Fallout were. There were things that I saw that worried me, so I talked about them.

VA falls under budget and time, you're only restricted by VA if you can't afford it or can't find very good ones or literally have no space for it. You just aren't thinking about the game as a whole, because if you want a fully rendered, 3D experience that is functional, voice acting is NOT your main concern when it comes to scope. You think that dialogue is the reason you can't do this or that? Nope, it's graphics, animation, coding and all that shit. What people have to say and how is one of the lesser concerns. I mean are you going to have a 3D high poly model that's animated nicely and looks good wave its arms around as a text box appears and dialogue scrolls across the screen like it's 1995? Is the background made out of cardboard or is shit going on? I'd hate to live in a world where scope was dictated by dialogue. I mean...I guess visual novels...again.

The restriction is not dialogue, it's just about everything else. The more things you have to make, the longer the game takes to come out. During the time it takes to actually make a character, animate it and all that you could write lines, rewrite them, scrap them, write new ones, do a reading, change lines, read again, record, and then scrap all that shit and do it again. I bet after that the model will probably be ready if you exclude all the practical shit you have to do afterwards.

You don't lose anything because whether you have text or voices the script is the script. Do you write spoken dialogue for voices or no voices? No, you just write the damn dialogue and if it has voices then cool! If not then who cares? Hell voices could be beneficial to your writing since it means you can't waffle on and exposition the shit out of the player in the most bland, boring way possible (which also doesn't eliminate boring the shit out of your players with it). Ultimately the point is even if you have no plans to use voices you wouldn't particularly write your script any differently. After all the story telling in games is more than reading a wall of text that someone spits at you or you find on a wall and dialogue is dialogue.

You think these people are indecisive students who can't write to save their lives? And again I'm not acting like VA has no overhead as I've said multiple times that VA = time and money (also space). Money being overhead, cost, budget restrictions whatever, time being the thousands of lines to read over and over again. And who cares about players not seeing branching dialogue? If the game is good they'll play it multiple times, and if the choices in conversation are significant they'll choose other options. Sure the cost of having players miss voice acting is greater than text, but if the game is good and selling then it really has no consequence after the customer has bought it, no?

And for cutscenes, my point is that if they're going to take control away from you in general they might as well make shit look good. I don't particularly need a more directed experience, considering Dark Souls taught me early on what the consequences of those actions are. Accidentally smacking someone during a conversation and missing shit can get annoying but a lot of what you mention has this unforgiving quality to it (which I get is good for Fallout) which doesn't really go well with general nubs playing and finishing a thing