Fallout 4...might the protagonist be "set"?

[Rebel_Raven]

You have preferrences on wanting to go back to the isometric grid based stuff, I suppose?

Not really. New Vegas was good, sans the butt-ugly engine and some fuck ups with faction writing. So, my idea of Perfect Fallout 4 is simply "give FNV a new engine and let Chris Avellone write everything"

Yeah, I did like New Vegas leaps and bounds over FO3. Better cast of companions, and just general excellence.

Question is why the heck are you taking it out on me?

I am angry, ANGRY ABOUT GAEMS, and you just happened to be nearby.

As good a reason as any.

I guess you mean you're mad at me for not liking the protagonist and passing up a great game

Yeah, I screwed up that one. I am pissed at you for hating on a probably horrible game for completely wrong reasons. Yeah, sounds retarded even to me, but your wrong reasons are so wrong I just can't hold it.

Fair enough. Not saying I'm wrong, mind you but disagreements happen.

I got my preferrences on protagonists. Character customization creates more investment in my character so I feel closer to my character.

THAT'S THE THING! The main character needs to be relatable, no matter what emotions the player i supposed to feel about him. But the protagonist of Falllout 3 was rather impossible to relate to. There was an absolute zero of possibilities for creating any sort of character for him, and no matter how much you played - he FORCIBLY remained a mindless blank dummy, with only two option being "a dummy with angelic wings" and "a dummy with demonic horns", both absolutely out of any context and lacking any meaning. Fucking roguelikes with next to no dialogue give you more means of actually fleshing out your character than Fallout 3 does. Choosing gender does nothing to give such a walking cloud of nothing any sort of shape, that's not the way of solving the issue, it's like trying to build a bridge starting with road markings on it.

So if we're expecting F4 to be anything like F3 (and we have every reason to) - we need to worry about lore being at least somewhat believable, about quests not being shit and choices in them making any sense. About plot not being a steaming pile of retardation and about ANYTHING of our character having at least some impact on it. Because without all of that - sticking a dick or a vagina on our idiotic dummy will have absolutely no meaning.

Captcha: run the gauntlet
Yes captcha, I know I'll have to download and play through it even if it's complete shit.

That's why I like character creation. It causes me to have some investment. It varies from game to game, but there's always that ability to project into the world, and enjoy some escapism.
Heck, I was up late playing New Vegas, and I looked at my health after a big battle, and I thought my character lost a foot coz of the way vault boy's drawn (One of the feet looks like a stump), so I freaked out. My avatar, my me was injured! of course later I came to my senses, and realized my avatar wasnt hobbling around on a stump.

Chosing a gender means a hell of alot to me in the end. I don't expect people to understand why, but that doesn't impact the fact that it helps a lot. Someone in the game, somewhere is eventually going to talk to your character. It kicks the crap out of my immersion being called the wrong gender, and being treated differently, ya know like in love scenes, and stuff. I like playing dressup in games like Skyrim, and Fallout (Storm Chaser hat, and shades ftw), and mass Effect (not that the latter has much to work with) and I go third person from time to time, so I do see my character.
I'm not super happy nearly always having to see things through the point of view of a guy. I've done that, and seen just about the extent games are willing to take that. Even in games like Fallout where Gender changes very little, that little bit helps.
It's entirely possible to write a story, and character for both genders. Saints Row, previous fallouts, most bethesda, and Mass Effect games, a lot of RPGs in the past.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Let me ask this since people are getting salty about the possibility of having a set character: Who, besides you, and even then only if you are in the third person mode, is going to see your character?

There haven't been any cutscenes in any of Bethesda Fallout games that show your character, there is no co-op mode to show your character off to a friend, and unless you absolutely love the terrible third person mode that has been a staple since Morrowind, who the heck cares?

Honestly I'm starting to want Bethesda to make only premade characters for Fallout 4, in either Vanilla Steve or Chocolate Steve flavors just to see how salty people would get.

They'll talk to you and call you a dude, or a woman, of course. It might just be text, but that kinda just makes it harder to suspend disbelief.
Then there's prostitutes, coz those are basically inevitable in a fallout game. You may not see your character (I do fairly often coz I like seeing my character stylish) but your character is going to be treated like a gender would be. If not, then there's no point in forcing a gender, I imagine.

 

[Zeljkia the Orc]

Let me ask this since people are getting salty about the possibility of having a set character: Who, besides you, and even then only if you are in the third person mode, is going to see your character?

There haven't been any cutscenes in any of Bethesda Fallout games that show your character, there is no co-op mode to show your character off to a friend, and unless you absolutely love the terrible third person mode that has been a staple since Morrowind, who the heck cares?

Honestly I'm starting to want Bethesda to make only premade characters for Fallout 4, in either Vanilla Steve or Chocolate Steve flavors just to see how salty people would get.

They'll talk to you and call you a dude, or a woman, of course. It might just be text, but that kinda just makes it harder to suspend disbelief.
Then there's prostitutes, coz those are basically inevitable in a fallout game. You may not see your character (I do fairly often coz I like seeing my character stylish) but your character is going to be treated like a gender would be. If not, then there's no point in forcing a gender, I imagine.

if it's a gender thing, just make a Steve and then a Brittney as playable characters. I admit it's nice having a character creator in games but I think it's stupid to spend 45 minutes carfully making a character that no one ever is going to see other than you and possibly a few other people if you take a screenshot or make a video in the game.

For games like Entropia where you can go fairly in-depth in character creation, sure, spend that extra 30 minutes, in games like Saints Row, Dark Souls, and Fallout? if you aren't making Ginger Powder, why bother making a character at all?

http://thecreatures.wikia.com/wiki/Ginger_Powder

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Let me ask this since people are getting salty about the possibility of having a set character: Who, besides you, and even then only if you are in the third person mode, is going to see your character?

There haven't been any cutscenes in any of Bethesda Fallout games that show your character, there is no co-op mode to show your character off to a friend, and unless you absolutely love the terrible third person mode that has been a staple since Morrowind, who the heck cares?

Honestly I'm starting to want Bethesda to make only premade characters for Fallout 4, in either Vanilla Steve or Chocolate Steve flavors just to see how salty people would get.

They'll talk to you and call you a dude, or a woman, of course. It might just be text, but that kinda just makes it harder to suspend disbelief.
Then there's prostitutes, coz those are basically inevitable in a fallout game. You may not see your character (I do fairly often coz I like seeing my character stylish) but your character is going to be treated like a gender would be. If not, then there's no point in forcing a gender, I imagine.

if it's a gender thing, just make a Steve and then a Brittney as playable characters. I admit it's nice having a character creator in games but I think it's stupid to spend 45 minutes carfully making a character that no one ever is going to see other than you and possibly a few other people if you take a screenshot or make a video in the game.

For games like Entropia where you can go fairly in-depth in character creation, sure, spend that extra 30 minutes, in games like Saints Row, Dark Souls, and Fallout? if you aren't making Ginger Powder, why bother making a character at all?

http://thecreatures.wikia.com/wiki/Ginger_Powder

I like seeing how strong the character creation is, designing something pleasing visually and audibly if voice is an option, and basically letting lose some artistic side. I often do end up looking at my character, and sometimes getting irritated when the game's lighning makes my character look diffirent which leads me to either restart the game, or look for an appearance changer. Fallout's especially notorious for that... heck, Bethesda in general is.

I kinda have a character design I try to carry from game to game, too, sorta like Ginger Powder, but not that outrageous looking.

I don't mind if the characters are set as far as appearances go so long as there's a gender choice, or if the game is really and truely worth me putting up with likely not enjoying being the protagonist.

 

[DementedSheep]

Isn't it obvious from the trailer? we aren't playing as the guy, he just your companion. We are playing as the German Shepard and yes the gender is customisable! Personally I'm in support of this bold new direction.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Yeah, they wouldn't do that. Having an open-canvas protagonist is why the series got so popular in the first place. That and satire I guess.

I don't think it would be weird if they did (the canonical protagonists of 1-3 have been male - and while that is super annoying in the first place it's mostly irrelevant since you could be female in the game with almost no limitations), but as long as I get to be the dog, I don't care.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

It kicks the crap out of my immersion being called the wrong gender, and being treated differently, ya know like in love scenes, and stuff.

There are no love scenes in F3. Well, if you have the Black Widow perk when you talk to Mr. Berk in Megaton you can "seduce" him, so he will go away and then send you some hilariously cheesy love letters. But you're almost guaranteed to deal with this quest long before that perk becomes available, and other than that case there are like 7 other places where you can use it with 5 of them having like zero effect, making it THE most useless perk in the entire game. And... that's it for the "love scenes".

I'm not limiting this to fallout 3. Or one single game at all. Pretty sure there's a bit more than that, even if its just prstitures, but I hadn'nt played in ages.

They'll talk to you and call you a dude, or a woman, of course. It might just be text, but that kinda just makes it harder to suspend disbelief.

The amount of gender-differentiated dialogues in F3 can be counted by fingers of one hand. Pretty much all of them are conversations with your father. On all the other occasions game is more annoyingly careful not to pronoun you than a crazy tumblrite. Some time after I got power armor I honestly forgot what gender I was playing.

Again, not limited to FO3. The reason for the limited gender specefic dialogue is because there's gender choice. That's generaly how it is. They either have male/female text, male/female voice tracks, and/or just dodge it like Dragon's Dogma using gender neutral "ser" and Saints Row using Boss.

[qute]

Then there's prostitutes, coz those are basically inevitable in a fallout game.

"Present in two places" != "inevitable". And again - they have unisex dialogue and interactions, kinda making them bisexual. [/quote] hadn't played FO3 in a while. Not limiting it to that game. When there's prostitutes in basically every entry in a game, it's inevitable. Doesn't matter if they're limited in appearance or not. The ones in New Vegas didn't, except for one.

Even in games like Fallout where Gender changes very little, that little bit helps.

And you're telling me that this "very little" is the deciding factor for you when buying a game?

It could make one think that you don't really care much about them games. More about vaginas in them.

One thinking that would be wrong to put it kindly,and briefly.
Pardon me for having a preferrence in playing a female character. It's not like it's at all common at all. I mean, if I had consistent new releases with female characters, I'd probably forget what it's like not having that luxury.
And yeah, if I have my choice between a decent game forcing me to play as a dude, and a decent game where I don't have to, I'm picking the latter. For what it's worth, I'm voting with my wallet.

 

[Mike000]

Plot twist: The dog was the one talking.

If they pulled a "Boy and His Dog" reference, that'd be awesome!

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I would prefer to just be a random person living in the wasteland who found a pipboy. I don't need a main quest. If I hear about something that interests me I'll investigate.

If I am stuck with only a guy I'm not going to really care much. Being yet another person from yet another vault is kinda boring to me.

It would be cool to pick from say, human, ghoul, or robot. You could pick to start out in a town, a cave, or with the BoS or something and get on with faffing about.

I tend to skip the main quests in Bethesda games after the first time, because they ALWAYS have a point in them where everything gets fucked up and makes your life vastly more of a pain in the ass for having gotten that far. You are having fun in Oblivion, go to Kvatch, then you pretty much want to restart because fuck the Oblivion Gates and the lame armor set you finally get after a series of quests I barely remember.

You are playing Skyrim and kill your first dragon. Well congrats, you get to be attacked by them every time you go anywhere for anything FOREVER, they will kill every smith and shopkeeper they see first assuming they do anything other than fly around preventing fast travel and generally being dicks.

You are playing Fallout 3 and get to a certain point and Enclave are all over. Well that's not so bad, they actually have great loot. You keep playing and whoops you are dead, unless you buy the dlc.

Not to mention that unless you get pc version, good luck even playing the game until 2+ years later when they finally decide to patch 7 out of 500 issues that the pc community shall have fixed in the first month.

So yeah, my hype train isn't leaving the station on Fallout 4

 

[RJ 17]

A lot of people seem to be freaking out because the fact that the character speaks in the trailer.

Firstly: it's not even confirmed that that's who you're going to be playing as.

Secondly: there's been tons of games that have voiced protagonists where you still get to customize aspects - including gender - of the protagonist.

As such, I highly doubt they're going with a standard stock character for this one.

 

[Zenn3k]

yaaaaay! freak out! its hapeniiing!!

one thing people have speculated is weather or not the protagonist will be "voiced" personally I dismissed this as just something for the trailer

HOWEVER

http://kotaku.com/all-the-juicy-details-hidden-in-the-fallout-4-trailer-1708720494

this article from Kotaku (partcially near the end) shows us some leaked script thing from around 2013 or so...and you'll see if you read it and watch the trailer they match up

and a leak from reddit implying you can only be male in the main story
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/28v2dn/i_played_fallout_4/

so this actually makes me wonder if that's the case...kinda left of field for Bethesda

HOWEVER

I did see this floating around on reddit

http://i.imgur.com/2w6wYkK.png

which might imply we get a choice

I reeeeaaly hope that's ture because if I can't play as Furiosa from Mad Max I ain't playing

The "leaker" (who's been about 95% correct so far), said it'll be locked to a male voiced protagonist, they're doing it for storytelling purposes, which is fine in my book.

However, the leaker also said after the completion of the main story, we can then modify our character into something new and even change gender.