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What will become of the protagonist in voiced story/quest mods?


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As we all know, Fallout 4's protagonist is voiced, so they'd talk in scenes, conversations and different sort of events.

 

Here comes a matter: what will become of their lines in quest mods?

 

 

Unlike Skyrim, which the protagonist has no voice, Fallout 4's protagonist has a hard-coded voice and quest mods have to inevitably deal with it.

 

I suppose I don't need to explain what it means, so I'll get STTP - what are the possible ways out to this situation?

 

 

1. Unvoiced protagonist

Pros: Simple to do, plus the benefits of having a completely muted protagonist (truly roleplay the way you want).

Cons: The protagonist can speak in the vanilla content and it'd be immersion-breaking if they're suddenly muted in another adventure. It's true that there are tons of completely unvoiced quest mods in Skyrim and most people don't have a big problem about it, but we're talking about voiced quest mods here. All characters in the same mod can speak except the protagonist who can actually speak as well - it's not immersive. Some might use the Muted Protagonist mod for whatever reason they have, but the majority is still playing with a voiced one.

 

2. Pay the original VAs to voice the protagonist

Pros: Completely seamless with vanilla game.

Cons: It's basically unfeasible. First, not all modders have that kind of money to hire two VAs even with donations from the users; second, that means the other VAs in the mod would have to be paid as well for the sake of fairness - that'd be a hell lot of money.

 

3. Convince the original VAs to voice the lines for free

Pros: WOW! It's simply the BEST way!

Cons: Man, I'd want to live in utopia as well.

 

4. Find volunteer VAs (possibly with voices resembling the original ones) to voice the protagonist

Pros: The protagonist have voice, making the mod more seamless with the vanilla game.

Cons: Not all VAs have the ability to resemble the voices of the original VAs. If they don't, there'd be even greater seam with the vanilla game.

 

4a. Edit the voiced lines to make them resemble the voices of original VAs

Pros: More seamless with vanilla game.

Cons: Difficult to be done perfectly in massive story mods that have thousands of lines. Plus, ultimately, edited voice files are still "fake" and cannot truly resemble the voices of original VAs.

 

4b. Use the story to explain why the protagonist has a different voice

Pros: Makes the whole thing logical.

Cons: The seam remains and the players might not truly accept the explanations.

 

5. Scrap and remix the voice files of the vanilla game to form desired lines

Pros: More seamless with the vanilla game.

Cons: Difficult to be done perfectly, especially in massive story mods that have thousands of lines. Finding vanilla lines that contain the desired words, scraping and remixing them - it'd take exponentially more time and effort than writing and proofreading a line itself. Plus, the voice files produced in this way are usually flawed.

 

 

 

What other ways would you suggest to handle the protagonist's voice in quest mods? I'm interested in hearing them.

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Think it would be better to just scrap the idea of a voiced player character altogether. still puzzles me that Beth went that way to begin with. 

And just keep the player responses as neutral as possible without going full robot ofc, and in turn spend all of the energy on giving npcs personally.

 

Something so simple as how a line of dialogue is delivered from the player character can make or break immersion when in a build your own character style of RPG.   

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They'll tell there story just like they always have in quest mods, nothing says the protag has to have a voice. it's only there if they choose to use it. a lot more work involved finding the right voice files and or doing new voice files. I doubt there are going to be many that actually take that kind of time. at least not if you go by all the negative comments made on these boards about the world hating a voiced protagonist. I'm sure someone will come up with a "Silent Voice" mod before too long. 

 

Actually, there's already a muted protagonist mod on nexus.

 

Thing is, the majority of the players is still playing with a voiced protagonist. That means they'd want to see a protagonist that can speak, in both the vanilla game and mods.

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They'll tell there story just like they always have in quest mods, nothing says the protag has to have a voice. it's only there if they choose to use it. a lot more work involved finding the right voice files and or doing new voice files. I doubt there are going to be many that actually take that kind of time. at least not if you go by all the negative comments made on these boards about the world hating a voiced protagonist. I'm sure someone will come up with a "Silent Voice" mod before too long. 

 

Actually, there's already a muted protagonist mod on nexus.

 

Thing is, the majority of the players is still playing with a voiced protagonist. That means they'd want to see a protagonist that can speak, in both the vanilla game and mods.

 

True. If want play mute character zero personlity go play Nintendo game like Zelda.lol

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They'll tell there story just like they always have in quest mods, nothing says the protag has to have a voice. it's only there if they choose to use it. a lot more work involved finding the right voice files and or doing new voice files. I doubt there are going to be many that actually take that kind of time. at least not if you go by all the negative comments made on these boards about the world hating a voiced protagonist. I'm sure someone will come up with a "Silent Voice" mod before too long. 

 

Actually, there's already a muted protagonist mod on nexus.

 

Thing is, the majority of the players is still playing with a voiced protagonist. That means they'd want to see a protagonist that can speak, in both the vanilla game and mods.

 

True. If want play mute character zero personlity go play Nintendo game like Zelda.lol

 

 

i would prefer having my own created personality and not beeing forced into that loving father figur, well if somebody can acomplish that with a voice i dont complain.

but for now having a voice means sacraficing debt of story.

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True. If want play mute character zero personlity go play Nintendo game like Zelda.lol

 

 

 

Or FO3/NV, Oblivion, Skyrim .... Or any other RPG with a customizable player character. 

It is amazing that people other than the FO4 fanboys on beth.net can be blind about all of the damage the voiced protagonist did to Fallout 4. Simply amazing. 

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Which Dragon Age has a voiced protagonist? Tbh I've only played DA:O and the only thing the PC says is "It has begun" and "Shall be done". There is no single pos and only multiple cons in voicing the PC when there is a character creation option. 

Anyway, the topic is not about is it good or bad... So back to the topic.

 

If you are going to think about the dialogue in a mod you also need to consider the requirement for the 4 reply options. However you decide to voice the PC in your mod you need to do that for 4 responses each and every dialogue node. If you skip even one it will look already inconsistent with the game and also quite ugly. A dialogue node with a missing option looks like a smile with missing teeth.  I guess the optimal solution if you want to make mod taht will not take years to create is to accept that it will have dialogue inconsistent with the game.

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Some Body needs to build a tool that can be feed audio file after audio file of a persons voice. Then extrapolate the layout of the voice pattern and let you make your own lines with a synthetic version of that persons voice pattern.... I think if that became available a large amount of hack actors would be completely out of a job though!!!

 

If I could do something like that....I think the first 2 voices I would feed into that machine would be John Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe...

Then I would make a CGI porn video with both of them going at it just to piss everyone off while showing that it worked! - cause reasons.

 

No Really...I wonder how long Apple and Microsoft spent getting millions of lines, phrases, and indiviual words into the systems that most people use to help them navigate the roads and figure out what they should do with there phone's...

Cortana and Siri (probably both misspelled, but like I care I'm going to bed soon anyway).

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True. If want play mute character zero personlity go play Nintendo game like Zelda.lol

 

 

 

Or FO3/NV, Oblivion, Skyrim .... Or any other RPG with a customizable player character. 

It is amazing that people other than the FO4 fanboys on beth.net can be blind about all of the damage the voiced protagonist did to Fallout 4. Simply amazing. 

 

Need keep petty resentment to yourself. Year 2016, get with program already. You think fun have mute character zero impact in world? Good for you. Rest of gaming community want more from protagonist.Sorry derail topic for bit 

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True. If want play mute character zero personlity go play Nintendo game like Zelda.lol

 

 

 

Or FO3/NV, Oblivion, Skyrim .... Or any other RPG with a customizable player character. 

It is amazing that people other than the FO4 fanboys on beth.net can be blind about all of the damage the voiced protagonist did to Fallout 4. Simply amazing. 

 

Need keep petty resentment to yourself. Year 2016, get with program already. You think fun have mute character zero impact in world? Good for you. Rest of gaming community want more from protagonist.Sorry derail topic for bit 

 

 

are you trolling? :dodgy:

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Im just gonna say this:

 

Actions speak louder than words

 

to say any "mute" protagonist has not created a major impact on their world is a bold faced lie, and i ask you to name any game where that statement is true.

 

no one is gonna give a rats ass about voiced dialogue, we already got that in real life.

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Guest endgameaddiction

Im just gonna say this:

 

Actions speak louder than words

 

to say any "mute" protagonist has not created a major impact on their world is a bold faced lie, and i ask you to name any game where that statement is true.

 

no one is gonna give a rats ass about voiced dialogue, we already got that in real life.

 

I agree, but I have to say you're wrong. Most people do care about it. Too many people defend this game till their deaths. And their excuse if they don't like it "mods will fix it". It's become a running joke with Bethesda game with that phrase. It always jots down to modders fixing things, but Fallout 4 doesn't need a fix, it needs to be reconstructed. It needs a complete make-over because things have been streamlined and completely removed.

 

Now they have Nuka World which people are saying you can play evil. How generous of bethesda. if you want to be evil in this game you must own this DLC. They'll probably release some other DLCs that you must own to have reputation and Karma. And maybe another to have weapon and armor degradation back.

 

pawns...

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 I would say mute the protagonist's voice and don't look back. Replace the shots of the protagonist speaking with occasional

shots of them when they're not speaking, perhaps with appropriate facial expressions or body language. People put up with the

voice because they like to see their character acting more realistically versus standing there like a blank-faced statue.

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Some Body needs to build a tool that can be feed audio file after audio file of a persons voice. Then extrapolate the layout of the voice pattern and let you make your own lines with a synthetic version of that persons voice pattern.... I think if that became available a large amount of hack actors would be completely out of a job though!!!

 

If I could do something like that....I think the first 2 voices I would feed into that machine would be John Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe...

Then I would make a CGI porn video with both of them going at it just to piss everyone off while showing that it worked! - cause reasons.

 

No Really...I wonder how long Apple and Microsoft spent getting millions of lines, phrases, and indiviual words into the systems that most people use to help them navigate the roads and figure out what they should do with there phone's...

Cortana and Siri (probably both misspelled, but like I care I'm going to bed soon anyway).

 

 

You mean something like this?

 

 

 

 

I couldn't tell you if it works but a quick search comes up with a few more like this.

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Im just gonna say this:

 

Actions speak louder than words

 

to say any "mute" protagonist has not created a major impact on their world is a bold faced lie, and i ask you to name any game where that statement is true.

 

no one is gonna give a rats ass about voiced dialogue, we already got that in real life.

 

I agree, but I have to say you're wrong. Most people do care about it. Too many people defend this game till their deaths. And their excuse if they don't like it "mods will fix it". It's become a running joke with Bethesda game with that phrase. It always jots down to modders fixing things, but Fallout 4 doesn't need a fix, it needs to be reconstructed. It needs a complete make-over because things have been streamlined and completely removed.

 

Now they have Nuka World which people are saying you can play evil. How generous of bethesda. if you want to be evil in this game you must own this DLC. They'll probably release some other DLCs that you must own to have reputation and Karma. And maybe another to have weapon and armor degradation back.

 

pawns...

 

I agree with you here 100%, i mostly mean when it comes to the quests created by mod authors, going the extra mile with voiced is cool and all but can be easily skipped once a mod like "fus ra doh" or whaterver its called is made for fallout4. there are some gems of voiced dialogue and people who voiced things them selves or with outside help. but with a game as restricted as fallout 4 RPG wise its only gonna cause a headache for mod authors to fix its fuck ups.

 

Also there is no helping behtesda, they are doing this like they did skyrim, only a little less obvious, stuff that should have already been in the game is being added slowly so they can get more money and more people playing their daylight rip off of a game.

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 I would say mute the protagonist's voice and don't look back. Replace the shots of the protagonist speaking with occasional

shots of them when they're not speaking, perhaps with appropriate facial expressions or body language. People put up with the

voice because they like to see their character acting more realistically versus standing there like a blank-faced statue.

 

I'm sure there's a way to force first person perspective in a conversation, that way you don't have to worry about the PC lipsyching and pantomiming emotions oddly in the absence of voiced dialogue. Then you only have to worry about voicing and directing the NPC.

 

At least, that's the way I'd prefer it, since first person dialogue is already a normal aspect of gameplay - but subtitled dialogue "pauses" while the character just stands there fidgeting is uncommon and feels more like a glitch.

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SIlent protagonist with subtitles and NPCs with voice. The voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 really annoyed me 

after 300 hours. It was worth a try, something new on Bethesda's part. For modders I suspect this is a no

brainer. Why dish out the resources for something most people dislike in the first place? Save it for the 4k

outfit retextures and parallax shrubberies. :D 

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