Let's talk about the challenges of modding with a voiced protagonist

[llamaRCA]

Like many of you I'm planning to build mods in FO4 that will include hundreds or thousands of lines of dialogue.

 

I've started going through the player lines to see what dialogue can be reused. The dialogue is mostly vague, probably so they could reuse it easily, which means we can easily reuse it too, which should be good news, but I'm not happy about it because as a player I'm sick to death of the terrible dialogue I have to use in FO4. I'd love to be saying something other than no, yes, maybe, snark and the many overused variations of those options, some of which include NPC names or location names to make them seem more distinct, when in fact, it's just more yes, no, later, etc. If any of you have played with more than a couple of the companions you've pretty much heard everything there is to hear on that front too.

 

With that in mind, is anyone else considering alternate ways to do dialogue in your mods so we can write new, interesting dialogue choices to go along with the yes/no/maybe/laters that are necessary, or are you pretty much committed to taking what Beth has given us for this game and using it as is, cutting up lines or trying to find voice actors to mimic the player characters voices? I have worked extensively with vanilla dialogue before to build narratives and conversations. Using vanilla dialogue presents a hard limit to what can be done and I've never enjoyed working within that limit.

 

What I would consider ideal:

I'd love it if the player had no voice (this would require that the cinematic camera be turned off) and the dialogue wheel was replaced with the actual dialogue text. Then I could write whatever I wanted to for the player and they'd get to choose, sensibly, what their character would say from a selection of meaninful dialogue choices. But that's a lot of change to expect players to accept or enjoy, and I may be overstating the problem. Maybe the player dialogue is fine and I'm alone in considering a fairly radical change. Maybe NPC driven dialogue will be fine.

 

 

TL;DR

Does anyone else dislike the way they've built the dialogue so much that you'd consider dismantling the current dialogue system (or making it reliant on mods that did), possibly driving players away, in order to write/present your work with greater creative freedom or am I the only one?

[Di0nysys]

Imo, the way they've setup the cross\4-way dialogue choice sounds like a headache to set up, and especially when u gotta set it up for both sexes. There's a lotta downsides to how they've set this up. On the one hand, you're limited to 4 archetypal responses that may not necessarily fit what you're going for in your quest, and on the other, you may have to write in contrived dialogue choices and shoehorn them in order to fit the 4-axis dialogue wheel.

They kinda dropped the ball on this one. Deus Ex:HR did this way better since it allowed any number of responses, and also highlighted exactly what you will say.

Apart from that, there needs to be a wiki or glossary for all PC character lines in the game.
People may opt to find VA's who can sound like the vanilla actors, but it's way preferable to just reuse the lines they gave us. I'm probably just gonna limit character interactions and rely more on environmental storytelling (tapes, notes, clutter, etc) when CK eventually drops for f4.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Di0nysys

[Belthan]

I'm obviously in the same boat. Unfortunately, when Roy Batterian suggested removing the player voice completely in this thread in August, response was lukewarm, and it doesn't look like the idea ever caught on with players either. At the time I'm writing, No Player Voice has a little under 6,000 DLs while Full Dialog Interface is a little under 600,000, so replacing the wheel with the actual dialogue text seems to have fixed the "Voiced Protagonist/Dialogue Wheel" problem in the eyes of most players without resorting to the "nuclear option" of silencing the protagonist.

Another data point: I asked this question on SurveyMonkey in October. Granted, this was before the game was released, and I should probably do it again now. Anyway, listed in order of preference, the first two choices had more than 90% positive responses. #3, #4 and #5 were all in the neighborhood of 75% positive. The last two (including leaving the player lines unvoiced) were mostly negative.

1) New player dialogue voiced by actors doing a flawless impersonation of Brian T. Delaney and Courtenay Taylor.
2) New player dialogue voiced by Brian and Courtenay themselves (surprisingly, not the top choice although it was close)
3) All new player dialogue reuses vanilla voice files, even if it hampers the story.
4) New player dialogue voiced by actors doing a recognizable but imperfect impersonation of Brian and Courtenay.
5) Total player voice replacement.
6) New player dialogue unvoiced (only 37% were completely or somewhat positive, and 18% said it would completely ruin the game experience).
7) New player dialogue voiced by actors who don't sound like Brian & Courtenay (even less popular than the unvoiced option, and 28% said it would completely ruin the game experience).

Having said all that, I plan to reuse as much vanilla player dialogue as I can, and I'm still working on how I'm going to handle the rest:

Plan A) Hire Brian and Courtenay. That may sound ludicrous, but here's how I look at it. I subscribe enthusiastically to the DIY ethic. I don't pay for anything I can get free or build myself (I use GIMP instead of Photoshop, Blender instead of 3ds Max, etc.) but I'm just as passionate about modding as my neighbor is about golf. A few hours of Brian and Courtenay's time would be expensive, but it would still cost less than my neighbor spends on clubs, green fees, etc. If a modder can't afford it out of pocket, they could try Kickstarter or other crowdfunding. So, I approached Courtenay's agent and got a somewhat encouraging response, contingent on receiving approval from Bethsoft. Unfortunately, I am getting a massive run-around from Bethsoft.

Plan B) Use actors who sound like Brian and Courtenay. Jeff (the actor who voiced Larry Slater and other characters in Quo Vagis and Coito Ergo Sum) does a Brian T. Delaney impersonation that's good enough to draw a chuckle (especially after a few beers), but I'm convinced the difference would be noticeable and immersion-breaking in the game. And even if we found two actors who sound exactly like Brian and Courtenay, demand for their services could result in more work than they can handle and/or lead to a bidding war among modders for their services.

Plan C) Total player dialogue replacement. Get two voice actors to re-record all of the player dialog. Release it as a modder resource (although it might also be interesting to players who don't like their character's vanilla voice). Modders can then use those actors and have their original dialog sound seamless with the vanilla dialog. I reached out to some actors to see if they would be interested in that much work. A handful seemed interested, but Jeff's reaction to the idea of re-recording 13,000 lines of vanilla dialog to make the new dialog more immersive was basically "stay polite and slowly back away from the crazy person". And even if this happened it could easily have the same drawback as Plan B (too much demand for the actors to handle).

 

EDIT: And having said all that, I agree 100% with llamaRCA that as an author, I would feel totally hamstrung if I was limited to mashups of vanilla player voice resources. This gets into the somewhat controversial FPS vs. RPG debate, but my writing style has always been that, as much as possible, the player is proactive and the NPCs are reactive. Sure, you may get specific objectives from NPCs, but I always try to make it feel like the player is driving the action. FO4 pretty much reverses that. The plot is advanced almost entirely by NPC action. Other than choosing what faction to support, the player feels like "you're just along for the ride". Yes, the "NPC tells you what to blow up, and you go do it" formula can be a lot of fun in a shooter. Yes, I could (and to some degree, may have to) adapt my writing to that style. But it seems antithetical to what an RPG is all about, and I won't like it.

 

EDIT #2: I really hope this doesn't all imply that Bethsoft's attitude is: we support and encourage modding... as long as it's cool new weapons and stuff. But you quest modders can keep your pathetic fanfic the hell out of our game.

[llamaRCA]

I'm probably just gonna limit character interactions and rely more on environmental storytelling (tapes, notes, clutter, etc) when CK eventually drops for f4.

 

 

I'd do that too if I didn't want to make very particular types of mods. I like that type of storytelling as a player, it's can be as fun as voiced characters, imo.

 

I'm obviously in the same boat. Unfortunately, when Roy Batterian suggested removing the player voice completely in this thread in August, response was lukewarm, and it doesn't look like the idea ever caught on with players either. At the time I'm writing, No Player Voice has a little under 6,000 DLs while Full Dialog Interface is a little under 600,000, so replacing the wheel with the actual dialogue text seems to have fixed the "Voiced Protagonist/Dialogue Wheel" problem in the eyes of most players without resorting to the "nuclear option" of silencing the protagonist.

 

Another data point: I asked this question on SurveyMonkey in October. Granted, this was before the game was released, and I should probably do it again now. Anyway, listed in order of preference, the first two choices had more than 90% positive responses. #3, #4 and #5 were all in the neighborhood of 75% positive. The last two (including leaving the player lines unvoiced) were mostly negative.

 

1) New player dialogue voiced by actors doing a flawless impersonation of Brian T. Delaney and Courtenay Taylor.

2) New player dialogue voiced by Brian and Courtenay themselves (surprisingly, not the top choice although it was close)

3) All new player dialogue reuses vanilla voice files, even if it hampers the story.

4) New player dialogue voiced by actors doing a recognizable but imperfect impersonation of Brian and Courtenay.

5) Total player voice replacement.

6) New player dialogue unvoiced (only 37% were completely or somewhat positive, and 18% said it would completely ruin the game experience).

7) New player dialogue voiced by actors who don't sound like Brian & Courtenay (even less popular than the unvoiced option, and 28% said it would completely ruin the game experience).

 

 

That data is very good. It would be interesting to see how it's changed since the game was released. I spend a fair amount of time on the FO4 subreddit to talk about the game and to get a sense for what players are thinking. Your pre-release data is probably roughly accurate now. There are probably more players that would appreciate a silent protagonist now that they've seen what Beth has done with it and how it impacts their ability to roleplay different characters, but I think it's still a minority of players overall. Most players don't notice the simplistic dialogue, or make fun of it, but still enjoy the game. The endgame is enough for them to feel like they've made an impact. They may feel a disconnect from the gameworld, but they don't know why they feel that way and they don't care.

 

There is, though, a subset of players that don't like the dialogue because they are unhappy with the NPC driven dialogue. In fact, removing illusion of choice has left many of those players with the impression that they and the MQ in FO4 affects no appreciable change on the gameworld. That impression is factually incorrect, as the gameworld changes in different ways depending on what ending you choose and you can play the Minutemen ending in such a way that you get an even different outcome, that surprisingly, is supported via Beth's own post-MQ dialogue. And, unlike NV that they claim gives more choice in the MQ, you get to play in the world you've changed. It's an interesting study in watching how taking away player's choices and agency at the micro-level affects the impressions players take away from the game as a whole. Or they don't like FO4 so they never finish the MQ and claim NV is better because they love NV and hate Bethesda, and don't really know what they are talking about, but I like to think it's an interesting study in watching players respond to losing the illusion of choice.

 

 

Having said all that, I plan to reuse as much vanilla player dialogue as I can, and I'm still working on how I'm going to handle the rest:

 

Plan A) Hire Brian and Courtenay. That may sound ludicrous, but here's how I look at it. I subscribe enthusiastically to the DIY ethic. I don't pay for anything I can get free or build myself (I use GIMP instead of Photoshop, Blender instead of 3ds Max, etc.) but I'm just as passionate about modding as my neighbor is about golf. A few hours of Brian and Courtenay's time would be expensive, but it would still cost less than my neighbor spends on clubs, green fees, etc. If a modder can't afford it out of pocket, they could try Kickstarter or other crowdfunding. So, I approached Courtenay's agent and got a somewhat encouraging response, contingent on receiving approval from Bethsoft. Unfortunately, I am getting a massive run-around from Bethsoft.

 

Plan B) Use actors who sound like Brian and Courtenay. Jeff (the actor who voiced Larry Slater and other characters in Quo Vagis and Coito Ergo Sum) does a Brian T. Delaney impersonation that's good enough to draw a chuckle (especially after a few beers), but I'm convinced the difference would be noticeable and immersion-breaking in the game. And even if we found two actors who sound exactly like Brian and Courtenay, demand for their services could result in more work than they can handle and/or lead to a bidding war among modders for their services.

 

Plan C) Total player dialogue replacement. Get two voice actors to re-record all of the player dialog. Release it as a modder resource (although it might also be interesting to players who don't like their character's vanilla voice). Modders can then use those actors and have their original dialog sound seamless with the vanilla dialog. I reached out to some actors to see if they would be interested in that much work. A handful seemed interested, but Jeff's reaction to the idea of re-recording 13,000 lines of vanilla dialog to make the new dialog more immersive was basically "stay polite and slowly back away from the crazy person". And even if this happened it could easily have the same drawback as Plan B (too much demand for the actors to handle).

 

 

Plan A) I agree, in theory, that spending money on our hobby is worthwhile. I 've spent quite a lot on various things, I have a mic, a desktop computer I wouldn't otherwise have, more than one copy of all the games I mod, etc. If we love doing it it's worth the money if we have it, but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to pay to voice the player.

 

Plan B) I could get behind this. But finding actors with voices close enough to pull it off would be tough. Also, like you say, we'd all be competing for their services and they couldn't do it all.

 

Plan C) I laughed when I read your account of Jeff's reaction. It's an interesting idea, but 13K lines is a lot of time at the mic. And I agree that it would probably result in the same scarcity issue as Plan B.

 

EDIT: And having said all that, I agree 100% with llamaRCA that as an author, I would feel totally hamstrung if I was limited to mashups of vanilla player voice resources. This gets into the somewhat controversial FPS vs. RPG debate, but my writing style has always been that, as much as possible, the player is proactive and the NPCs are reactive. Sure, you may get specific objectives from NPCs, but I always try to make it feel like the player is driving the action. FO4 pretty much reverses that. The plot is advanced almost entirely by NPC action. Other than choosing what faction to support, the player feels like "you're just along for the ride". Yes, the "NPC tells you what to blow up, and you go do it" formula can be a lot of fun in a shooter. Yes, I could (and to some degree, may have to) adapt my writing to that style. But it seems antithetical to what an RPG is all about, and I won't like it.

 

 

Adapting our writing to work with the vanilla set up will be so painful. I think Bethesda simply made a bad decision, I don't think they favor a NPC driven narrative over letting the player take the driver's seat. They've always said they want to give the player a gameworld to explore and do anything they want to do in it, but that won't happen if you don't give the player the illusion of choice (or actual choice) in dialogue. I suspect someone over there thought they needed to be like the cool kids and have a voiced protagonist, but they didn't sit down and ask themselves why/how/if a voiced protagonist would support/improve their game or if it would hurt it and they went ahead with the plan before they realized how bad it was going to be. The one hopeful thing I'll take away from this experience is that they improved the game from Skyrim, so maybe they'll see how bad this was and go back to an unvoiced protagonist for the next TES game. My fingers are crossed.

[Thaiauxn]

Everyone wants me to, but I don't know.

 

I have the planning stages for an IndieGoGo campaign to fund a new game, and I have the first areas of that already written out as dialogue, with a silent player in mind. The thought had crossed my mind to try and make it for Fallout 4 first as a demo, because I have so many friends on the GECK and CK scene, rather than start on UE4. Try and get Bethsoft to allow us to turn it into a stand alone game from a TC. But the voice really does turn me off on the idea. So i might just totally skip it and go straight to UE4.

 

But I think I might go ahead and release some of Project Brazil's companions, the new armours, new nuclear Missile Set, and new Vault Kits for F4, along with some of our weapons and static objects. Then modders can use our resources. The voice files from FNV:FPB can be ported over if any modders care to try. :smile: I'd like to see how it works! Voiced player or not.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Thaiauxn

[TheVampireDante]

Record new lines for the mod using someone that sounds similar and use voice modulation software to attempt recreating the voice of the character more directly afterwards?

 

Bit more work, but no doubt some out there would be willing to give it a try. Splicing the existing lines for reuse is about the same amount of work I'd think (minus the part about finding the VA to star of course).

[Eckss]

Early in the quest, the player gets a vocal chord injury. The player temporarily (or permanently) gets a vocal chord transplant from a protectron or something.
From then on - player robot voice.

Simple, effective, toungue in cheek and lore friendly.
At the end of the quest, the player can potentially have their voice fixed. This can become a bit of a running joke if every quest mod shoots the player in the throat during the intro scene, but it would allow detailed dialogue and Stephen Hawking to do the voice acting. :wink:

[bethjunkie]

I personally can't stand having a voiced player char. My plans are to continue the vanilla game tradition of having the player sound like a moron with a ten word vocabulary and let my new NPCs do all of the talking.

 

Or maybe I'll just shoot everyone in the throat in the beginning Like Eckss suggested. That's actually a hilarious idea and I'd love to see people take it and run with it!

[MissMorose]

After playing the game some I was also wondering how quest modders would work around the voiced protagonist. It's not something I plan to get into, so I can't be much technical help - but as a player, I wouldn't mind a silent PC at all if it just meant some decent writing. Sure, it'd be a bit jarring to go from voiced to silent all of a sudden, but the first 15-minutes or so of FO4 was super weird for the exact same reason, and I got over that eventually. And if it became the standard for quest mods, I'm sure players would learn to live with it as well.

 

I don't know what's involved in splicing the vanilla PC dialogue, but it honestly sounds like it'd be more pain than it's worth. Not only would you have to do that for both Nate and Nora, but I'm pretty sure out of the 13K+ lines, at least 10k are the amazingly simple, one-word lines like "yup", "alright" and "good". Very rarely does the PC say anything of value, in my experience.. Finding enough to work with sounds like a pain in the neck.

[rickerhk]

Perhaps a scripted way to toggle 'off' the dialog cam and toggle 'on' the subtitles when a player sound file is missing for a given line.

And not really OT but being able to walk away from a conversation (player or NPC just walking away) is annoying as hell. :tongue: