I have leveled a lot of disappointment at Bethesda for a number of the things they have done to F4 but I commend them on the over all idea of the main plot and their ability to propel you into the game with purpose.

My wife (dark haired woman like the wife in game), and I have also recently brought a baby boy into the world, exactly Shaun's age. The intro kinda blew my mind, and honestly I almost felt a little traumatized by the opening scene. Way too close to home! By the time my character set foot into the wasteland I was rabidly intent on getting my baby boy.

Anyone else out there felt the same way?

I felt exactly the same way. I have a 14 month old boy, and a little girl who is 2 weeks away from arriving. I have to say, I felt heavily emotionally involved in the storyline. I even got distraught when I accidentally lost my in-game wedding ring!

I'm not a parent, so my attachment was much more placed upon the spouse then the baby. But, I felt pretty driven by the sake of revenge.

I will agree that it was a much more engaging main storyline then Skyrim, FO3, or NV to me. With the others I didn't have a problem setting the main story aside to do stuff on the first playthrough. But this? I *needed* to know what happened next.

My kids are all grown advlts now, so, not really as impactful as it could have been, I suppose.... I just wanted to check out the new world to play in.

The problem I have in the story, I see my baby being taken away. The next time I see him he is what 10 years old. For me there would be a huge emotional disconnect. Just a very short time ago I had a baby boy, now there before me is an older child, that has been raised in total absent from me. Had I had those same years I would of emotionally come to understand and except but I have not had that time. I am not sure I would feel any sort of bond. "This is NOT my child" would come to mind.

For me it goes deeper then just the father/son thing. From the very beginning I just could not connect with my character or the people around. Others have and that is fine. Just like reading a good book, not everyone will enjoy it. I am one that just can not seem to get into the main story, my character or the others around me. I want to go get that bomb I diffused in Megaton drag it to Boston and set the darn thing off.

Without being a parent, I feel it's impossible to really roleplay the story. I can't imagine anyone setting up a chain of settlements, do other stuff when they know their child has been abducted. If you really wanted to play the character you set out as, you would be breezing through the wasteland, following every clue without much thought or consideration for anything else.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game, but I feel the story has painted itself into a corner right in the first second.

Look at it from Shauns' perspective.... He doesn't have a clue who you are. He probably doesn't even remember you. So far as he is concerned, Kellogg might just as well be his father.... or someone else from the institute. I haven't made it that far into the game yet..... should be interesting to see how Beth handles it.

I was heavily motivated to retrieve him by the events.

Strongly.

Heh that's exactly what I did, I ignored people crying for help or distress signals because for all I knew there was a time limit to save my baby so hell no I ain't stopping to build a freakin settlement.

This is why my character has been ignoring the factions up to this point. He's been completely focused on getting his son back,so now he's "ready" to go to the Glowing Sea. Problem is, he's only 14th level and would probably end up as a snack for an irradiated Deathclaw. The plot device of having your son kidnapped is, IMHO, too compelling. Even though I am not a parent, I feel a sense of urgency to save Shaun and am consequently ignoring all the other content available in Boston.

Weird, I think the game did an excellent job of providing you ample reason to ignore the main plot. There's absolutely no leads but a very crazy drugged up chem addicts' dubious powers.

Therefore, you should go exploring and helping people since any might help you find your son.

EXACTLY! If my driving force is to get my "baby" back I would not do MOST of what is available to do. I would have NO motivation to waste tons of time on any of the side quests let alone Settlement building and defending. My take would be sorry you guys have problems but so do I and I am taking care of mine first. It would be a very short game.

For me the FO 3 story worked much better.

I can see how the situation would be more emotional for someone who has the same dynamic in real life, however that person is not me. I'm not married and I have no children. The scene where the spouse died did of course give me a slight pang of sadness when I saw it (it's a parent being murdered while trying to protect their child after all) but no more than I would have if I'd just stumbled into this scene while scavenging and the character were completely unrelated. I had no attachment to the spouse, I mean I exchanged more dialogue with the guy in Diamond City who sells "swatters" than I did with my character's spouse. The only reason I even know their name is from people mentioning it online.

The writers banked on the idea that everyone would automatically imagine themselves and their real loved ones in this scenario and didn't bother to do any character development. It reminds me of the vent boy from ME3: the writers assume you'll be extremely upset by his death because in real life seeing a child die would be traumatic. To me both scenarios feel tacked on and forced.

After I left the vault, I would have completely forgotten the spouse if your character doesn't bring them up all the time. That initial pang of sadness didn't linger. I think the only reason I cared about finding Shaun was because my biological clock is ticking in real life so in every game that lets me have children I'm in board. When I found the real Shaun however I lost my reason for continuing the story. "Must find baby/child" was the driving force until that point and I feel the writers didn't do enough to get me to care about the factions or what they were doing for that to be my new motivation.

I didn't feed Mama Murphy's drug habit, but I did follow her initial advice to go to Diamond City - because I had nothing else. As it turned out, that paid off.

Yeah, on my end, I went exploring the proper Fallout way. I thought Kellog looked like a Raider so these "Raider" guys were a good bunch to murder the hell out of.

Oh right...rescue the baby...I knew I had forgotten something....

Someone blurted out the main plot spoiler to me before I had got very far in the game so I sort of lost interest.

I have had that feeling the OP describes in other games though.

Feeling some sort of empathy with the main character or the setting does add an additional element to a game

In the end, my character was emotionally invested in the Shaun story from the beginning to the end.

He lost his family and needed to find one to keep going.

Piper, Cait, and (to a lesser extent) Preston kept him from putting a gun to his mouth.

Now he has a family with Synth Shaun and Nat.

Yep, for me it was Bioshock. At the time my youngest was just at about the same age as the little girls in the story. I always like to play story based evil vs good characters type games at least twice so I can play good and evil type characters. When trying the evil side the very first time I held that little girl in my arms and had to svck the essence out of her I just could not bring myself to do it. End of that play through, that type of connection to a story can really make a game. With FO 4 I am jsut not finding any kind of connection or empathy for any the characters in the game to include my own.

Ken Levine said that he made the Evil Pathway a ridiculous parody of a choice. "Kill the Little Girl or Save the Little Girl" because he doesn't believe in choice in video games.

Then he received massive amounts of praise for illustrating karma in video games.

He said it made him want to bang his head against a wall.

If people spoil [censored], they're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

To be fair I had already guessed part of it (i.e. the time/age based element) but yeah it took away a cool moment but I believe there are more to be found.

More motivated to find and kill Kellogg than anything else. There was always a possibility of finding Shaun alive; especially since the Crazy Chem Lady's prophecies kept coming true, but Nate wasn't counting on it so revenge for Nora would have to do and if any leads on Shaun's fate or whereabouts turned up along the way then they would be followed to their conclusions.

Call me a boy scout if you like but I never take the evil route in video games, I have no urge to deliberately hurt or kill others unless they are trying to kill me. Yes even in a video game with no apparent consequences

The Devil's Due quest put those principles to the test and I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

* Edit I also do not enable Mama Murphy's drug habit and do not use anything other than the purely medical drugs in game (Stim Packs, Radaway, Rad-x)

More or less the same, with the exception of warhammer themed games or settings.

just because being zealous is fun.

http://i.imgur.com/3l3aUfp.jpg

Meh. It's a game. Even going out of my way to shepherd the good settlers, etc., I've killed nearly 1300 people as of two days ago. I'd be the most prolific individual mass murderer in American history (rivaling Pol Pot worldwide), and no one's tried to hide little 10-y/o Shaun from me yet? Seriously. 1300 humans, 1500-ish 'creatures', a couple hundred synths, etc., has to take a toll on any sane mind, even if they DID all have it coming. You could literally fill a reasonable swimming pool with the blood alone. (Cool idea, actually.)

There's no way I could be okay with that AND be affected by the parent-child bond in the game (also a parent, BTW, and step-parent).

The first trailer with the "Let's go, boy" thing? Brought a tear to my eye. The kidnapped-son thing? I'm more moved by Bethesda giving us domestic cats, to be perfectly honest.