Another deceiving decision of Bethesda: they forced the team involved in the project Capital Wasteland ( FO3 in FO4 ) to stop working on it because of their illegal use of the audio part, the voicing part ( that is what I've heard, but I've heard so many different things about it, I'm not really sure that 's the official reason actually). All the team is in stand by, waiting for approval on some points....It seems that Beths will nip another good idea in the bud. What a pity....

Truely a disappointment if they aren't allowed to continue with the project. I was looking forward to this project as well, something to push people to continue to play in the fallout world. It would be nice if bethesda would see this as an opportunity to grab more followers/consumers to buy more fallout content because of it. This would have potentially opened up for more people to buy their game. Instead they focus on trying to charge people for mods and close projects down. A lost opportunity here for bethesda. It is a bullshit claim for a bullshit reason to halt creativity/opportunity.

They didn't force them to shut down, CW team decided to do it. The way they were going to convert files was going to raise some red flags and they decided to shut down project because they feel without iconic voices it wouldn't be same. Also Bethesda and EVERY other company HAS to protect it's copyright.

Are you sure GhostCR0? Many things were said, including the possibility of a release of the mod for people who got a legit copy of FO3 installed, I really don't know what to believe now...

@kazeem Yep, i'm on their discord server. Here is a pic of offical statement from CW team.

Spoiler:

People were mad and dissapointed and probably spread misinformation, if you're wondering how it affects F4NV and Cascaida, F4NV will re record everything with their own actors and Cascadia isn't affected in slightest since it's all custom.

@GhostCR0 I agree. This is bad news indeed. The team had a good reaction by stopping the project, let's hope that it is not definitive. I hope that the team will not give up its work and make the necessary modifications.

Kind of wish Bethesda did a Valve with Black Mesa and allow these mods to become official games. Imagine having Fallout 3 and New Vegas in Fallout 4 becoming their own games, Bethesda doesn't even need to do any of the work, go through the legal proceeders and that's it. But no, they won't. What a shame fan made projects like these get screwed over by these companies.

I hope they will do their own voice files to pass through the copyright limitation... Sad new however...

I wonder how the FO4 - NV team is gonna reenact the voices for all the NPCs in New Vegas, there are hundreds if not thousands of voice lines in NV alone not considering the fact that NV is holding on to a Guinness World Record of the Most Line Dialogues in a Single-Player RPG. But if they do manage to pull it off - well, they deserve every single praise and gratitude out there.

@Tyls they've already stated they're not gonna do their own voice files cause they feel it would remove a lot of the charm FO3 had.

It's very disappointing, but understandable.

Redoing a lot of those voices would definitely remove much of the charm from certain characters. I'm trying to understand the legal logic on Bethesda's part, because it was fine for mods like TTW to reuse assets from Fallout 3 because they just used the bsa files and esp files from the actual game, which would only be accessible to people who own the game. Why could they not do the same for this, or does Fallout 4 use a different type of audio file which would mean the lines needed converting? I don't know all the ins and outs, but would Bethesda be able to reuse an actors voice lines in a different game if they wanted? I have no idea how those contracts work, but you can't reuse or re-appropriate a voice actors dialogue without their consent, no? If so, I don't think we can entirely blame Bethesda for this.

I would be genuinely interested to see the full reasons behind this. I don't think the answer is as simple as "Bethesda is greedy". Voice actors don't really make much money as is, and their has been a lot of issues in the past few years regarding voice actor's treatment, earnings and a big factor in this was royalties VA's felt they should earn for their roles, similar to film or tv stars. If that were the case, I can understand Bethesda's reluctance to simply allow these lines to be reused.

That said, it would be a true shame to see all of these assets go to waste. Perhaps it may see some kind of revival in a Capital Wasteland mod/expansion? Who knows.

@IRORIEH see that's not entirely a bad idea but I feel some agreements would have to be made. One of the main concerns with that any dev would have working with another publisher would be losing creative control over their project. I know that seems unlikely since the team was all but reasetring FO3 but who's to say they had other plans like adding in additional content not from FO3 or the DLCs? Anyway what's done is done. Hopefully somewhere down the road the team can work something out with Bethesda.

it's all about modification of the files to be working with fallout 4 and that is illegal for Bethesda cause of a policies called tac even Bethesda don't have the right's to use the voices for other things I really hope road to liberty team do like f4nv team is going to do.


best regards

It sounds like using the voice files must violate some sort of contract Bethesda had with the actors, that likely stipulated that their work was to be used specifically for fallout 3. Having modders export the voice work into fallout 4 must be a violation that they (Bethesda) are worried about breaching said contract and presenting legal issues for the company. It wasn’t long ago that the voice actors were suing game publishers.

That being said this is an unfortunate development. I wish the team the best as they decide how they will move forward.

hope this is not the total end for these projects. after i saw the news about the capitel wasteland mod and fnv mod for f04 i was so happy, two of my favorites games becomes a f04 engine, but now it feels rly sad. i remember me for the lord of the rings mod for skyrim that wb has stopped. so let us hope that is not the end for ever....

It's a real shame. I was looking forward to F4NV a lot, but now that it's all original voices we'll have to see how it comes out. Although, honestly, I can't imagine it's super difficult to convert the voice files over yourself, so if someone were to post an unafilliated guide with instructions...

i hope Bethesda does not stop skywind or skybillvin for the same reason

That would be a real shame, but I can understand why, what with the royalties and work the voice actors have put in.

I really do hope that fallout4 New Vegas can still work on the project. It would be a shame if they couldnt continue.

From what I know, big companies like Bethesda don't "hint" that something could be illegal (which is what they did,apparently.) Nah, they charge in with a cease and desist order than leaves little to no ambiguity. If they felt this project was illegal, that's exactly what they would have done, stomped on it conclusively and shut it down with a clear legal order.
As for using the voice files -- so simple, just use an installer that ensures that the user has both games installed. It's been done on other projects.