Sibling!Ryder's speculation thread

I'm anticipating that there might be some sort of disagreement between PCRyder and SibRyder that causes SibRyder to become somewhat of an antagonistic figure in the universe (i.e. going off away from the group PCRyder leads)... but not an un-redeemable one. That is, I think the disagreements between them are resolved by the end of the game... putting both Ryders on the same page - personality-wise and principle-wise, so that the player could choose to play as the other sibling in a second game (if ME:A goes into a series) and it not affect anything significantly that happened in this ME:A.

I like a lot your ideas.

I think the sibling might be:

(Speculations based on spoilers)

That would be my bet. In case of crew pilot seems less likely since "since you can avoid interacting with them most of story" which wouldn't be the case for a pilot.

You have a good point, UpUpAway.

Ahriman, I think we interacted with Joker quite a bit even though he was a pilot, but I also doubt it will be pilot rather than something else.

Damn, I missed "avoid" in that post. That's what I was saying, pilot would be the most unskippable crew member.

As far as I can say there can be only one Pathfinder for each Ark. Besides making such amount of content locked per playthrough doesn't seem like Bioware thing.

I wonder if the siblings will be written differently from each other. It seems like it would be more interesting if they were, but it would be annoying to effectively miss out on a character unless you're willing to replay with a different gender.

This is what I'm interested/concerned about. I tend to play female characters, so I'd be annoyed if I liked the personality of Sara more than Scott and never got to meet her. (On that note, I suppose it's rather arbitrary that you'll always get a twin of the opposite sex even though they're recording lines for both genders; they could let you pick that, too, if they wanted to). Personally, I hope they write the sibling the same way regardless of gender, and simply let you shape your own playable sibling instead.


Also, not directed at you, but a reminder to the thread: The difference between Ryders isn't whether it's Sara or Scott, but whether they're the playable character or the non-playable character. In other words: They're not separate characters based on gender, they're separated based on which on is the protagonist. At least, that's what's indicated so far.

I think you can choose as much background as in DA2 minus classes, because they covered that in Gameinformer. You no longer pick between Vanguard, Soldier etc. when you start the game. You all start at the same base and then pick any skills you want as you level up until you have a certain set of combinations and then the game grants you titles befitting of those builds and I guess it might change your overall abilities (perhaps melee attacks?), so that has nothing to do with your outset background.

Otherwise, I mean, you all have the same dad and the same sister/brother who have a past because that's part of the main story the so called "ryder family mystery", so yeah, part of your character's role is pre-determined, but they make it sound like there are excellent roleplaying possibilities within all that. The big difference is that we don't start out differently from each other. We all start from the same place and then branch out I believe.

I'm trying to find the quote where Mac said the sister/brother will vary more than usual but can't remember where it was. That's all he said though, and I assume it means there are certain characters that simply grant you female-exclusive dialogue choices and male-exclusive for others, so you get the sense that the twins aren't completely interchangable. They're supposed to be twins and not clones.

As for autodialogue, nothing has been said, except Gameinformer noted that while some dialogue wheels have four options a la DA:I, it's slightly less frequent overall, which they said was nice because DA:I could be downright overwhelming at times, and Mac also said on several occasions they have pushed for a new interrupt system called "narrative actions" which don't show up as a traditional dialogue choice but instead some prompt that says "shoot" for example and depending on certain context you'll be able to tell what happens when that timed interaction triggers. There's also another system in place than Paragon/Renegade, but that's another story.

Lastly, IMO, being locked out of content due to the gender/race/class you've chosen is part of choosing that gender. I am a straight male, and I usually prefer to play my character as such initially, but I'll gladly create characters I don't personally identify with as well on subsequent playthroughs for roleplaying. I'm actually rather excited to play as Ryder's sister. If you're disappointed due to some equality thing, I'm of the opinion that male vs female is different and not the same because duh, and that's actually kind of beautiful and not sexist and I mean it.

In a sense. What I think will happen is that we players, who get very territorial about our player characters(MY Shepard would NEVER do surrender him/herself to the Alliance!", "MY Warden would NOT run off to cure the Blight!"), will treat Sibling!Ryder very similarly to previous times a player character is taken out of their control. Sure, we might not be playing as that sibling on the current playthrough, but we might be playing them on another.

For instance: You've played Bro!Ryder before, and enjoyed doing so. You playing him as a super badass to end all badasses. Then, when you play his sister in your next play through, your formerly awesome player-character is reduced to a wimpy crybaby who is jealous of his sister. The disconnect between your previous construct of the character and the way he is portrayed when you're not playing him might be upsetting.

I'm not sure there is a solution to this kind of problem. Just that I think some players will get upset if Ryder's sibling behaves in a way that they themselves wouldn't want that version of Ryder to act. I've had a number of years observing Bioware fans rage at various issues within Dragon Age and Mass Effect. We can be an unfair lot.