Sara Ryder 'SisRyder' (Official Thread)

This. I put my Hawke to be sarcastic on the Keep and just wanted to be her when she showed up. I played with both voice actresses, and Sumalee's does seem to have a little more emotion, it's too deep for my elf but it's better than sounding like a teacher, like you said. 

But yes Traynor does sound good so I think she was directed that way, it makes me wonder what's most at fault here, the voice direction or the actual lines? Of course I understand people who enjoy having a more of a blank slate to fill in, but even so, the deliver surely could be more emotional?

Thanks for the clips/links, that's helpful! Before I say anything, just keep in mind the caveat that my opinions might change after hearing her enough as Ryder.

Hmm. To be honest, this unfortunately doesn't do much to assuage my worries, namely not sounding strong/threatening and also simply me not really being captivated by her voice in general. So far, it sounds fairly generic. That is, it doesn't have a particularly unique aspect that you can instantly recognize, as voices like Garrus' do. Never heard someone who sounds like him. I'm actually wondering if that's what Bioware was going for this time around, though, since my own impression as well as others' of Scott was that he sounded fairly generic too. Perhaps they think that'll suit Ryder's noobishness, but I'm not sure it's what I would do for casting.

But! There isn't a huge amount of total time with her speaking on that site, and I did listen to them all, so I can tell she can do variety, and that's good, because she might play Ryder some way I haven't heart yet. So I'm open and hoping she'll grow on me.

And just in case that sounded judgemental and critical, it really wasn't either of those things. People don't choose their voices, or at least the limits of them, and her actual performances were fine. It's not the quality that I'm worried about, but the voice itself. So while I'm sure she'd be fine for any given character, I'm just not sold on her as a Bioware protagonist yet. I suppose I might be picky about that, but it is a very important role as well as one you'll hear a lot. Luckily, I've been very happy with the voices of the RPG protagonists I've played, BW included.

You know you can snip quotes, right? Anyway, I see what you mean, but I think the purpose of that kind of phrasing is so you can ask questions in any order.

For this example, you could ask about the bandits on the road first IIRC, so it makes sense to then ask "You say a scout is missing?", because something like "Where is she?" wouldn't make any sense after talking about a group of bandits. Conversely, it wouldn't make sense to ask about Ritts and then ask "What's strange about them?" as opposed to "What's strange about the bandits you mentioned?".

It might sound odd for the first question, but I'm not sure what they could do about it besides forcing you to ask questions in a certain order.

I see a lot of people say this, but I never seemed to have a problem with it. I just chose whatever option I felt suited the moment/character (mostly purple), and it sounded fine. I mean, it has been a while since I played DA2, but I don't remember thinking "Wow, Hawke is schizophrenic!"

That's funny, I actually had the opposite experience. I liked her performance as Traynor, but not as much as the Inquisitor. I think part of it was that she was more expressive as Traynor, and the other part is probably what I wrote above about Fryda Wolff: She doesn't quite sound like how I'd want an RPG protagonist to sound. She does anger well (among other things), but she doesn't necessarily sound commanding.

I think you're misunderstanding me. How could I possibly imply that the entire trailer was a cutscene? No, but it had cutscenes in the footage, and that includes the shot of Scott in the gif. It's clearly not a pre-rendered CGI shot; that's how he looks.

Come on, dude, I even said in my post it was probably on PC with max settings And now you point it out like it wasn't mentioned, like it changes everything? Besides, who even cares if it looks slightly worse on consoles, he'll still look exactly like that on PC, so it's not inaccurate.

What's this? Other people who prefer Sumalee's voice?

I'm not British, but I also thought I was almost the only one

As I mentioned above, I also liked Alix's performance as Traynor and I think the Inquisitor's comparative flat-ness didn't help any of the actors, nor their reputations. Honestly, I feel a little bad for them with the bad rep they got, since I'm sure they were directed by Bioware to sound more neutral. I've heard 3 of them before (in Bioware games, no less), and they were all more alive than Quizzy. Luckily, that stance seemed to have been rescinded as time went on, because I thought (Sumalee at least) was more enjoyable in JoH and especially Trespasser. I think she had a cold in the Descent. Happens.

Ha, wow, you really must have hated her performance if you restarted after 12 hours! Luckily, I decided to use her voice ever since it was announced, and especially after the previews in the CC. Although for me it's less of hating Alix's performance and more just liking Sumalee's more.

So to bring this closer to the topic, I hope Bioware doesn't want the VAs to be unemotive this time, and I hope the VAs themselves are expressive.

Quote for truth. And you weren't kidding, she does look like she could be Merrill's sister

You ninja'd me since I responded only to the last page Anyway, my thoughts almost exactly, especially the bolded parts.

As for whether Sumalee is more emotional, I can't say, but I do like her emotional parts, as well as the (sadly few and far between) dry humour.


Other than that, my favourite parts of her performance were probably the whole Cullen romance and Trespasser. I've heard the same for Alix, but wow, those cries of pain from the Anchor were heartwrenching

On that note, I wish they fixed the bug where being a human or elf would give you Alix's combat/efforts voice even if you picked Sumalee's (it's because that's the default elf/human voice). I even explained it to them, but nothing. It sucks partly just because it's totally immersion-breaking and jarring to have your character switch voices depending on what they're doing, and also because I managed to hear it one time, and it was AWESOME. I even made a clip:


Anyway, I also hope the voice direction for ME:A isn't like DA:I. If they're going to make our protagonists sound flat and unemotional, they might as well just go all the way and be silent, so you can headcanon tone. But I'd prefer the opposite.

Really? You know, somehow I never noticed that! It might help if you mentioned it more often, or maybe made an avatar that signified that.

How well would femshep look using the frostbite engine?

Probably a lot better then she wound up looking in ME3. Possibly even better than some of the better modded femsheps, (and there are some good ones out there) but I guess we will never know.

Oh, I know. The inquisitor "problem" follows Bioware's pattern of overreacting to criticism. It's both a reaction to ME3 Shepard having forced emotion and how much some people hated Hawke for having too much personality. So they tried to please both the silent protagonist crowd and those who want a voiced hero.
The inquisitor is basically the voiced version of the blank slate silent protagonist.

Imo the result sucked for everyone.

The inquisitor is completely uncharismatic. But due to being voiced you cannot even headcanon them to be charming. I wouldn't really have enjoyed the game more with a silent protagonist - I really really love good voice acting - but I gotta admit I roleplayed my Skyrim wood elf as way cooler than the inquisitor. I'm really fond of my bosmer. In my head she's awesome and there's nothing in the game preventing me from seeing her that way. I grew SORT of fond of my quizzie after a while, but she remains a total failure to me on so many levels.
I CAN headcanon a lot of things but the inquisitor actually made most of it impossible with that dead neutral delivery.

I mean, it makes sense that as the embassador of the inquisition s/he needed to be polite and neutral. Asshole disrespectful Shepard as a military leader was ludicrous. Full renegade Shepard is a joke to me. I'm totally FINE with the dialogue tree in DAI being five versions of diplomatic in a lot of instances. BUT that doesn't mean quizzie couldn't have had a "private time" side where real emotions surfaced. Would have LOVED for my Lavellan to be all polite in public and then vent big time to her friends. Or maybe add ever so faintly a resentful edge to the tone of voice with which these polite repsonses are delivered. There is SO MUCH you can convey with tone of voice. But Bioware decided not to make use of that AT ALL. We weren't given much freedom to roleplay a personality at all. Background, yes. General opinion on the mages/templar conflict, yes. But that is something you could do as Shepard as well. Take sides. Make moral choices.

It wasn't all bad, of course. Some lines had good delivery. I even laughed once or twice I believe when I went for what I assumed was "sarcastic". Blackwall didn't like my inquisitor not being dead serious about things actually and rained disapproval, lol. I just wish what my quizzie said, and HOW she said it, actually warranted said disapproval...

I've really liked all the VA's that Bioware has picked for our Voiced Protagonists, so I'm sure I'll like both Fryda Wolff and Tom Taylorson.

I really hope we see Sara Ryder as the Player Character for the gameplay demo.

Nothing to add to what have been already said about it, just one more vote in favor of a VA closer to Hawke/Shepard than to Inquisitor.

The worst part in my case, is that I was among those who find that transitions between sarcastic and diplomatic and agrresive Hawke were sometimes awkward and I hated how my Hawke would say in the lightest tone "let just say his killing days are over" when her mother died without any chance to prevent it.

I really thought a more neutral delivery would make things easier. Oh, boy, was I wrong I never realized how much I loved my mostly sarcastic and sometimes awkward Hawke until I played DAI

If i play female first then i will probably use the default as i like her face.

Admittedly, when I first played DA2 (as a super polite and sweet mage) the sarcastic choices seemed so over the top, I couldn't take THAT version seriously. It wasn't after I watched funniest Hawke moments on YT that I started to enjoy the whole thing.

Sarcastic Hawke is a lot of fun when you just let go of any deep realistic roleplaying ambitions and just sit back, grab some popcorn and enjoy the freak show. And that way Hawke is glorious.

I enjoy Hawke and Shepard as Bioware's characters, much like the companions. Because they are. You can keep the illusion up that it's your character for quite some time, but there will always be moments when Bioware will take the reins firmly into their hands in order to keep the narrative on track. Shepard will always have PTSD and be affected by the boy's death. Hawke will always try to do right by their family and become rich. You can never really be the bad guy in a Bioware game. Maybe you can in MEA, who knows. But so far the hero has always ended up saving the day. Can't really take TIM's side and let the reapers win. Can't let Corypheus burn down the world, either.

You're always playing Bioware's story, not your own. And that's the case for most RPGs. You control a character's movement, but you don't control the narrative. If you play an JRPG like Final Fantasy, player freedom is pretty much zero. Bioware games allow SOME freedom but ultimately it all leads to the same thing too. Because it must or the story can't progress.

The character editor is the only place where the player is allowed to take full control of the outcome. It's how the illusion of a unique experience is created. But in truth most paragon Shepards will do the same things. The variations are small and ultimately of no importance. We all like to think our Shepard is unique, but that's not actually the case. Hell, they even all kind of look like clones too! Because even the character creator is restricted and forces a certain look.

Me, I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm like a kid when it comes to games, I like listening to stories. I like the stories Bioware tells. I like paragon Shepard. She's like my favorite action hero figure. Because, let's be honest, there really are only two Shepards: paragon or renegade. And technically a neutral Shepard but that one is fairly unremarkable.

So yes, I understand how being tied down to choosing one of two or three personalities is frustrating to people who want more control, a more nuanced personalized character. I do believe it's possible to accommodate those players more while still sticking to a tight narrative. By getting rid of a personality/morality system, the player will not pick the same type of response every time without thinking. In theory, DAI tried to do that. You could disable the icons and make yourself actually think about what you wanted your character to say. Of course the character spoken to might respond the same way either way. The illusion of control fades the more you play with the dialogue wheel and realize it really doesn't matter what you say. Telltale games are the most extreme example of total illusion.

However, even if the outcome is the same, it does help roleplaying when your character at least has different emotional responses, even if the narrative forces a specific action. You're going to do it, but you might not do it gladly. And the dialogue AND tone of voice should reflect that. I also believe it's possible through good voice acting to make these nuances charismatic.

As has been argued above, real life people have many different faces, are different with different people. And even Bioware heroes could be flexible enough within the narrative framework to feel less like three radically different personalities that don't mix all that well.
While I'm really happy with Shepard and Hawke, I wouldn't mind a more mix and match approach. But then the voice actors have to work extra hard so the delivery isn't flat fits-all. I believe it's much easier to tell the VAs to be one extreme or the other and basically just voice two different personalities. Rather than have to play though all the shades in between as well.

Since everyone here is talking about it, we kind of got clarification about how Ryder is.

Gamedam Meister ‏@gamedammeister
Will Ryder be more predetermined like Hawke or Shepard, more blank slate like the Warden or Inquisitor, or somewhere in between?

Ian S. Frazier @tibermoon
Ryder has pre-existing relationships like Hawke, but is more blank-slate-y in certain other respects. Hard to describe.

Well, I did say "kind of". 

This reads like Bioware is trying to combine the strengths of both types of protagonists.

Also, there are tweets talking about how you can definitely play a sarcastic character among other options.