More likely that we're heading back to the Milky Way?

Well I think in ME1 the Elcor and the Hannar had basically no animation. The Hannar just floated there, don't think it even moved it's tentacles. The Elcor turned his head and had some facial movements, I think that's it.

The Kett have warships... and you have a discussion with one angara in the game who has a penchant for stealing Kett vehicles and re-purposing them.

Possibly could the protheans even be the Kett as I've got to admit Prothean heads do look similar in shape to Kett heads. Could be interesting. The only difference being that Protheans had 4 eyes like the Batarians whereas the Kett have  2 but otherwise they do look kind of similar.

Yeah that's true. They weren't pointless though.

Hey, they made it an option to customize Hawke in DA:I.

So it's not far fetched they'd give us the same with Hero of Ferelden in DA4, if he/she survived DA:O. Even with a small role, it would be nice to see HoF again.

I never meant to imply they were pointless, for they have the purpose of being exposition dumps for their respective races and start a couple of side quests at worse they are padding to increase the number of races.  They just don't have an impact on the story that BioWare was telling with Mass Effect 1.

In some ways its like the complaints people have with open world and how so much of that content is filler and has no impact on the story, that is what those three races feel to me.

Edit: Added to first paragraph.

I could not care less about the voice, and I'd be okay if my warden didn't look exactly the same. Alistair, Leliana and Morrigan don't look the exact same either and no one is complaining. I just want to continue my character's story which was left unfinished at the end of DAO. She's also the Queen of Ferelden, you'd think this would have more impact on the world at large. Even if people's wardens are dead, they managed to solve that plot point for the expansion, didn't they? There really is no reason not to have the HoF return.


But I'm veering off topic, so back to the thread: no I don't think they'd go back to the Milky Way. There is no reason to do that since whatever story they could tell in the MW they can just as easily tell in Andromeda while avoiding the issue of the ending entirely. It's just way easier to stay here.

As for Ryder, I made this point in a different thread already but MEA really is The Ryder Family Story. Alec Ryder invented SAM and made the entire AI possible. Scott/Sara are the converging point of every major mystery at the end of the game. He/she is uniquely positioned to take the plot forward. A new protagonist would be infinitely less involved in the story and they'd have to spend the majority of the game to get them to the same point Ryder is now. Again making things harder for themselves. Not going to happen.

If I were a betting man I'd wager MEA2 will be set in Andromeda and pick up immediately where MEA ended. Ryder and the crew will find themselves in a unique situation that upends the status quo, such as a surprise Kett attack that, say, destroys SAM or somehow catapults the Tempest across the galaxy in a different cluster. Bioware will repeat the ME to ME2 transition since it was very successful before, and overcompensate for the most perceived flaws of MEA: SAM, the villain, the crewmates (a lot of them will die or leave is my guess) and the open world/fetch quest (back to corridor shooters).

I hope not.

BioWare insists Mass Effect is a human story. We will not be able to play as non-human in a main game series, not until total change of leadership in BioWare or some other studio gets to make an ME game.

I'm sorry, but it's not happening with current BioWare mentality over Mass Effect.

Not to mention cannonizing an ending would be Corporate suicide.

But nobody threw a fit over all Hanar looking exactly the same, not even re-colored.

But to be fair, they always looked the same.  You didn't have multiple games with unique Hanar and then all of a sudden have them looking all the same.