EA 'Mass Effect Andromeda Advocate' Executive Patrick Söderlund has been promoted.

In my mnd, an Andromeda story leading back to a post-Reaper War Milky Way where time and something like the scourge has destroy most, if not all, evidence of whatever decision Shepard made would effectively be "a new place" and, if done well, would be an exciting and RELEVANT story addition to the franchise - relevant to both the Milky Way and Andromeda and to both previous story lines.

You realize the player base is bigger than just here yes?

In truth you don't need a new race to fight, just some new enemy types for the kett would do. Plus if its set on the quarian ark, you'll fight alongside races that the previous games have never allowed such as volus and batarians, which would open up a lot more lore for everyone.

I'm still not sold on the idea that rendering a previous character's choices moot is a useful way of respecting them.

It doesn't necessarily render the choices moot... It makes it not visually obvious what choices the player made.  The underlying relevance of the choices could still be brought to light within the context of a new story in other ways... ways that aren't so vastly disruptive to the flow of wherever that new story might be going with its plot.  For example, regardless of whether the player's Shepard lived or died, Shepard would be dead more than 600 years later (potentially 1200 years later if the journey going back takes as long as the journey getting to Andromeda).  Still, a dialogue could be entered somewhere that tells us whether or not Shepard's body was ever found or that he/she died years later somewhere else without disrupting a new story plot.  Dialogue could be entered that acknowledges the Reapers either being destroyed outright or them helping to rebuild... but the Scourge (something unanticipated by anyone at the time) ultimately destroys everything that was rebuilt.  The populace could be changed by the Scourge itself or the Jaardan - making them visually different than before (regardless of whether or not they acquired the green glowing eyes of the synthesis ending).  The Milky Way Galaxy could be effectively "a new place."  If the mere action of firing the Crucible triggers a chain reaction that brings about the Scourge itself, that becomes evident in Andromeda 600 years later but that is also ravaging the Milky Way during that same time frame, we have a relevant connection between the the two galaxies and stories.

Regardless, it's Bioware writing it - not me, not you, not anyone here (unless there are Bioware writers lurking).  I'm just saying that when Soderland mentions "a new place", he could even be referring to the Milky Way.

I got you and I agree.

How is going back to the Milky Way going backwards? If there's a sequel to ME3, ME4, doesn't mean losing people. That would happen if the story, gameplay and other things are not up to par, but that could be said about continuing in Andromeda, right?

Whatever they choose to do won't be known for a few years. What they say they might do today could change a year or two from now. Until anything is confirmed, everything is speculation.

The difference is that people are suggesting an expansion, not a game. That means a far smaller budget, and if the story is focused on the quarian ark then they'll need new models, animations, etc for those races on board the ark, a number of which can't just reuse animation skeletons that already exist ingame. Throwing a brand new race on top of those would mean that the race would need to reuse an existing animation set, which brings us back to one of the issues for ME:A that all the races are just funny looking humans. Plus it involves a lot more content as they would need to be fleshed out.

Would I want another race? Sure! But I'd rather see the quarian ark races get fleshed out than see them left by the wayside in yet another ME game. It's time for them to get to shine.

Or not. Since the studio that was supposed to have done it was moved long before that. 

I believe they are referring to Bioware Montreal merging with Motive Studios, thus there was nobody available to make the DLCs since Edmonton and Austin are busy with other projects.

Not to mention, any company like EA would have 3rd party, partner, subsidiary companies, other divisions they could get resources from.  A company like EA is not gong to fail to take advantage of a market because they couldn't find the bodies.

But with Andromeda thats exactly what they did, go backwards, if they wanted to deal with humans, asari, turians, krogan etc etc an all there political stories again an again they simply should've stayed in the milkyway an figured something out there, Andromeda initially should have been a time of meeting an making alliances/enemies with new species an expanding on everything while creating something new based in the ME universe not just going "oh hey guys here a new galaxy with the same races,screaming about the same shit, doing the same shit with the exception of one new boring race an a watered down reaper threat" /YAWN

Believe me when i say i completely 100% agree with the guy when he says they really really need to look at how they bring back ME, cause Andromeda clearly showed more of the same isnt enough regardless what you or me think an for the record i didn't think ME:A was bad, even on launch day, it just wasnt that good from nigh all writing points but i enjoyed the gameplay.

I agree its to late to ignore Andromeda an there aint no reason not to go back just like there aint no reason to ignore the Milkyway an not go back, whatever the decision i'd rather a choice be made, a certain section obviously butt hurt over it, and a good game set in the ME Universe regardless the route it goes.

If im brutally honest though if im going to Andromeda i really dont want to deal with the Milkyway races at all apart from humans but if they insist on making me have to deal with the Milkyway races then simply set the game in the Milkyway