Mass Effect Keep

I disagree. ME2 and ME3 were parts of a trilogy, all connected to an overeaching plot, and as such consistent was needed, as well as planning it detailed beforehand. A sequel doesn't have to necessarily follow the same general/main plot. 
Also, not knowing if they'll use Ryder doesn't mean they don't have a plan or planned plots already for following games. 

Then I'm wrong and they have already taken a decision of what path follow. Hopefully in this case they'll let us know sooner then later.

When it first came out I thought the Dragon Age Keep sounded awesome. Sadly however everything that was different turned out to be purely cosmetic and I really don't understand why people like it. You don't get to see how your actions changed the world, all you get to see is how irrelevant your actions are because they DIDN'T change the world in any meaningful manner.

I think trying to preserve players actions from one game to the next when you don't do anything significant with it actively makes for a worse game. It not only ties up resources trying to cater for every option but it causes the writers to abandon plot points that could have been followed up and explored in future games because they can't cater to all the possible outcomes. In the most recent example the entire Milky Way had to be abandoned because of the ending in ME3.

Biowares adherence to not pick a default world state when making a new game is what I dislike about their games the most. I am looking forward to the story in ME:Andromeda largely because it will give them a lot more freedom but I still think they should change their approach.

I voted yes, because even if it doesn't have any major impact in the story, it's still nice to get those little call backs to what I did in previous games. Plus, the Keep was pretty fun to do, both to see different outcomes without having to do another hours-long playthrough, and to get a refresher on the things that happened.

As for the case of Andromeda, although most of the decisions we made in ME1-2 (especially 2) aren't going to be public knowledge and therefore relevant to MEA - things like the near destruction of the citadel, the geth resurfacing, humans joining the council, the first human spectre coming back from the dead - would have been big news so it would seem weird if no one mentioned them in MEA ever. And I'd rather have something like the Keep than to have those things worded awkwardly to avoid contradictions or mentioning Shepard's gender or whatever. Or not talked about at all. Yes it's the distant past when we all wake up, but people don't just stop discussing things or having opinions about them because they've been asleep (even if it is for 600 years).

I like the idea of the Keep and think it would be good to have it for Mass Effect. If they decide to do more sequels, or even just other games in the Andromeda system, it might be handy to have. Just having the Keep track the decisions made doesn't mean that they will be super important later; however, if a choice made during MEA would affect a future game, at least it could be imported and reflected properly in the future game--no matter the platform. It's just nice to have the option.

Yes and no.

I wouldn't mind being able to archive my choices for future Mass Effect games like how you were uploading your Dragon Age: Inquisition choices to The Keep, but I wouldn't want it for including information from the first three games. The infrastructure is already there since they have done the same thing with Inquisition. I just hope BioWare takes a different approach to major choices and maybe even have them nullified at the end of the game like other games and they are just another path to the final destination.

Not really feel a need for it right now. Maybe in the future but not now.

Something that could accessed offline/online (perhaps in-game?) yeah, I wouldn't mind. But I don't think we need it right now.

or 'Ark'?

The problem is the logistical nightmare of having to implement major choices such as the destruction of the town, for they would have to create two towns to cover what the one would have and if there is anything important there they would have to re-create it twice.  Look at the returning companions quality was in Mass Effect 3, to me they felt they had very little weight to the story because they had to write in an alternate character to replace them if they had died prior to Mass Effect 3.  Even the Rachni in Mass Effect 3 as well, look at all the upset people because the status of the queen changed so it acknowledged what the player did, but it wasn't done with enough change to the game to please people.

I don't get why the destruction of a town is a logistical nightmare for a sequel and not for a game itself. If you can create the consequences of a destroyed/not destroyed town in a game, surely they can carry over to a sequel? Of course, you can't do so for a dozen towns, but that would be you writing yourself into a corner (again!), not a consequence of letting choices carry over. The real problem comes from world/galaxy wide consequences for one's actions, and that's why it baffles me that, giving how they apparently value so much the whole "choices carry over" dynamic, they keep going for big epics instead of smaller stakes stories.