Share your thoughts on how you envisioned "Mass Effect 4"

Given the stakes, I imagined it as having a more serious and mature tone with veteran squad mates and crew. Instead, well.. yeah.

Upon hearing about colonizing planets I also expected it to feel more rewarding when you finally get those outposts built. With the exception of Eos, it's really disappointing.

Those N7 missions sucked. The only one that was remotely interesting was the reactor mission in ME3, only because you actually had a choice that could result in someone's death. Otherwise it's a basic drop in, kill everything that moves and get out, maybe sometimes with a minor collection quest. 

The only thing I really expected was for the game to be more lighthearted and it was.

The OT was so serious and grim most of the time, while there was a good reason for that, I was looking forward to a more lighthearted story focused on discovering new things.

I really enjoyed the direction the game went.

Wat did I expect?

Hmm... Well - It was obvious the story in the Milky Way was ended. Given the different endings in ME3, it was obvious there would not be another ME4 with all that Shepherd thingies again (yes I was not very happy with that superhero stuff, call me a heretic). Don't get me wrong, the MET is great, but at the same time it was a bit "over the top" for me. I also was hoping the exploration aspects would be strongly improved, because for me the MET was a bit too much "FPS on rails" for me (yes I know I won't become popular with this view).

Anyway - It was obvious the next game would be no "ME4" with familiar characters, but something different. I was speculating for myself it could be several different settings. It could play in the far future, where all the events of ME3 are noting more than an ancient history. Problem with that is that one of the endings (synthesis) of ME3 would prevent that. Another possibility was that it played an a forgotten part of the Milky Way, far away from any Mass Effect Relay's. And another idea was that it would be not even in the Milky Way, but an whole other galaxy. Well - It turned out to be the latest.

As for the protagonist(s). Well - It should be no Shepard 2.0, because in that case it would be simply a copy of ME1,2,3 with the same political an military structure, but shifted to a distant future or another part of the galaxy. That would imply complete stagnation in development. No - What was needed is another type of protagonist and another political/military structure. Maybe a strong, almost dicator-ish military based system? Or maybe a complete civilian corporation system with internal police/military fractions?

At the end ME:A turned out to be somewhat in the line I was expecting. Indeed - The Milky Way was left behind, and the story was told in another galaxy. We indeed got no Shepard 2.0, but a protagonist that was (almost) green, unprepared and had to grow to get a grip on the developing situations. The coupling with SAM was a nice touch that can lead to very interesting situation in ME:A-2.

So - No carbon copy of ME1,2,3 but a fresh start. It is based on the previous games history-wise (and races), but that's about it. No Citadel with overpowered counsel, but a civilian based administration, where every member can be kicked out if he/she/it goes too far. No superhero that is untouchable because of the Spectre status, but a more human protagonist that has to be careful and diplomatic. His grip over his crew is based on trust, and not "obey because military". He/she has to earn his/hers place, because you are not automatically in full charge without asking questions. I like that. I was also pleasantly surprised by the more open structure of this game.

In short - I got the game that was very well in the line of my expectations. It's not perfect (no game is), but certainly a step in the right direction. I think it's a very good start of a (hopefully) new series, and I am very curious to see how the story and characters will develop in an possible upcoming ME:A-2.

Initially right after ME3 I thought there was no way we'd have a game set any time after the events of the trilogy. I thought they might at that point make standalone games set in Mass Effect universe prior to the end of ME3. Different protagonists each game with maybe some acknowledgement of the other games, but mostly a completely isolated series of events where each game would have a full beginning, middle, and end. The games would all have their own individual tone and range from lighthearted fun (kind of what we got in MEA) to something serious/dangerous.

When rumors of another galaxy started to float about, I got excited at the idea of the Council launching a contingency plan to the Crucible project wherein many of the best and brightest (those remaining anyway) would get sent off into a new galaxy blind in hopes of finding something habitable. I figured they'd all be loaded onto a single massive vessel capable of housing just enough of a population size to begin colonizing a planet and a repository of various species frozen reproductive ingredients to whip up the population to something sustainable for continued growth once they've established a safe haven.

I thought a fair chunk of the early game would be the expedition going to shit before you even set foot on a planet...mechanical failures, supplies get destroyed or end up "missing," people start freaking out, opportunists take advantage of that and before you know it riots ensue...just basically anything that could have gone wrong does. The people who manage to survive the ordeal then have to go on from there to find a planet worth living on and don't have a fraction of the support they thought they would initially. Not surprisingly when they do reach the new galaxy it's already occupied, but first contact would have been a bad one, with us meeting a far more advanced species that would either want to destroy us or enslave us. So now instead of having of being able to finally set up camp somewhere, we're on the run...again. The situation would get increasingly more and more desperate to the point where it seems pretty certain this contingency plan was going to completely fail...which is when the "good" species of the new galaxy come and help us out/fight off the "bad" species.

By the end of the game we'd still be alive but not in decent enough shape to carry on our colonization efforts in the way we hoped. Instead we're now totally reliant on this new species and basically owe everything to them...thus setting up a new series of problems in the future where we have to deal with a species that initially seem like saviors but will become increasingly more and more controlling.

Really I just wanted a out of the frying pan and into the fire situation that keeps on happening. Though that would have probably been a little too much for people, especially after all the doom and gloom of ME3. Tonally there's nothing wrong with fun adventure, but I don't like the sudden shift from "the galaxy as we know it is coming to an end" to "lets get a bunch of snacks and drinks and watch bad movies together."

I really didn't have any thoughts on what ME4 should have been. The only thing I knew was that I hoped they would create another Mass Effect game, and they did. I also knew they had to find a way to get out of that shit storm of a ME3 ending.

I never expected them to make ME4. Not because of what happened to the galaxy at the end of ME3. Shepard's story had concluded and it was time for someone else to take the torch. In a new game that isn't tied to the trilogy. There was an exploration vibe coming from the trilogy at times, and it might be cool to do something like that. Kind of what happened.

I expected to be a badass N7 not a cosplayer in daddy's armour. Also I really wanted to meet the interesting promotional characters in the game(Jien Garson and Alec Ryder)and I was really disappointed when they killed them off right away in the beginning and the only thing I got is Tann and Addison. A lot less plot holes. Also I hoped for a good and strong strong story in a new and alien galaxy like in Stargate Atlantis, not a Halo 4 knockoff with a little bit of a Mass Effect feeling and the Guardians of the galaxy for my crew.

In the end I got an unstoppable young super soldier (who is NOT a soldier, but easly kills half of Heleus): Spartan Pathfinder with an AI in the head Cortana SAM.
A shield world: Requiem Meridian.
A powerful extinct race: the Forerunners Jardaan
A synthetic enemy in the extinct race ruins: the Prometheans Remnants
An enemy with a strong feeling for a super weapon, and a disappointing boss fight: The Didact Archon

Well, it's only N7 cosplay if you choose it . I like that Bradley will actually comment on it, which is more than I can say for all those suckers that didn't notice if Shepard was festooned in Cerberus gear. It'd be like me walking to my local bodega in an SS uniform without dying. 

I am not sure what I was expecting, but I can think of what I've wanted.

Some kind of a post war Mass Effect, with a bit of a film noir feeling about it, assuming a very renegade Shepard and a destroyed earth...

Mass Effect: Lagrange Point 3
Something that starts out smaller maybe, and gives you a choice of species, 15 years after the ending of Mass Effect 3, assuming a renegade Shepard and a red ending. You can choose between Asari, Quarian, Turian or Salarian for species of either gender if applicable. As former warrior you fell into a deep pit of depression after the war, stranded in the solar system until the mass relays were repaired by the leftovers of the fleet and never quite made your jump back home to whence you came from. You live in the Citadel which orbits the sun at earth's lagrange point three... in the middle of the remainders of the fleets which Shepard brought. It is governed by a military dictatorship of the alliance fleet. (Note: The character background for Salarians would be slightly different, because their life expectancy does not suffice to have witnessed the war.)

Some people claim that Shepard saved everyone. Some people say that the Illusive Man did. You are more likely to believe that they are all wrong, that you really ended up in hell. You worked for the humans and are seen as a collaborator by your own people, but you fell from grace when they figure out that you took money from Aria's gang.

Scraping by as a mercenary just waiting for the final job to get you killed and on all kinds of drugs suddenly a strange, rich human woman comes to seek you out on the citadel. She doesn't give her name, mut be in her late 20s or early 30s, but somehow knows a lot about your past and more importantly your skill set (which is implied in your species and specialization choices at character creation) and she seems to be afraid of the authorities. She offers you a money to go to Mars, to the destroyed museum where the first Prothean artifact was found, because she hopes to find clues to the whereabout of her sister, but suggests you do so armed.

On Mars you have to fight cultists of the Keepers, but manage to find a heavily encrypted datapad which bears blood traces of your contactor's sister as well as a voice recording with a warning for your contractor. At the skin of your teeth you get back to the Citadel, but before you can meet your contractor you are sought as a terrorist and framed for all kinds of crimes. You barely manage to hide your data before you are arrested. On the way to questioning however, your contractor suddenly appears in the c-sec office and manages to hand you a gun and distract two guards so that you can escape and begin a joerney to recover the data and counteract the Keepers which are at the same time hunting you...

The woman is Oriana Lawson, who received a segment of important data from Miranda to hide it well, the data contains everything that Cerberus ever learned about the indoctrination technology of the reapers. The Keepers are a sect which succeeds, which reveres The Illusive Man as a prophet and believes that mankind is destined to rule the galaxy (despite or even because of the destruction of earth) and the rightful inheriter of the reapers. They use the indoctrination tech, to get whatever remains in the solar system. You were temporarily affected by it, but developed a natural immunity against it.

While you do travel around through, the game is more limited in scope in to the solar system and primarily the citadel of which many regions can be explored. Your ship is a stolen, which was heavily damaged in the reaper war but later refurbished by the alliance.

During the course of the adventure you are also forced to repair a geth server hidden on the Citadel, by replacing the quantum computing grid (for which it uses impurities in a diamond) which was destroyed as the crucible fired and reinitializing it with varios datasets of your choice until and then wait until int becomes self-aware and therefore operational.

Your crew is composed of various drifters mercenary and people of your choice, ultimately four other than yourself, no more and no less, but there are at least eight to pick from, some of which are mutually exclusive.