Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
The only issue there, of course, is that it's not guaranteed to be any good even after three years...see Mass Effect: Andromeda for a fine example!
Yeah, though Andromeda spent like 3 years of its dev time trying to get the procedural generation holy grail to work. The actual game we got was slapped together in under 2 years which isn't really enough time to make a modern Bioware style game as DA2 and ME3 show (though the ending of ME3 was screwed no matter what once they decided it was going to be the final showdown with the reapers)

Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
I do wonder a bit if you maybe spent too long in the Hinterlands? Because that place was, indeed, empty and soulless. The other locations you got to later were a lot more interesting, I found.
Amusingly enough the zones people complain about being empty and soulless in DAI tend to be the ones I like the best. Hinterlands, Storm Coast, and the Hissing wastes are all my favorite areas in the game because of the atmosphere they present. For me thats the draw of open world games, just picking a direction and wandering til I find something cool(or not).