Hey Guys,

i used to be a big fan of the serious, played every Fallout game forever. So i understand that in the 4th verson you will be able to play on although the main story line finishes.... Unfortunately i catched myself many times that if the main story line is completely finished i loose interest although there's a lot to see... So my strategy is always - continue very slowly with the main story and do all the side quests...

But that again raises then a few questions... Will some side quests be lost after a specific point in the game if i do not do them earlier? If yes, will there be a signal of hitn that this not happens? Will i be able to see the "whole world" from the beginning or do i need to be on a specific point of the main story to get further?

Long story short, i would like to get some feedback from you about:

What is the best strategy to be able to do AS MANY quests as possible and see AS MUCH as possible (only the really interesting stuff, not so much interested in collecting just everything) without finishing the main story and having countless quests left?

i know many of you just play on after the main story, but for me it's sooo much more satisfying if i know there's still the ending out there, i still have not reached the big end of the game.

My approach with these games is usually to play different characters with very different playing style. I make a point not to join every faction or do every single questline with the first character, saving most of the content for future playthroughs.

Even after a few years playing Skyrim, I still haven't completed most of the major questlines.

I don't use fast travel, disable the compass icons so I don't know where all the nearby locations are until I actually find them, and if I do certain quests or travel from one side of the map to another, I often get side tracked with lots of combat encounters and places to explore along the way.

After a couple hundred hours, the character is fairly high level, perhaps getting too powerful, and I want to try a different playing style, or maybe completely new set of mods, etc., so I start a brand new character.

It probably helps if you ramp up the difficulty or use mods that increase spawns, etc. - you wind up in these epic battles with lots of enemies and even small dungeons take a long time to complete.

In New Vegas there was a certain point where you decide which faction to ally with and certain quests might have become unavailable, but they gave you lots of warning about it ahead of time. Also there were faction disguises, so I think you could still do some of the other faction quests.

I found it gave the game more replay value, so I played once siding with NCR, then rolled a completely different character that sided with the Legion, etc.

If F4 follows F3 and F:NV in game play then you won't miss out just because you took your time. The only games that had timed aspects were F1 and F2, and both of those elements were typically quickly finished so I could begin the main parts of the game.

As it seems, you people know what you are doing.

I am new on Fallout, so a quick question:

It is possible to make sidequest first (if any available at the beggining) and after start the main quest ???

Thanks. !!!

It's not really doable to completely avoid the campaign quest prompts. You'll likely have one main quest objective prior to leaving the vault.

On the other hand, these games don't usually penalize you for going off and exploring. Like Skyrim would let you do 90% of the game content before fighting your first dragon or Fallout 3 would let you do about 80% of the content before trying to find your dad; your very much encouraged to find a different path in these games.

So, even if you have a quest prompt in your pipboy for 80 hours, you can still just keep putting it off until you're out of stuff to find or just get curious.

Oh, and if I'm interpreting the Bethesda posting correctly, you can continue the game after finishing the main quest to hunt down any little side quests left lingering.

Oh, sounds cool...thanks. !!!

> Oh, and if I'm interpreting the Bethesda posting, you can continue the game after finishing the main quest to hunt down any little side quests left lingering. <

Yeah, i heard about that.

Thanks again.

It's stupidly simple, you see...you note where the main quest tells you to go, and you don't go there and just explore the world. Easy, right?

The only danger is that sometimes they have quests that are based on changes in the game world. For example, in Skyrim, if you advance the civil war storyline too far, it'll change the landscape to some degree. I don't remember if that actually ~blocked~ you from getting some quests but that kind of drastic change (if they ever did such a thing) could theoretically cut off some quests.

And of course, if they have a faction-based system (as seems likely) then it's possible that you may cut off access to quests for the opposing faction. In Fallout New Vegas, just last night, I killed some Legion goons who had massacred a town and I "failed" two quests that I could have pursued if I had let them go and spread their message of terror, etc.

With this in mind, it may be advantageous to play through several times with different characters. I ~think~ I've played through siding with the Legion, but it's possible I never have, since they are jerks to women and generally "evil". So that's content I just miss out on.

And of course you could (possibly) kill a character that ~would~ have offered you a quest. The owners of the Silver Rush weapons shop, for example, offer you a job... but it's a dirty job and I never "finish" it and usually end up just wiping them out rather than doing that mission.

QUESTIONS ABOUT EXPANSIONS: Do you guys know if expansions/DLC's that will be released will be accessible at any time... So let's say i actually finished the game, i can just load the DLC and then play with my exisiting character at this particular level through it and just "continue" my game... I guess so right?