{Spoilers Ahead} OK. Let me walk you through my time in the mojave wasteland. Once I get set free from the doc's office, I spend about 15 hours exploring around Goodsprings, Primm, and Cottonwood, entirely ignoring the main quest. I notice I've got a butt-load of cash from playing caravan so I think to myself, "hey let's see what vegas is like."

So getting in isn't a problem since Ive got like 60k in caps, and the first casino I walk into just so happens to be the Tops. Next thing I know Im face to face with my killer. Of course I'm not going to let the weasely bastard go, so I convince him to follow me to the suite without his guards. I promptly end his life, take the chip, and head to his suite to loot it. Now Im talking to this robot called "yes man" and Im starting to seriously feel like I skipped a step or two. I head over to Mr. House, who refuses to negotiate with me until I hand over the chip. So I'm like "Hold on now buddy, not so fast" and that fedora-wearing butt-monkey sics his nard-tard robots after me, whom I quickly dispatch at level 15. Now I walk past a security terminal with NO security check, thinking "ok, well now I can talk some sense into him" and suddenly Im face to face with that little boney butt nugget and my only options are to kill him or condemn him to live forever in his basemant. At this point Im thinking, "Hey, that was quite a twist for only being 15 minutes into the main quest."

The question to me is: Was it supposed to be this easy to just bump into the end of the game like that? It felt as though I simply walked into the wrong room at the wrong time and the game decided it was time to start wrapping up dozens of plot elements I'd yet to even begin to explore. I thought seriously about turning the game off and pretending that I hadn't seen what I did, to just load an earlier save, but the damage was done. Damn.

lol, you are nowhere near the end....prehaps getting close ot a third of the way through.

You missed all the quest to track benny arcoss the desert, but you've still got a fair way to go before the end of the MQ.

I know I'm supposed to talk to all the various factions to decide whether or not to side with them, and I know that the battle at the Hoover dam is ahead... Still I feel that the real meat of the story if behind me, only after being thrown in my face out of nowhere.
Regardless I hope you're right.

(oops didnt mean to post this seperately from the quote)

trust me, you skipped over the questline that sort of introduces each faction to you, but now for the MQ you'll have to start allying yourself with one of them and talking to other to get them out of the way or on your side.....this is far by the longest part of the MQ if you want to do it properly.

I felt the same, but i just did the rest of the MQ (from the point you are at) and its taken about 15 hours....which was something i wasnt expecting. I also skipped over heaps of parts and had a nice backlog of extra quests when i finished.

If you install Yesman and ignore all minor fractions than you would be finishing the game in 2 hours.

no offence but.. 15hours of wondering in waste land.. and you leveled only 15? what were you doing?

You actually do lvl pretty slowly if you just run around and ignore the quest which I will be doing after I see the main endings, on my hardcoe playthrough I haven't dine a single side quest just the main ones and only 3 hours in I've already moved I. The tops. I love how you can take this game supe slow or you can just power through the main story

really.??? maybe .. i need to consider killing every thing i see...

my last play was.. power though the main story.. and.. i was like.. 10 when i arrived at freeside?

still power though with low level and side with yes man was really challenge though... i was like 12 when i suppose to fight with legate? all the mines helped me.. but.. with desert rangers... its was a tough one... (and it was on hardcoe to)

thinking back to last play... what if i didnt activate the generator.. and i had to fight all by my self.. sound.. really horrible though (seriously desert ranger killed me in like 3 sec? and that time i had no doctors bag with borken leg... luckly i had turbo and hydra with me though.. )

I got to Freeside at level 22...

managed to get to freeside at level 2.

my rump was in tatters from being raked by deathclaws,
my legs were all buggered from rad scorpion stings
my head was messed up from fiend attacks

but i got there...

then some bastid freeside thugs rogered and pillaged me and i had forgotten to hit quicksave.

thank god for autosave.

but i ended up in freeside penniless and hardly any weapons or ammo.

now i am a prosttute and getting regularly serviced by ghouls n freaks.


what a game
what a way to end up

i am the one looking ragged and tattered at the corner,screaming adverts at people for 1 cap a day.

stoopid game :fallout:

Yeah legate might be a challange but I had my troops take care of those rangers for me when I sided with yea man

Yeah legate might be a challange but I had my troops take care of those rangers for me when I sided with yea man

Lol 1st playthrough I got to freeside and I was lvl 10.
2nd playthrough I'm lvl 18 and I still haven't gone into freeside or New Vegas (though I passed by it a few times while I was making merchant runs with the Gun Runners)
(Gotta have my Ranger Sequoia, This Machine, and Lever Action Shotgun)
:gun:

You shouldn't have 60k caps at that point of the game. I mean, peoeple with half a brain who want to the story properly would stay away from new vegas. No offence, but it's true.

Interesting. I found it to be a pretty short part of the game...... but that's because I only got to the Strip at ~40 hours. I'd already done buckets of stuff for most of the game factions, and the "ally or ignore" parts were mostly just "go there and say Hi"