I'm totally loving the game so far but I'm finding exploring the wastes more fun than sticking to quests, is it safe to just explore or will I mess up future quests if I kill certain enemies who attack me? I've had a few occasions where named creatures such as "Den Mother" have attacked me and I've been forced to kill them, but can't help wondering if thoese enemeis are part of a quest, and if killing them before I get the quest will mess things up later when I return to questing. In Fallout 3 you could skip a large chunk of the quest if you went to rivet city, I'd like to avoid skipping parts of the main storyline, any areas I should stay clear of?

To answer your question, the strip. But several areas are way too dangerous for low level characters. I would avoid the areas west and east of New Vegas, between Vegas and Goodsprings, and the mountains dividing the southern Mojave.

if u kill a certain person it will say quest failed even without signing up for the quest

I was level 16 before I even hit vegas.

One recommendation about future quests. If you find an UNUSUAL item, leave it till it's requested by some NPC. Named items like unique weapons are OK to take but if you find some pice of machinery, or a part of somethinmg, leave it there. That might help with a few scripting errors. I am just about done with all the Good / Neutral quests and there are a few that are just plain broken till a patch though several have been fixed / worked around by mods.

I ran a test today on my first character. It was actually very easy to get from Goodsprings to Vegas. I had to retry once though. Basically when you see a deathclaw, a scorpion or a cazador on your radar, just keep running, or maybe take a slight detour so they don't see you. I got to Vegas in about 5 minutes, I had to dodge the lasers of the fiends a bit, but not as difficult as some people have said. I then stole the entire inventory of Silver Rush and traded it for combat armour, before going back to do Nipton to Novac.

I wonder if its possible to just skip that part of the game and just go and see

I have to carry around some dudes head, how long till it goes all mushy and stinky? :cold:

Just follow the main quest till you get to the dam right before the final battle and go explore. Of cource to side quests that tie in with the main. :nerd:

Never, thanks to the Vault-Tec brand food preservation system integrated into your Pipboy 3000! This is also why all those gecko steaks will never go bad.