I always feel like, despite there being so many places to go, there isn't much to do in each settlement in New Vegas. However, when I think about it, most settlements in Fallout 3 only had around 2-3 quests as well. I wondered for awhile why I never felt the same way about Fallout 3, but I now realize why.

The places you can visit in New Vegas are just so much more interesting and fleshed out than the ones in Fallout 3. I barely spent over 20 minutes in Megaton my first play through, meanwhile, as soon as I entered Freeside, I was captivated by it and searched every single corner for a new event or quest. Everything about it is more believable, more entertaining, more involved with the world. Fallout 3 settlements are isolated and never seem to refer to each other unless they are 5 feet away from each other. Most of the characters aren't interesting or believable. So when I run out of quests in towns like Megaton, or Aferu (5 people living on a bridge, oh my) I simply move on. Meanwhile, I when I run out of quests in a place like Freeside or Goodsprings, I become depressed. These places feel almost like a home to me, and see all these boarded up houses and buildings, all this empty, unused space; it really makes me sad. I want to know more about the Kings. I want to know more about the Followers. I want to know more about how Jacobstown and Marcus are fairing. I don't care about a bunch of idiots living around a bomb. I don't care about a bunch of boring, generic npcs living in a tower. Hell, simple filler quests would've have sufficed. Please, Obsidian, when you create massively interesting game worlds, please, you know, fill them with quests and things to do.

im completely the opposite.

Yeah, I kind of get that sense too. When I go to Jamestown, I want to do more for Marcus. I want to get a house. But it's only slightly more involved than say... Big Town.

When I go to Freeside, I expected more..

Some of the towns seem empty :sadvaultboy:

BUT, They make up for it for exploration spots :foodndrink:

Unlike FO3, people don't run up to you and HAND you quests.

It's more like FO2 in that way, you have to go out of your way exploring. Unless you're using a guide/the wiki or are an obsessive explorer you could go through three or four playthroughs without ever finding The White Wash or the two marked, named quests in the Aerospace park.

There are a LOT more quests than it initially appears there are.

Haha, seriously, as soon as you step into megaton, like 5 people jump at you all like HEY BUDDY YOU LOOK LIKE AN ADVENTURER, LET ME TRUST YOU WITH THIS TASK, PERSON I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

I feel completely different. Though it had some more depth in things that Fallout 3 had, it lacked a lot of the meat you could say that Fallout 3 brought to the table.

If you mean by bringing meat, I suppose your right about them bringing 'SPOILED' meat..

Strange, I only remember one man who walked up to you in Megaton and that was the sheriff. I also recall that he doesn't give you a quest, you talk him into letting you defuse the bomb. The only other guy would be Mr.Tenpenny's goon who calls you over. So other than that I don't think too many people run up to you giving you quests in FO3. I can recall some instances but it was indirectly.

Uh, what "meat"?

By "meat" do you mean copy and pasted dungeons and homes?



HEY RIG THIS PULSE CHARGE TO THIS BOMB BRO

HEY DELIVER THIS LETTER TO MY FAMILY

HEY FIX ALL THE LEAKS AROUND TOWN DUDE

HEY [censored] I ALMOST BLEW UP, GO WALK TO EVERYBODY'S HOUSE AROUND TOWN TO SEE IF THEY ARE OK.

That is simply off the top of my head.

Excuse me if I wasn't clear, let me try to restate this. NV had some things in it that had more depth than Fallout 3 did. Such as speaking to other AIs. What it didn't have was depth to the locations. First of all many of the locations in the game were areas you couldn't even explore for example, The Northern Passage, BoS Abandoned Bunker, etc. etc.. It also lacked story to it's locations. I'm not saying all but many of them were dry and boring. Now for Fallout 3 there always seemed to be a story within it's locations. There was always something clever or crazy going on. This being lacked in NV, imo, is what really makes me look negatively at it. The only locations and craziness that impressed me or was at least present was Vault 11 and a party hat on a corpse and Devil's Throat. So FO3 brought the fresh butchered meat to the game and it's locations while NV brought some spoiled meat.

Sad is it is to say, Bigtown was leagues more involved than Jacobstown.

Let me tell you..

Fallout 3, This may not be involved with what you are saying, But this is what I feel, Fallout 3 directly ripped off the story of Fallout 2, And a little from Fallout.

Let me say what exactly they ripped off.. "MUST FIND GECK AND KILL MUTANT VAT PEOPLES, THEN MUST FIGHT ENCLAVE AND SAVE THIS AREA OF TEH WORLD."

And that really made me angry about FO3 after i played FO1/2.
Talk about a crappy writing team.

Which is only 4 instances instead of 5. Plus some of those don't directly give you the quest. For the leaks around town I had to find the man in charge of keeping Megaton up and running and ask him if he needed help. I believe for the pulse charge you have to right near him and he gives you the option to do so. You have to talk to that woman as well for her to ask you to deliver that letter or be really right up in her face (it's been a while..). So I'm just not really sure if were viewing these instances the same way.

Reginald, I disagree!

These first two I remember. I used to get both of them walking into the bar where you had to go to talk to Moriarty for the main quest. So you're bound to get them. I've never ran into those other 2 quests, nor any other ones from people who walk up to you in Megaton.

Really? Because it is physically impossible to not get the last one if you are walking into Aferu.



The woman asks you to deliver the letter as soon as you engage in conversation. You really can't be any more direct about giving away jobs to people than stating it as soon as you meet them or after a simple line of "HEY HOW CAN I HELP"

Well first, that was completely opposite of what I was replying about. But if you want to talk about the story, lets talk story. FO3 left FO1 and FO2 behind. With a new company making the game it wasn't a big surprise. FO3 pretty much went off on it's own story focusing around you helping the wasteland or making it worse. It was different from FO1 and FO2 but it still wasn't terrible either. I'm a huge Enclave fan but the thing is it wasn't FO3 that had this problem. It was throughout the Fallout series that they made you look negatively upon the Enclave which angered me, but it wasn't just in FO3. NV had a decent story. People say it's amazing but I think it's a over statement. Not out of anger for the game but out of my experience of playing many RPGs. Say I thought it was an amazing story as well. Well, it seems to me that would be the only thing the game has got going for it.

As for the original post, I definitely agree with all the places and people being more interrelated in New Vegas. Though it never bothered me in Fallout 3 (it was awesome enough to compensate for its shortcomings) I found New Vegas vastly improved things in this area.

Ah I remember which quest you mean. From the bearded guy guarding the 'town'. I thought you were only quoting examples from Megaton. Yes, in the rest of the game there are definitely more instances of people addressing you and giving quests.

Only if the Wangler room is actually own buy you and provide 2 meals a day.

-FO3 + First two DLCs = 35 total quests give or take 1-2.

-NV as it is now. I'm up to 71 quests finished, 4 active and still have the MQ going that'll add another 1-2 to the final number.


The content is there. I's just most of the NPCs offering them don't assault you like a rabid Hare Krishna at the airport. You'll need to go looking for them.

Eh, while I think some of FO3's locations were brilliant I felt most of them were "meh." The thing that really bugged me about all that stuff all over the place was that a lot of it didn't make sense. It was so obviously placed there to be an attraction for the player with not much regard for world continuity that it sort of ruined my suspension of disbelief at times. I'm not saying having a lot of random stuff to find is bad, they just really needed to put more thought into how it integrates with the world. Some of this could have been alleviated by making the game world larger and adding more relevant, believable places with world continuity to the mix. As it was it felt like there wasn't much going on in the wasteland, but hey, over here there's something wacky for you to find, < PLAYER1 >! NV has more places that are mostly empty, true, but to me avoiding all of those implausible player attractions every 5 feet makes the world feel more genuine. It's a trade-off I guess.


I disagree. A few buildings that you can escort some guy to and then defend against a handful of supermutants is not more involved than Jacobstown. Also, Jacobstown is by far one of the least "involved" major settlements in the game, so that's not really much of a condemnation. I can't think of a single place in FO3 that has as much going on as Freeside does, and that's just one of many places with a lot going on.

I agree, Softnerd. Some of the locations were just so silly like Megaton and Little Lamplight.

I feel there's enough quests in the game to keep you busy, maybe they could have added a little bit more to a couple of places for example thorn, I wish there was more creatures for you to fight such as deathclaws. What I think could have been done a bit better however is the NPC's, there's too many un-named, I'd love it it a few more of them had stories to tell etc, or more notes, or computers around like in H&H tools which told a story of the places history etc. Basiclly the little things that arent necessary but make the world feel a bit more reall, and gives it a bit more depth.