I really really really like FO3, but FONV is just not doing anything for me anymore. Exploring is boring and unrewarding and the game took too much from FO3. I really was expecting a all new experience but instead i got a rehashed game. Unlike FO3 when you explore buildings in FONV there is really nothing in them of value. You may find a few ammo, or a few health packs, but thats about it for most of the places I explored. Whats the point of exploring when I can get everything I will ever need off merchants? The final battle was weak in comparison to FO3, it makes me not really care to see whats different about siding with the other factions. I guess all games can not be great, I would say I expected better from Bethesda but they didnt make this game. The best part about this game is hardcoe mode but even that is not enough to keep me intrested. In the last week I played FONV 13hrs which is really sad. There were days I played FO3 13hrs stright!

New Vegas was never billed as a full-blown sequel. It is a spinoff. That's why it is a "rehash". I don't think either game had a lot worth exploring that wasn't already part of a quest. What was there to explore in Fallout 3? You might find some mindless raiders who aren't part of any faction and who have no backstory. That's not exactly immersive. Sometimes you would find a hideout near a radio tower, but that was it. Actually, I never "found" them. I didn't even know they existed, until I looked them up online.

I hope that they take notes of their shortcomings in time for Fallout 4.

soo, how many unique weapons have you been able exactly to get from merchants? at least, there's a point in having merchants in fnv, whereas in fo3 they were completely pointless.
fnv caters less to the diablo/borderlands crowd, but i'm personally glad that it went more into the rpg route, where you can actually solve quests by other means just than killing things.

I have bought 3 unique weapons off merchants so far, like I said you can get everything you need from merchants.

now i'm curious. which ones?
apart from that, you have to earn your caps to buy the good stuff. i just got my first sniper rifle for nearly 6000 caps yesterday after 40 hours of playing. in fo3 i had like 30 of these in the same time. so, here're you complaining about merchants actually being useful?
the amount of items fo3 was throwing at you got completely ridiculous a short time after the beginning. i have like 60! plasma rifles in my locker on my last save.

It seems to me that the term "re-hash" is used to mean "re-use"... Like re-using the Stimpak model, or the deathclaw model, or even a tricycle model... Is it really "re-hashing" to use a model that looks like what you are depicting? I mean... if the game has deathclaws, they should make new models that look like something else? If not, they should completely rebuild the deathclaw model from scratch and have it look like the one that exists already? I don't understand the common lament of "Its just a rehash of FO3 ". The games share some assets; the games have some of the same "mass produced items", and creatures in them; I don't see how this is a problem. :shrug:

As for exploration... I would have a problem with a game that purports a 200 year span of time in which various old shacks were at no time looted by any of a few thousand explorers looking for salvage... To have an abandoned house in ANY town with a stocked first aid kit, or a mini-nuke in the closet ~or weapon of any kind but a lead pipe... unforgivably ridiculous. That was Fallout 3, this is not. Players that recall the landscape of Fallout recall that nearly everything was looted decades before 'you' got there (as it should be).

So many demanded 'realism' and 'immersion' of the world, then choked at the first taste of what that means. FO:NV (what I've seen of it) is a lot more realistic than FO3. When you find a shack out in the open, you should expect that 50 people have scoured it recently, and not be disappointed that there is nothing in it if you decide to look too; and to be really surprised and upbeat about finding something they didn't ~which usually shouldn't happen (and shouldn't be obvious). Also, some places are just places; a playground might be just a playground, and doesn't have to have a grenade hidden somewhere for the player to find.

IMO it doesn't make it a waste, or lazy to not have hidden goodies stuffed in every conceivable nook and cranny of anything that stands out on the landscape. Its just as true to say, "Whats the point of exploring when I can get everything I will ever need off..." of the ground and shelves of any building in any direction. When every place in the game has some form of reward hidden away in it, the rewards themselves become stale and taken for granted. Isn't it better that some are hidden well enough not to be found by a cursory glance, and not common enough to warrant a thorough search of every location ~and so, go undiscovered until after many play-throughs and a bit of chance... This way the game can still surprise you after a few months (or years).

IMO exploring is its own reward (and the only reward that should be offered from every location in the game). Finding cool stuff is great, but its even better when its plausible.

This would seem to make the most sense no? Merchants are likely the ones scouring for salvage, and just might have acquired a thing that was looted days or weeks before, from a place you explored afterward. :shrug:

Unique from Merchants:That Gun,.................nope, can't recall........

thats some BS.. theres only 1 unique weapon that merchants sell. tell me the names of these "unique weapons".

While I disagree with what the OP said, I have to respond to this.

Fallout 3 had dozens upon dozens of "unmarked" locations, that you only saw as doorways on the Local Map. And a good number of those were quite interesting places, some of them with stories that were much better written than the actual quests. I played FO3 six times, four times basically ignoring the main quest altogether. Mostly just wandering the wastes exploring those unmarked spots. And even on my sixth play, I was still finding places I hadn't seen before.

Exploring random stuff was the best part of that game.

I have done two playthroughs. Now I am adding mods for a third. Mods can make a huge difference in replayability.

I dont know. I have fun exploring both games. I like the exploring for what it is: exploring, discovering things and places and wondering what happened to the people who built or used that abandoned shack or who used to sleep on that makeshift bedding outside that remote gas station, and what happened to them, where did they go etc. It makes me wonder and sets my imagination on fire, and I love it. It doesnt have to be anything very special about the place or some hidden unique stuff everywhere.

I don't know what game the OP is playing because I'm getting more loot than I know what to do with....