I really don't understand the appeal of the whole "ignore the main quest" thing that people love so much about Bethesda games. It seems to me that if you have to actively ignore the main storyline of the game in order to experience 90% of the content in a game, then the game just isn't structured very well.

In Fallout 1 and 2 you were constantly doing the main quest. Any side missions you did were done along the way, you would never go out of your way to "explore" for them. You have a goal and you are free to go about completing it in any way you wish, that's the whole point.

That being said, even New Vegas isn't nearly as cohesive as Fallout 1 and 2 in this way, and is far closer to F3's model.

I don't see it personally. There are many quests in Fallout: NV that relate to the main quest sure. However there are many more that aren't. I was bombarded with quests in New Vegas whereas in Fallout 3 there was only a handful in comparison and the majority of those were from the main quest.

Goodsprings has quests unrelated to the main story. Just like Sloan, New Vegas, Freeside, Nellis AFB, McCarran Airport, Novac, Primm, etc. There's tons of things to do.

Maybe I just never got the rose-colored glasses that Bethesda sent out so I could like at Fallout 3 in awe. It was a good game, just like Fallout: New Vegas is. New Vegas is just newer, bigger, more immersive, and has better guns and combat.

I beg to differ about Fallout 2. After I find Arroyo in flames, I just spend forever idley wandering around.

Anyway, I put off the main quest because I enjoy wandering around in post apocalyptic la la land.

Regardless, that's easier to justify in a game that doesn't have a compass telling you exactly where to go.

I've spent hundreds of hours in Fallout 3 and barely reached my 100 hours in new vegas. I just went from a save to beat the game so I can see the ending.
All in all, I enjoyed Fallout New Vegas like a new installment and unrelated to Fallout 3. I liked meeting new enemies at the end of my new iron sights. I liked the companion wheel which felt very natural. I liked the weapon system and aid system. However, there are some pet peeves within the game that as an original Fallout 3 fan boy, were bugging me.

I know most people have already complained about it, but you can't explore the vastness like you can Fallout 3. There is a lot to see in Fallout New Vegas don't get me wrong, the numbers prove it. But the majority of it feels the same. It's kind of difficult to explain, but it all feels too much like the same thing. Like it's missing a spice of variety. It's strange to pin out how exactly. I guess the best way is to compare to places and regions within Fallout 3. But I won't do that because Fallout 3 already has in its favor 5 expansion packs. It might be because of the overwhelming feeling that anywhere you go has some ncr finger on it. Also the game sports too many barriers and too many unclimbable cliffs. There are vast areas all around the far regions of the map where it's literally void of content except a floor to walk on. If they simply opened these regions and simply added some marked areas with some content, I think I would be satisfied with my adventurous urge to explore the entire map. The argument has been made that the map is larger then in Fallout 3, but if you simply cut the areas where you can't explore, you'll find a small map in comparison. But don't get me wrong, it's still kind of big.

Another thing that bugs me with this game is that there isn't enough fighting quests. Don't label me as a call of duty fan, but it's true. There's a lot of quests where all you are doing is talking to people and working out negotiations. For a while, I felt like I was finishing a quest was a burden. You do occasionally get a quest to eliminate so an so. But It seemed a little too pacifist for my taste in games. I could have worked out some negotiations with the end of my barrel but seemed to would have negatively impacted me in the end.

All in all, this game is better then Fallout 3 in my experience with both games. I just wish they opened up the whole map and remove the silly barriers.

Dude there are over 100 side quests to do in FNV, only 6 tops are tied with the MQ. There's only three acts of the MQ, how is it thrown in your face the whole time?? There's a butt load of challenges, and the play after project purity in Fo3 was only after the DLC dude. If you want to forget about the MQs collect all the snow globes, Complete the Challenges, locate over 150 locations without the Explorer Perk, actually look for the side quests, complete the game in all four possible endings, get all of the companions and complete their side quests (That will take mandatory hours of wondering around. Especially if you don't know what exactly you're looking for. Hint: ED-E side quest.) To me it sounds like you're disappointed because you completed the game and couldn't find the side quests to do...They're not tied to the MQ like you think they are and they require some extent or exploring and detective work. You have to go out into the Mojave and search every town, sewer, building, person, granny, cranny, and sometimes have it on Wild Wasteland and random crap gets thrown at you thatta way. Fo3 was 30 years ago man (game wise),(((Wait...maybe only 3 years my bad, either way))) go ahead, crank up that difficulty, put it on hardcoe Mode, and experience the Mojave like it was meant to be experienced!!

And for where the fun is at?? It's in that place we call a nogg'n. User Discretion Is Advised!!

Started another play through and I see what most of you guys are saying perhaps I jumped the gun a little.

New Vegas feels... empty. I really just prefer exploration in Fallout 3 by far. I think New Vegas is better than Fallout 3 in almost every way but the exploration, but exploration is the hard part of games that only Bethesda seems to have mastered. For that reason, I prefer Fallout 3 as a whole. New Vegas was fun, but I'm bored now after about 50 hours and have no motivation to continue playing. Fallout 3 was just the ultimate game for exploration, in my opinion. New Vegas has too many completely empty, pointless, and/or nonsensical locations and I just want to comb through an old-fashioned RPG dungeon collecting loot here and there with some seemingly unique buildings here and there and places that just looked too impressive, externally, for me to pass up. I got a few vaults and a couple other buildings in New Vegas, but that's it.

Addressed to nobody in particular: how in the hell can you spend "hundreds of hours" exploring Fallout 3 but already be bored with New Vegas? Everything, every location, every monster spawn in said locations, everything was the same in Fallout 3 whether it was your first playthrough or your fifty-eighth; except for random trash loot from cabinets and boxes.

It. Was. All. The. Same.

Really? Because once I got out of Goodsprings and completed the quests that were associated to Goodsprings. I headed south to the NCRCF and began "I fought the Law". Completed that which also in turn got me tied into the Primm's quests, which then gets me involved with the Mojave Outpost's quests. After I had nothing to do I headed to Nipton and did as instructed as by Vulpes Inculta. I explore and then I hit Novac and did the quest for Boone and got him on my team. I then have a clear way to New Vegas and took my time and explored Freeside.

While in Freeside I did the Birds of a Feather Debt Collector G.I. Blues High Times Wang Dang Atomic Tango. I get into the Strip and then the Main Quest starts. These are the marked side quests and I try to get many of the unmarked quests as possible. As far as I am concerned they have nothing to do with the main quest. (They are not dictated by the main quest). None of these are required and I haven't even done half of them. I don't know what game you are playing but I am 20 hours into the game and still got another 40 hours ahead of me (and that is if I do as many quests as I can).

I think the developers did a very good job with writing the quests and making them easy to pick up. And if you follow the main quest it uses the entire map which presents you to different secondary quests. In Fallout 3 you radomly found people taht handed you a task. (Agatha, I would never meet her if I didn't spend the time to deliberatly find her, or Sierra Petrovita, or the people from Canterbury Commons).

Also in the title it should be where's not were's.

To be honest FO3 feels more "empty" to me. Not because you can't walk 10 feet without tripping over some "attraction" that's been placed for you to find. Because despite some really clever work by level designers and artists, a lot of the places, people, and factions feel so disconnected, two-dimensional, inconsequential, and implausible that I wasn't really that interested in them. To me this made it feel like bunch of little mini-experiences separated by a lot of empty space rather than one big place full of interconnections. For me the thought put into the back story and interconnections creates something that feels more substantial. IMO that type of content is also more difficult to design than a map with very little geographical variation and a bunch of disconnected, randomly placed stuff. That's not to say that some of Bethesda's random locations weren't excellent...just that simply dotting a map with randomly-placed stuff in unto itself isn't hard to do. Coming up with ideas for the places does take some work, though.

Anyway, some RPGs are more of a dungeon-crawl than others. I'm not sure I think that's inherently good or bad.

I like both. But after having been bored a little bit with FO3 lately, New Vegas certainly feels fresh.

I agree with that. the fallout series is on the right track

I concur with most of what you wrote.
After 120 hours of NV did all the quest there were and saw the endings what happens if I side with different factions I went back to F3 and was more fun. Not to mention how I felt when I did all the quests before I sided with house for first and after the first quest he asked I was looking at the screen for a minute which quests I did and which I failed.
Wasteland survival guide, keller family, there were a lot of things what F3 got better all they had to do is simply implement it in their game. Bobbleheads Vs snowglobes, and you didn't even had to search for snowglobes they were right in your way not to mention the reward is also worthless and could be earned with a 30 second caravan game.
Maybe if we had to find the damn implants that would be similar to the bobble heads and would fit in the game but they couldn't even get that right either. The great quest perks which F3 had were also missing, I felt F3 is more fun to play and more rewarding.
The old fallout feel is back in NV but it really felt much more like work than fun to play. The bugs and the invisible walls sometimes meters in front of the object which should block the player really dragged it down...

If there were mods to add the extra what NV had to F3 would be awesome.

Indeed I guess for the same reason why the strip is cut into separate parts, so their distinguished players won't get RROD .

Well from reading the post here it seems there are a couple of different points of view. Those that did the side quest that had nothing to do with the main quest and those that didn't do them and assume they don't exist. This seems to be the main point aside from those who don't (want) to like the game because Bethesda didn't make it. The thing I like is a LOT of the quest do eventually tie to the main quest. I love that. Even dealing with the powder gangers.



I think that's what I like most about NV vs F3. None of the "Raiders" in NV are just mindless/soulless bloodthirsty lunatics. You never feel the raiders plight or understand their motives in F3. In NV they are very personable weather you agree with them or not. Sure the Fiends are all on drugs and they are really close to what F3 raiders are but you don't KNOW that when you play F3. Never is there any meaningful interaction with a raider clan in F3 unless you could the slavers (and even if you do, that's the only one).

I know the guys at Bethesda are capable of writing believable factions in a given setting so I look forward to them improving on that in the next Fallout.

I agree with both sides of the argument here. The quests and people in FNV are far superior to Fallout 3. NV feels much more like a real society. However, FNV lost one of the things that made Fallout 3 so great for me. The sense of exploration; that I could just head off in one direction and see what was out there. There is no vast wasteland to explore in FNV. No huge city to explore. I found Conttonwood Cove completely by accident after walking south along the mountains from camp forlorn hope, but that was the only time I felt that I was exploring. The rest of the time, you are just basically following the roads. FNV, despite being made with the same engine as F3 is a very very different game both for better and for worse. As I said some of it is much better, but the loss of the sense of exploration of a vast area was lost and, for me, that is a great loss. As much as the far superior writing was a great gain.