Hello, 1st post regarding NV but i played Fallout 3 for well over 250hrs so I'm not a complete noob. I'm out wandering around trying to avoid the MQ and not complete too many quests so i can savor every moment of the game and trying to avoid looking at guides or too many forum posts so that I hopefully have some neat surprises this time around. But ive got some questions regarding basic concepts in the game and whether or not i should just go ahead with the MQ and some of the longer Side quests.

1) FO:3 had about a dozen main side quests all of which granted achievements, does NV have more or less side quests that appear in the quest log?
2) Are there quests that are unmarked like in Fallout 3, where you advance through them by looking at notes, talking to people, exploring etc.
3) Are there random encounters?
4) Which containers are safe? Im assuming the ones that were safe in 3 are safe in NV, like explosives crates, medical supply boxes, ammo crates, dressers
5) How many hours can i expect to get out of this game playing on multiple characters, in Fallout 3 i had 1 main guy who beat all the dlc, and MQ and had about 100 hrs total, and then 3-4 other characters with about 20-30 hours each, some of them never did the same thing twice
6) Lastly i know in Fallout 3 my experience in the game was actually enhanced once i got to the part in the MQ where the Enclave starts to attack you and set up new bases, is it worth going farther than Primm in the MQ in order to open up more game play or is just exploring the way to go to see a lot of things.

Sorry these questions are kind of scattered and may not make much sense, im just trying to figure out what I can get outta this game. If you can answer any or all of these questions w/o spoiling anything i would be very grateful.

Maybe these can help...

1. I'd like to think Im pretty far along this game, and so far, it seems that every main quest has had like 2-4 little side ones. and im maybe 7-9 quests deep. So id say yes, there are quite a few more. Also the NV map is much larger than in Fallout 3 (i think)

2. Yes.

3. Yes.

4. Yes, they are safe. According to all the ones i've seen.

5. If I had to guess, quite a bit more hours than in Fallout 3. This New Vegas roaming area is massive.

6. I think so yes. Ive done a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff so far. And out off all the stuff, I have never been able to guess whats next.

I hope somes of these have helped. if not, im sorry

Thanks for your post Jimi, looks like ive got some exploring to do, so far i havent left the roads yet and im still 8 hours in.