I have read on threads people saying that the unused areas of the West side will opened up with DLC. Is this guess work or is there any proof?

It's only speculation, no confirmation has been made by either Bethesda or Obsidian on that matter.

Possible. But, we're not sure which one opened up with next DLC.

Currently there are 2 or 3 unused places. One is Canyon wreckage and Northen Passage or Mojave Outpost with Locked Gate(Not sure this one).

Yeah unused areas usually become the "portals" to the DLC areas. I'm not sure about the unused areas of Westside however.

I'm not exactly keen on paying extra money to explore an area of the map that came with the vanilla game, so if there is DLC for these areas, I likely will not purchase them for that reason.

KOTN for Oblivion was a bit of a different story though, The areas covered in that DLC were not blocked off by some magical invisible wall, and were otherwise perfectly explorable areas of the map.

I don't see the difference between using map space that is unused as of now and going to an off-map area. You'd be getting content that would still be separate from the main game, and the main game's map area is adequately used already, so it isn't really a problem of "it's content that should have been part of the game in the first place".

You really should read before replying to other peoples posts. I didn't say it was about the content. I said it was about not being able to explore an area of the map that was shipped with the game on release day. I shouldn't be paying extra money to use an area of the map that is in the Vanilla game anyway. KOTN did a pretty good job of this. The area covered by that DLC was already explorable before it was released, not hidden behind some magical invisible wall.

The map was shipped with the game as it was, what if the content they have for it in a DLC wasn't planned for the main game but they created the content after hearing us ask for the area to be opened up?
That would mean that it wasn't cut and that they used the area after planning the main game.
If they did hold back the content from the main game to release on a DLC then I could agree with you that it's a crap move.
But if not then I don't see what the problem is really.

Perhaps I should have worded the part with the quotations better, because it was intended to question why you have a problem with it. So as gabe said, this area was likely not intended to be used for the main game and it doesn't take anything away from the base, so what's the problem with it? Why is it preferable to add content to the base map like KOTN instead of extending the map? Besides, new area of the map = content, as far as I'm concerned.

This is more than likely what they did.
Pretty common move.

That's a lot of space to fill up. I doubt that the map will be opened up.

Unless you like largely procedurally generated world space... It takes a human to add the human touch.

Because as I've already stated, the areas covered by KOTN were not blocked off by some magical invisible wall, and were otherwise explorable areas of the map.

I still don't understand why that is a reason, but O.K. To each their own.

So basically what you're saying is, if they hadn't shown us those bits on the pip-boy map, you'd be happy.

I'm not pleased about all the unused space myself, but if it was placed in anticipation of future DLCs for ease of construction and transition, I see no problem. Indeed, I applaud the forethought.

why won't anyone from bethseda answer this question, its been asked several times and still no response

Dude, they haven't even mentioned whether or not Honest Hearts is the next DLC or not, Bethesda loves to keep everything on the D-low until they think the time is right.

I've written this before, but areas outside of the playable map are present entirely for terrain level of detail purposes. I.e., unless you ring the worldspace with enormous mountains in a perfect square, you have to have additional terrain off in the distance so the ground doesn't look like it suddenly drops off. The Capital Wasteland's playable area is close to a perfect square, so the edges of the Pip-Boy map align very closely with the invisible walls placed at the boundaries of the world. Even so, the Capital Wasteland has additional terrain that you can't enter without turning off collision.

The Mojave Wasteland is not a perfect square, so the Pip-Boy's map boundaries are, especially in the east and west, much different from the boundaries of the playable world. You also start F:NV much closer to the edge of the world than you do in F3, so it's much easier to hit those boundaries early on. In hindsight, it would have been better for us to make an outer map boundary (in the Pip-Boy) that more closely matches the boundaries of the world. But the boundaries of the world are very much based off of real world physical boundaries: namely the Spring Mountains in the west and the Colorado River in the east (most of the basic terrain was directly generated from US Geological Survey maps). We didn't intentionally hedge the world in so we could reserve areas for future development.

So basically, modders can mod those areas without having to worry about it being invalidated by DLC?

I have to agree with Mr. Sawyer (Not to svck up)

I mean, why are people obsessed with these blocked off areas? We have a large map to explore as is, sure we have alot of 'empty' places like say......Searchlight Airport, or Cottonwood Overview, but personally, the blocked off portions of the map never come to mind when I play. I mean, I don't care about F3 or F:NV world boundaries, but I have to admit, the Mojave map edges do feel very bordered off in a sense that provides an enhanced realism so to speak.

Yah nothing was worse in Fallout 3 when you would get the message to turnaround, even though the terrain was open.

^This.

This this this.

I didn't mind that. I certainly knew I was close to the edge of the map every time I did it.

Invisible walls though... GRRRRR!

At a guess I'd say the Northern Passage is earmarked for something.

Nice to get an answer from the the main man!

Looks like we will be transported to off map locations each DLC