4 hours in, not touched a SINGLE quest (besides tut for the rifle) and I have not went south past primm, or past primm pass.
I did try to go North of good springs, that was a bad idea.
Managed to just make it half way to level 6, all with out doing ANY quests. I have had to flee from some giant scoprs. Using W.W for the first time, and its really neat.

I have discovered MANY new map markers, that help me jump back and forth between town and where I was while I was exploring.

So far I have ventured so far exploring that, (never been to the places before)

1) ran into one D.C at primm pass. Had to flee.

2) Tried to go North on the back road from primm, Had to flee due to caezadors.

3) Encountered a S.M.M and a small gang of centaurs, had to withdraw after stealth killing 3 centaurs.

4)Found a new location, Prospectors tavern or something, good loot. Nice safe house. Further testing required before committing to using this as a safe house. Has everything I need.
campfire outside, reloading bench inside. Several containers. My own sarsa vending machine.

5) found new location again after heading back to town. Hells motel. and a marked area. Something crater.

6) back to town, went east. Found more new locations. abandoned shack, Some sort of huge cross and a wolfs den with some good loot for a starting character.

7)Visited Hidden valley, small amount of caps stockpile, about 1,500 caps.

Stopped for the night.


Not bad for four hours of NON quest related exploring, planning on hitting level 10+ before I start the quest in primm. I think tonight I will work my way north towards the rock quarry, but stop before I reach the Death claws.
Need to discover Mojave outpost for repairs to my weapons.
Need to visit primm, but not start any quest.
Planning on coming back with better rifle and killing D.C at prim pass and finishing off centaurs and S.M.M. Finish exploring around Primm pass.
Need to visit G.S school and unlock safe.

Need to visit the NCRCF while I am non hostile to them and check for quests, before doing quest at primm

yes you do get a TON of quests but it's only about 80 in total.

What do you mean by only?

That's nice but what are you trying to say? I don't get it sorry. And about the quests, yes you do get a TON of quests but it's only about 80 in total. I've already completed 60 quests and I'm stuck with 4 where I don't really know what to do ( for example: cold, cold heart : spread legion atrocities) Now I'm off just exploring the wasteland, I've found 135 locations now including all the vaults and I'm trying to get them all. All in all I think I will be done before 50 hours and I play this the same way as I did fallout 3, where I could easily put 100 hours into a character.

Well that 60 of 80 quests can be completed in 10 minutes. As almost all of them are stupid go talk to him, go find that quests. While I always thought of fallout as something that DIDN'T have those quests.

I had typed this as a reply to someone but I continued for such a long time that I decided to make a thread about it, keep in mind that I'm only talking about the exploration part here. I absolutely love fallout new vegas, they have heavily improved on game mechanics and all the factions are really cool (especially the interraction between them) Anyways as for the post:

I completely agree with OP, and I must say I've been exploring for about 30 hours now ( also doing main quest which is now completed and doing ALOT of side missions) and I'm almost done with this game. I mean what THE HELL!?? I'm level 28 now so almost at the level cap, this still bothers me but it was the same in fallout 3 (that you would reach you level cap WAY before you were done with the game). However, I've just about explored everything, I've discovered a hundred locations out of the 125 in the game (and been through all of them) I have found 8 special weapons already. And I have completed a ton of quest for various factions and talked to alot of people. But it only took me 30 hours. I'm guessing another 10 hours and I'll have just about anything explored.

The reason I'm so surprised about this all is because I have played fallout 3 for about 300 hours (I've also lost my very first character but I'm not sure how much I played with him), on multiple characters naturally but I could spend atleast a hundred 100 (if not 150) in one single character. But in new vegas I'm just about done after 40 - 45 and I'm not really looking forward to starting over again. People say that fallout 3 was empty but I couldn't disagree more. Sure fallout new vegas is FILLED with locations, but half of them are [censored] ones (abandoned shack anyone?) and you can run through them in a few minutes if not seconds. What I miss is DC, I've spent countless hours exploring that city but in new vegas there's nothing like that. And everywhere you look there's people! I like the concept of all the factions but they have focused to much on it, I don't want to find those bloody ncr at every twist and turn. I want these gritty ruins/underground tunnels to explore every once in a while, however in new vegas there's nothing like that to be found.

There's seriously a location which is searchlight airport (or something like that) and when I found it I was really excited for something big to explore. Guess what I can't enter a SINGLE building, it really feels to me like obsidian just put all their effort into the factions and then filled the rest of the world up with these [censored] locations. And then they put all these big mountains in, which could have been filled with tons of interesting stuff instead there's the rare cave that takes 10 seconds to search through and a MAZE OF FRIGGING INVISIBLE BARRIERS [censored] EVERYWHERE!!!! The world builders have done an unbelievable slack job if you ask me. I mean fallout 3 had some [censored] locations aswell but it was SOME and it also had DC to make up for it.

The next thing I'm particularly dissapointed about is jacobstown. I love the new super mutants over the "old" ones (referring to fallout 3) in every single way. I talked to everyone in jacobstown and did every quest. How many people did I talk to? 3.... How many quests did I do? 2.... How long did it take me to do it? an hour..... I'm so dissapointed that this wasn't fleshed out at all, they could've done so much more with this all this potential wasted. I would've liked to see much more quests and mutants to talk to. And this is not only the case in jacobstown it's the case in much more locations.

The very last thing I wanted to address is the sunset sarsaparilla factory as an example. In fallout 3 the nuka cola factory was filled with awesome and unique stuff! Nukalurks and a bunch of backgroundstory and history. In new vegas the sunset sarsaparilla factory was bland, had barely any backgroundstory and had a very hard locked door with literally nothing behind it except for some 10mm rounds. I take the sunset sarsaparilla factory as an example here because this is the case throughout the whole of fallout new vegas, in fallout 3 a big reason for me to go exploring was to find this unique stuff like nukalurks. In new vegas there doesn't seem to be any at least not in the 100 out of 125 locations I've discovered. Another example is a crashed vertibird somewhere in the wasteland with a prototype tesla cannons next to it (spoiler? well it's too late now) There was absolutely NO information about this whatsoever, just the cannon, the vertibird and some skeletons. I was spyched at finding the cannon but rather dissapointed afterwards. I am quite dissapointed in fallout new vegas, it seems bland, unfinished and empty (not story wise though).

IMy first character completed the game at over 100 hours and I skipped a large chunk of stuff....guess I must be playing it wrong or something? Oh... that was on very hard and hardcoe.

I think there are at least 4 different endings and they vary a bit based on ALL of the "side bets".

What difficulty are you playing on? FO3 combat was easy no matter what difficulty it was set on, whereas NV very hard with hardcoe can be a bit brutal depending on character builds. FO3 was a maze, litterally and in subsequent playthroughs I found the time actually spent doing anything with real meat to it to be about 15-20 hours and the rest was a grind. NV seems to have a lot more to do and the filler was trimmed off, but if you like gristle and fat on your steak I guess you would be going hungry. FO3 I explored once all the way through.... and couldn't get myself to wander through all the excess with my other characters.

Nukalurks were mirelurks, but a different color......Fergus alone puts the Nukacola Factory to shame. (Turn in those star caps!)

The FO3 spaceship is the NV vertibird.... you seem to forget that part of FO 3.

FO3 had tons of houses and tunnels that held nothing in them. FO3 had TONS of wasted hills and valleys with maybe 1 robot or a radscorpion.... but I guess that was due to them putting more area between locations. The FO 3 wasteland was..... bland, but it was also hit by nukes whereas the NV area was not.

I agree that Jacobstown was underdeveloped and I would like more mutants as well.

FO NV radio stations are 100x better than FO3's....but I still miss the songs.



They are 2 different flavors of the same genre made by 2 different companies of the same genre..... so ya it is different, but not worse.

as I said I've loved fallout 3 especially because there was so much to explore, in new vegas this is not the case and I'm just about done with exploring except for a handful of locations I haven't discovered yet. In fallout 3 there were all these little things to find and discover, even after 200 hours of playing across multiple character did I still find things I hadn't seen before. But yet again in new vegas this is not the case. I like the improved role playing part of the game, but it offers more playtime in terms of making new characters and doing things differently instead of having a massive world to explore with only one character. I've played fallout new vegas for 37 hours now and as I said I'm almost done exploring and I even did a large number of quests. I believe one of the reasons that I managed to do this so "fast" is because I basically know where everything is. I remember all the basic stuff as to where to find password and keys and where the usual aid boxes are located and all that sort of stuff, I barely had to figure anything out but even I would've had to figure everything out they still took away exploration and I am just very dissapointed because of that.

I play on hard, I was planning to do very hard in my second playthrough of new vegas.

HUH? LMAo, its amazing how people's minds change after time passes. Fallout 3 had more filler content then most games. There were very few good side quests, most places were all the same with just useless garbage, no weapons that you didnt already have, filled with garbage like crutches, scrap metal, and all looked identical. NV has a lot more interesting areas to explore that vary, and have better loot to find. Fallout 3 suffered the same thing as oblivion, Quantity of quality. Also, the map IS just as big, it takes longer to go an inch across the map then it did on the fallout 3 map.

If you say there is nothing there, then your playing a different game, as Fallout 3 was way worse in that regard. Not to mention most of DC was linear and blocked off and connected with the same looking subway with nothing of interest in the,.

hardcoe mode also makes it more important to collect food, water, and crafting makes all that junk more usefull. real survival. In 3 it was just there for looks really.

Fallout 3 was full of filler and samey places compared to NV. As for 30-40 hours? Sounds like your rushing, I got more then that and still have a tonne left to do, Im willing to bet there is a lot you missed. I started a second CHAR (Like having 2 at the same time) and already found things i missed, lots of details in this game.

Fallout 3 had some filler content and alot of copy paste environments, I still liked going through them all though. Even it there wasn't that much to find. In new vegas there is nothing to explore, you cannot deny this. There's a few vaults and caves but that is it. All other locations are faction locations or just filler material like some boarded up houses or collapsed shacks. You can easily 'explore' all of new vegas in 50 hours, it would be impossible to explore everything in fallout 3 in 50 hours. Also please define rushing, people tend to think differently about what it means.

There is vastly more to do in F:NV. I don't understand why these posts keep popping up.

I'm guessing the OP was referring to the time spent in DLC's as well in FO3

But they failed at making the kind of world that Bethesda made, the kind of world that someone would enjoy spending hundreds of hours exploring. The world they made is standard and mostly boring, and because of this the only thing New Vegas has going for it in terms of replayability is siding with different factions thanks to the improved RPG elements, but that's not nearly as fun as exploring an awesome world.

That's it? "abandoned shack." How the hell was this even made a "location?"

It's a location because it's one of the locations you can treat as your safehouse You did notice the unowned containers and bed, right?