Obsidian was very clever in this regard. They knew most people would simply compare the number of map markers between the two games and assume New Vegas having more must mean more locations. But that's not the case. They tricked you. Fallout 3 had dozens upon dozens, if not more than a hundred "minor" locations that were a good distance away from the nearest map marker, and were never marked themselves. Bethesda was honest, they didn't need to put a marker on everything. The majority of map markers marked a meaningful location. Obsidian, on the other hand, wasn't. I've explored 80% of the map so far and there are DOZENS of map markers that mark "minor" locations simply to pad it out. I can't tell you how many boarded up gas stations, houses with a single room, caves with nothing of interest, radiation-filled holes in the ground with a bunch of enemies to fight, and so on, I've found that are marked with map markers and would never have been marked in Fallout 3.

I don't know if it was a deliberate trick by Obsidian or if they truly thought every hole in the ground and gas station deserved a map marker, but I can tell you that comparing the number of map markers to Fallout 3 is extremely misleading.

You know, I was visiting Sahara desert on my vacation few years ago. I found it outrageous how there was lack of used space there.
Mojave is a desert. Only think keeping Vegas running and surrounding areas habitable is massive amount if irrigation.
When a nuclear war strikes and blows most of the humanity to oblivion and rest are hiding in vaults, theres no one maintaining the irrigation systems and Vegas and surrounding areas become a desert once again. It's a wonder that there actually are people in Vegas on Fallouts timescale. They must have dug out vegas from sand, repair some if the irrigation systems and so on. most of the Mojave is still barren wasteland where is nothing and living there would not make any sense anyway.

Where's the rest of the strip then ? I mean the vegas strip in this game is tiny. I don't see any buildings toppled over or anything of that nature whatsoever.

You don't need all this empty space surrounded by invisible walls for that. All you need is a single location on the map that leads to a different plane. This is something that worked very well on the same engine with DLC like Shivering Isles, Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, and Point Lookout.

I'm sorry but i will insist that this argument, no offence, is plain stupid. It IS a game. If you want it to immitate real life so much you will have endless miles of nothingness with no caves or anything - just - plain - sand. Is that ok too for you?





No offence mate, but you are kinda off topic. We are not discussing if the map should be square shaped or anything, we are discussing about the lack of something being happening / locations with some point of interest. And about your dlc argument we are discussing what should have been done. With the same logic you can as well tell us to wait for fallout 4. I hope though ofcourse for dlcs and mods with a lot of content but that doesn't mean we shouldn't comment on the game we just bought.

Personally, I only bother to "rant", "argue" and point flaws, because the game is SO damn good. If it wasn't it wouldn't.
Lastlly, no offence (again) guys, but please devote a little time to think something constructive before posting.

the only problem with content in NV is in my opinion that most of the map markers are a bit disappointing - because you cannot even enter most buildings. That is a shame in my opinion, but considering that world- and level-design is an obvious strength of Bethesda I can see why Obisidian did what they do best - quests, story, character.

So I'd love to have seen more detailed "random" locations (take that airfield in the south - why can't I enter the building? or some bigger caves - with interesting stuff). I also miss things like the subways - I just love exploring.

In that respect F3 was better, as a whole I consider NV far superior.

And I can see why some people consider the F3 story better - it's the typical "good vs bad save the world high fantasy" setting (evil minds would call it the "straightforward suited for console players" story ).

I've played about 60hrs so far, haven't decided who to support yet, I've got the chip, and recently I started wondering if I was going to get Power Armour *g*

how can anyone say NV game is small?? After several days there is still stuff to do... I think I have never ever seen a game so massive - and I mean massive. Because it is full of content. F3 was big, true, but it was just empty levels (which were for the most part exceptionally well done imo) with stuff to loot.
NV has so many great things (getting to the Boomers base, the vaults - there are just a few, but those are stunning, "Fisto" LOL). Fisto alone is enough to consider this a Fallout game

cheers,

Yes NV is far superior at its core gameplay because they improved upon what bethesda did and that was great.

But NV is small. By small I mean, small in terms of content and locations. The only city, and you can't really call it that at all, is the strip. And its so instanced and tiny that it's kind of ridiculous.

Outside the strip you have streets, again that are instanced, with regular sized store shops basically, with 1 building here or there on the corners. 97% of it is bordered up and not accessible. You would figure for the amount of bums sleeping on the streets that someone would get the inclination to rip some wood off of a window and go inside. Sadly that isn't the case at all.

Outside the entire vegas area you have ... 1 building//cave//shack// locations that are separated from everything else, most of them are tiny or insignificant. There are no downed buildings anywhere. There are tons of locations that are bordered up and not accessible. The ruins are... well there really aren't any ruins in NV at all unless you consider 6-7 small houses in ruins a "town deteriorating".

I mean am I missing something here? Did I miss something? What's so amazing about NV's world? Frankly I thought Fallout 3's world was way nicer looking and way more fleshed out, despite over used and repetitive textures. And yeah F3 did have a lot of places that were obvious poor road blocks and buildings that weren't accessible. But why wasn't that improved upon in Fnv? Yes I know obsidian did this not bethesda but why wasn't that aspect improved upon?

I completely agree.

Also, remember that we are in the Mojave Desert and not in the Metropolitan ruins of D.C., there is suppose to be a lot of space since it is a desert...

They have to have SOMEWHERE to add in more content via DLC

For me there are too many Mohave Driveins, couple burned out cars, a non searchable ruin.....so what was the point? There needs to be a reward for exploring and I thnk its ,at least, lacking in this game.

There is something that everyone needs to understand. In terms of space, with out the area that is crossed out and you cannot access... the map is bigger and has more locations then fallout 3. If you remember the DLC released with the later fallout 3 maps, you had to go to one single map indicator, then use a tunnel or a cave to get into an area which has 20 more points of interest.

They were smart this time when they just added blank map onto an already bigger map then Fallout 3 so when the DLC gets released they can integrate it into the campaign far much better then previously. If you remember almost all of the DLC wasnt related to the campaign for this reason... to ask anyone to go into a different map all together just to continue a part of the campaign isnt functional.

They have even said that this is their plan, and that campaign is more of a priority then before.

I dont quite understand how anyone wouldnt realize this from the start... but basically enjoy the game thats here now, and it the future when the DLC gets released it will be a game that is much bigger then anything we have seen before for the PS3 and Xbox, and it will be massive for PC mods.

Give it time... trust me, this game has more possible game abilities for Xbox then anything you have EVER seen. The map alone with all the DLC spots trumps any game that has been released on that system along with PS3.

Yeah, yet Fallout 3 was full of locations with nothing but a couple ghouls, a stimpak and some food, in fact most of the exploring was just that, mindless and shallow. Vegas went with the "Quality over quantity", and its a better game for it. Fallout 3 was FULL of fillir content. its nice to have lots of content, but when its at the sacrifice of quality, like bethesda does well, not good. All those locations were also in fallout , in case you forgot. Nostalgia is the great equalizer, people sure are blinded by it.

Also, there is as much content, the map is smaller but the scale is much larger. Meaning, an inch across the map in vegas is a lot longer distance then an inch across the map in 3...................... I think DLC and time may have clouded peoples minds.

Thats exactly it. The map is actually bigger then fallout 3. Which might give some people the impression that the "lacking" content between one location to the next is overwhelming, but in reality there is more content its just sized to scale up and no one is thinking about that factor. Quit the complaining... the game is great guys.

Your opinion, I'm sure you don't mind if others have thier own......

As long as its justified sure. The only issue I have with anyones opinion is the fact that these forums are looked at by a few majority of the developers for this game. When people [censored] its taken into consideration for the next game and if their claims are incorrect from the basics, then the next game will be less of a "fallout" direction for the few who actually followed how this game worked for the months before the launch, just because a bunch of idiots dont understand the game. Thats the only issue I have ever had a problem with.

This is NOT a flame war. Yours was a well thought out answer. By the same token if we say the game is great 'as is' those same devs will see no reason to fix anything others would like to see fixed.

I completely agree. Strictly speaking on exploring "inside" locations (vaults/factories/buildings/caves/etc.)

Fallout 3 wins that over New Vegas hands down.

I find it quite funny when people take issue with the emptiness of the area around Vegas in the game.

If you were to drive, or even fly over the area around Las Vegas in the real world you would find the area outside of Las Vegas proper is, well, quite empty. In fact, most of the state of Nevada is empty of people, buildings and towns. You get just a short distance outside of any town and most signs of civilization are non existent beyond the pavement and road signs. There are roads in Nevada where you will drive for hundreds of miles between gas stations.

Here is a Photo Essay of the roads in and out of Las Vegas today, in a world that is not recovering from a Global Thermonuclear War. Even under those conditions, Desolate is the only way to describe most of the state of Nevada

http://www.aaroads.com/west/i-515na_nv.html

First of all let me say that I do enjoy New Vegas a lot. However I am disappointed that a lot of the map markers are redundant and a lot of the map is walled off in one way or another. I agree with everything xXAntiBodyXx said on page 2. Also a few of the markers are simply multiple entrances to the same place. FNV does have more map markers because of this but Fallout 3 certainly had more places of interest.

This isnt entirely relevant to the topic but another thing that makes me feel like its a waste of time exploring is that there are no random encounters. Random encounters, even repeatable ones, added a lot to exploring.

EDIT: The thing is though this is a game and not real life. I dont want to buy a game, a free roam RPG no less, and find massive voids of content. The game can still have a feeling of emptiness and at the same time still have content everywhere. The feeling of emptiness is projected more via atmosphere than simply having no content at all.

So because you missed his point, he's off-topic and his post wasn't constructive. Interesting.

Aren't deserts supposed to feel kind of empty? I can see why folks might enjoy a denser game world, but I suspect the effect you're experiencing was intentional.

Having the entire map populated with locations everywhere is not good either, would kill the atmosphere for one. There is MORe then enough content and exploration, some of you expect the world. They concentrated on what matters, gameplay, RPG aspects, better story, quests, dialog. It still has a tonne of content and exploration.

Lack of facts by the OP is startling.

I don't think the game feels empty at all. But it really depends on how you look at it. Fallout was never a game that was about exploring, except in the loosest RPG sense of the word. Fallout 3 changed this, made it into much more of an Elder Scroll type of game where you have your world and a million minor locations/dungeons that you can loot.
There were several problems with this I think, for example how little sense it made that so many resources were still around, how so many locations were still full of stuff so long after the war (NV still suffers from this a bit as well).

New Vegas walks more of a middle-ground here. Obviously, the engine being what it is (and expectations set by F3s great financial success), they had to still create a sandbox world in which you could go exploring. But they also brought the series back much closer to its roots where it's much more about quest content and options given to the player on how to solve situations.

Since I'm more a fan of the older Fallouts, it kinda boggles my mind when people say that F3 has more content. For me, it simply has much more pointless stuff. Whereas New Vegas has the stuff that matters in a Fallout game, plenty of options and a great load of quests. I think I have more quests open now on my character than I even completed in F3, and most of them are quite in-depth. There's also plenty of "side-stuff", little mini-quests so to speak that end up in the Notes section that one can do if one wants.

Just opinion-wise, I think New Vegas is about a million times better than F3. But also, it is far closer to what the original Fallouts tried to accomplish (still quite far away though given the overall change in gameplay) than F3.

Agreed totally. Fallout 3 had a lot more pointless, mindless filler, Vegas has the stuff.