At 'least, for me it does.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that this is a post-nuclear war game, and the world isn't exactly supposed to be buzzing with life, but in comparison to the Capital Wasteland, Mojave seems rather empty. I'll give an example; the area north of New Vegas. A few broken, inaccesible houses, some hills, and that's it (from what I've seen so far). No settlements, no camps, no people, just the aforementioned.

In the Capital Wasteland there were new locations everywhere. Even if they were insignifcant or small, they were there.

Also, the map seems smaller on this game. Is the area left of Goodsprings even accesible, because it takes up a good portion of the map but seems like it's just hills.


Loving the game, besides this and all the bugs.

Bethesda is famous for what they do for a reason. They're the best at doing it. Bethesda did not make this game, and so their world-building/exploration knowledge did not impact the game.

Thing is, most of the locations in the Capital Wasteland were pretty much totally insigificant and were just bloat. Many of NV's locations actually have some meat to them.

Have you ever been to Vegas in real life. its surrounded by desert. Most deserts are mostly empty

Not saying the game feels empty to me... but, that's a pretty [censored] excuse.

I felt the same way but then I was always referencing back to Fallout 3. It's in the desert, so by that aspect I'd say it has more than what it probably should.

I mostly miss the really random encounters with like robots, insects, and animals to keep things interesting while traveling .-.
Also speaking of random encounters, I have only seen one Wild Wasteland gimic in the 25 hours i've been playing the game... I was hoping it would happen alot more often >_>

Does it matter? The Capital Wasteland was pretty much desert too.

welcome to the wasteland.

wastelands are called wastelands because the land is unfit for use or habitation in other words wasted land (wasteland), so calling the Capital Wasteland a wasteland is like calling a dog a wolf, yes it dose have a resemblance, but its not relay a wolf.

i think a real life desert is more a wasteland than the Capital wasteland was

so the less settlements = more effective wasteland

When it comes to the creation of worlds Bethesda are second to none. However, Obsidian are really good at the creation of characters and dialogues. So even though I agree that FONV may not be as good as an exploration or simulation game as FO3 it is probably better as a role playing game.

Look at it this way: (im sure bethesda does) Leaves a lot of room for mods. The Fallout 3 world wihtout mods was also a rather boring place. With all the DLC's itturned into an acceptable place to be With the amount of mods made possible with the construction set, it became an awesome place

I have come to view Bethesdas big realeses (TES, Fallout) to be more of a sandbox release. It does come with quite a lot of interesting things to do, but i would be naive to think Beth does not bring mods into the calculation when budgeting a game. They made a good game and it's up to the modding community to make it great. This has been the case since oblivion.. Those lots will be filled with weapon shops and armorers and whatnot. Just let the modders do their thing

(ofc i understand the argument.. it shoulda came finished etc.. but well.. it's enough material in the game as it is to keep us busy with a couple playthroughs while to modders work )

I'm pretty sure that Bethesda had a hand in it.

You should play a little longer so that you aren't simply making an assumption that it's emptier than FO3. For instance, have you tried to travel West of Goodwill Springs? I haven't yet, because I haven't felt the need. But to assume that there's nothing there because there are hills is pretty silly - especially considering the number of locations placed in hills and cliffs within other areas of this game.

I've found far more settlements in a shorter time frame in FNV than I did in FO3, but your experience may differ.

that is a very valid point... too bad they couldn't combine into a super game developer... leaving obsidian's bugs behind though

I think it feels great! There's so much you can do. The fact that they dumbed down the actual distances between REAL LIFE cities is awesome. Primm isn't exactly walking distance to Jean, Sloan, or Vegas itself. And Goodsprings isn't a suburb of Jean either. But the fact that all of those cities are in the game, including Boulder City and Nipton is awesome. I do believe that the mountains to the west of Goodsprings and the such are off-limits at the moment pending DLC. But that is just Personal Speculation *What would a fallout game be without Aliens?*

Most of my time playing Fallout 3 i was simply exploring the "dungeons", sure it's bloat, but pretty delicious bloat So are there really no such non-quest related "dungeons" in New Vegas at all? (won't get to play the game until next week.)

There is at least 125 locations in Fallout NV, since there is an achievement for it. That is a pretty impressive number. I am not sure how many locations was in Fallout 3 though.

More or less this. Although I ABHOR the fact that this iteration contained a few very obvious invisible walls (used largely on rock faces I burned to climb for a better view), I took comfort in the fact that 90% of the locations I ran across had some sort of significance in the grand scheme of things, whereas in FO3, most of the locations were just little dungeon dives that yielded, at best, random rewards, with the odd gem (like the BoS Med-X armor underneath Old Olney.) In my opinion, the Mojave feels far more alive than DC with designated habitats for certain beasts, varying scenery (EVEN SNOW! WHAT!?) and lots of random encounters with various denizens of the wasteland.

In DC, there were a lot of buildings and caves and holes, but very few people encounters out in the wastes. Sure, you'd run across the odd hunter, mercenary or wasteland doctor, but it was never an interesting, unique experience like most of what I've found in Vegas.


Yes. There are still lots of little dungeons to poke your nose around in Vegas. I'm not sure if there are as many, but there are still enough to lose yourself for hours and hours in them. As a bonus, a lot of them have hidden story goodies, like one dungeon where a veritable LEGION of lakelurks capture and kill a squad of NCR troops, and you find the one survivor and clear the cave while helping him escape. It's not even a quest, but it's very fulfilling,

It was 163 without DLC and 225 with DLC and this is without including any unmarked locations.

I find it lacking in enemies in the wild. I went from the dry lake to the real lake without one enemy encounter.

It's still a lot.

Especially for those of us who only get to play at night after we put the kids to bed.

No there are many citys around vegas.

Cool, if the Cazadores (?) and Deathclaws are really as dangerous as everyone says i need some places to level up Hopefully something like those ghoul filled metro tunnels of Fallout 3 too, and hopefully Martigen makes his Feral Ghoul Rampage part of MMM for NV aswell. I wen't to get the Burnmaster yesterday, i must've killed a thousand ferals in the tunnels. Due to Impervious Power Armor (DT for Fallout 3) and T-51c Power Armor from the FWE mod the poor things had no chance.

Being that the Mojave Wasteland is much safer than the Capital Wasteland it makes movement easier. And being that there are very large settlements like New Vegas the ideal wastelander might have an easier time going to New Vegas than building himself an entire town or settlement. That is my opinion on why there are not many other settlements in the game.

Cazadores really are the real deal. I try to avoid deathclaws at all costs anyway. They scare my children. Yeah, my 3 year old had an incident and woke up. Came up and watched me play F:NV for about 3 hours. I accidently went north of Sloan and ran into a ton of deathclaws. Well long story short. He wet his pants because the deathclaw was scary. they killed me at least a dozen times after he went to sleep *Very Easy with No hardcoe, 3 stimpacks >.<*

I enjoy all of the aspects of F:NV, I'm glad to see the return of the Gun Runners. One of the foremost experts in weapons crafting in Fallout 1. I would have liked to actually see another original character from Fallout 1. Oh wait I did, Marcus. ^.^ Better than Harold, stupid ole tree-in-the-head hugging hippie! Wait saw him in FO3, Killed him actually. Stupid ghoul. I like that Fallout New Vegas has all the references from the Original Game including references to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. But only retains 1 actual character from Fallout 1 in Marcus. Marcus was my favorite follower in FO1 besides Dogmeat.

I'm impressed with this game, True it's a little buggy. Kinda reminds me of a Blizzard Entertainment content patch.