All games have bugs. It's unavoidable, but New Vegas has set a new standard for how bad they can be. Just a few seconds of looking at the forums and you can see how far ranging these atrcoities are. Making a video game is a daunting task with out question. And one as ambitious as the Fallout games are even more intrepid. I personally have restarted the game twice because of game breaking bugs, and as frustrating as it was i still feel like the experience is worth it. I'm with most people that say "fix it and we can forgive and forget!" But with a game plagued but such numerous and wide ranging bugs at some point you have to ask if it will ever be truly "fixed"? Will we ever get to experience New Vegas as it should have been? Or, will are we doomed to disappointment.

They'll be able to fix the major bugs... I doubt they'll ever fix the minor ones that also plagued F3... Screen tearing, long loading times. That usually has more to do with your rig. I for one haven't had any long loading times. 5 to 10 seconds at the most.. Maybe some consider that long. Random characters getting stuck or disappearing, the weird stretchy glitch that sometimes happens to dead things.. Highly doubtful those will be fixed.. They still happen in F3.
No idea if they'll be able to fix an already corrupted save file.. Save files hold a lot of info and the glitch can stay in the save. Just like when people make major mods you have to start a new game.

You can thank Obsidian for that. They have an atrocious record for developing games. It's as though they just half-ass everything they do for a quick buck.

I for one hope you are right. I loved FO3 and still play it now and then. The small glitches in FO3 don't even cross my mind anymore I just cope with them i hope they get New Vegas to that standard. Thanks for your input, you seem to really know your stuff! Much appreciated!

I am going to assume that this game (at least on xbox/ps3) is going to be a long process of fixes that can't be fully resolved in the next month+. though I never played FO3 on PC (pwnd it on 360) the GECK online mod community fixed and created a HUGE network of fixes and mods for the PC (I almost don't understand how there are that many people with that much free time to create secondary code for free) and I can only assume that Bethesda is banking on an equal community of response to fix what I think they assumed would only be a litany of small annoying bugs.
That said, the depth of complexity that DEVs attempted with this installment may have been more than they had time to complete. Bethesda did an impressive amount of work releasing FO3 and it's DLCs not only on time, but practically bug free (visual bugs aside).
I was never a fan of oblivion (thought it looked and played very slow {Framerate 15fps?} but FO3 was an amazing game that IMO was to be easily overshadowed by the depth of FONV. In doing so they have created an experience that can't be supported by the antiquated engine and facial animation, as well as politics within the game that may not have resolved outcomes/impacts on decisions.
Many complaints have regarded factions versus apparel or alliances/enemies that don't fit clearly into the karma system (you're no longer simply good opposed to evil though it is reflected in stats).
I am hard pressed to return my game but I am typing on this forum to make up for my idle game experience hibernating until Bethesda releases the fixed version of this game. If anything I can assume that these problems are going to undercut future DLC budgets and either drive up DLC prices of future installments or limit their number all together.
On the bright side maybe we can all hope to collectors for the future of one of the greatest modern game failures in recent history.
I have new respect for DUke Nukem: Forever.

I wouldn't go returning the game.. Unless you can get a full refund, depends on the store you bought it from I guess.. Sooner or later they'll have the major bugs fixed and you'll be able to play it. I just remember back to all the majorly bugged games I've played in the past and how I still enjoy playing those games now that they're all patched up. Granted most of those games are on the PC and pc communities do a major amount of fixing with older games. , Kotor 2, Vampire-Bloodlines, Gothic 3, F1/F2, Baldur's gate 1-2, Planescape Torment. Great Pc games, Terribly buggy when first released.. Now pretty fantastic.. especially with the community fixes, patches and mods. F3, Oblivion, RDR, Bioshock 1, 2, GTAIV. all majorly buggy games for the Xbox on release.. People just seem to forget. Most games get fixed up within the month and all the major bugs become history. Then all you hear about are minor bugs that just become part of the expected gameplay.

The only bug that bothers me is the freezing, i can tolerate enemies falling through the ground every now and then or getting stuck in a wall, or having ED-E go bonkers randomly and attacking friendlies but freezing specially the more time i spend on a single character is frustrating, i was okay with a freeze every 10 hours but now its doing it every half hour to an hour. (around 90 hours on the save). i had a singe freeze in Fallout 3. >_> hell none of the other Fallout games has this severe of a freezing issue, granted the older ones also didn't have such a large environment to contend with.

I love the game immensely but i think i may have to put it away for a while and "hope" they fix the freezing because its just ticking me off at this point.

a lot of games get shipped with bugs... true. But not GAME BREAKING bugs. And this game has a lot of them...(locked strip gate, dlc corrupt save, freeze upon loading strip, ect)

Has anyone else had problems with your arms/hands moving over your head and out of position when holding a gun, especially rifles!? This seems to mostly happen indoors, but can happen anywhere at anytime.

For me, this is the only bug or glitch that I can't get over. It ruins the game for me as it feels broken. The other bugs I feel can be over looked, and patches should hopefully fix them, but this is a fundamental part of the game - holding your weapon!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE release a patch to sort this out. The game is sooooo good and so enjoyable. Who cares that the graphics are dated, the gameplay is so engrossing and the world is even better that F03. The music is so haunting a lonely at times, just brilliant.

I long for these patches, so I can continue!

Yes the PC community is very collaborative in it's fixes, but I played Oblivion, 1,2, GTA4, Bioshock 1,2, (RDR red dead redemption?) and FO3 and didn't experience any bugs, especially game breaking bugs (though I did have some px with oblivion and just a trace on Fallout3 even though I bought it very soon after release. Im more accustomed to crashes in the PC world because that's what happens on most PCs (thus why I now own a Mac and suffer far far fewer problems with performance {primarily for music production}).
I am speculating aloud in hopes that Bethesda will eventually address these concerns RE current fixes as well as consider prices and content for future DLC. If I had abandoned the franchise I wouldnt be here for the past three days scouring these threads for answers. I don't blog or stalk forums (typically) this being my exception. What troubles me currently is the detrimental effect of attempting to play this game is crashing my xbox, which is never good for hardware that already has a checkered past...I went from PC gaming to xbox so that I could sit on a couch and share more of my game experience with my gf(s).