I've reached a point in the Main Quest where, if I'm reading this correctly, different factions may soon begin stepping on one another's toes. While I'm curious as all get out to continue with the story, I also don't want to cut myself off from further exploration. I worry that, once I've finished the story, doing additional exploration will seem like anticlimactic busy work.

I still have tons to do; I have a list of more than 20 locations I've discovered but haven't yet explored. Every time I walk around, I find more. Add that to the never-ending "Go assist this settlement" or "Set up this new MILA" and it seems as if I could go at least another couple of weeks without touching the Main Quest.

For those of you who finished the MQ before exploring every inch of the Wasteland, are you happy with your decision? Have you continued on with that character, happily exploring? Did it feel "right"? Or perhaps you started a new game with a new character, doing things differently?

For those who are in my situation, what is your plan?

Right now, I think I'm going to continue exploring until the weekend, then make my decision. I've got to find out what happened to my baby...

Make two games - one where you finish main quest, and another where you hold back and just explore, and generally farm the factions.

I finished the main quest without exploring much or try the other factions, and I regret it. I wanted to finish it fast to avoid spoilers, but after I finished the MQ I knew I was losing a lot of content from the different factions.

I created other characters since to go slowly and I don't think I will be finishing the MQ for a long while.

I would suggest you to stay away from the MQ too, maybe the only thing that you will lose is the interest in the story. But don't worry the ending is not really that much good anyway, but it makes you feel like you are really defeating the other factions when you totally obliterate them from the game.

I wouldn't finish the main quest, before you think you are 'done' with the playthrough

I always feel like it should be the end of the game :/

It's way more fun to explore and do side quests, if you still know that there will be a main finish afterwards ^^ it won't feel as empty

It took almost a year to finish the Skyrim quest because of that

I'm 250 hours in and currently at level 70, but I still haven't completed the main quest, so you could say that I don't really prioritize the main quest over the rest of the game. I've done the majority of the side quests in the game, and I've done every faction quest I can do up to this point. I actually just finished clearing out my quest log of all side quests, radiant quests, and miscellaneous tasks. The only things in there are The Glowing Sea, finding viable blood samples for Scribe Neriah, and finding technical documents for Proctor Quinlan. Those last two are just ongoing things though. You don't reach a 'completion point' with them because they aren't really 'quests.'

I prefer doing it this way. There are often side quests and radiant quests that eventually get locked after progressing to a certain point in the story, and some of the side quests are really a lot of fun. I did the Silver Shroud quest last night, and it was one of the coolest and most unique quests in the game so far. I just finished investigating the Museum of Witchcraft, and that was a really cool quest as well, although nowhere near as long as the Silver Shroud. I'll complete The Glowing Sea tonight, and then probably spend some time again doing all of the faction quests and -new- radiant quests that become available (at this point I'm avoiding the radiant quests that I've already repeated a bunch of times...Preston), as well as whatever side quests and miscellaneous tasks I encounter before moving on to the next main quest.

My quest log looks so oddly empty that I took a screenshot of it before exiting the game. Thumbs up indeed, Vault Boy.

Here's the screenshot - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=577125975

It doesn't sound like you're close to the point where you'll have to pick factions yet, so you can keep doing some main quests until you feel like exploring. IMO, it sounds like a waste of time to do just do the main quest in 1 playthrough and then do everything else in another, I'd rather do both in 1 game.

The mother in me is screeching, "WHAT ABOUT SHAUN???". But the problem is, the other part of me keeps getting distracted. "Hang on, Shaun, Mommy is on her wa... ooo what's in that building over there?"

Right now, looks like that part is winning. I just stumbled on yet another rather innocuous looking building which, I've discovered, harbors a terrible secret. Ooooo...

Hang on, Shaun...

I practically forgot about Shaun for the first 60 hours of the game. I didn't even make it to Diamond City for the first time until I was around 75 hours into the game. Then I got there and I was like "Oh damn, I should have come here a long time ago."

For my next play through, I'll definitely at least be going to Diamond City much sooner.

Keep Exploring! If you finish the story line too quickly it will be so very anticlimactic to go back to exploring and settlement building. I decided to start this game differently and as soon as I got Sanctuary established, I abandoned the story line completely and I just went exploring and gathering supplies for my settlement building projects. If you haven't spent time building your masterpiece settlement fortress, your missing out on more than half of the game. I have tried going back and playing other Fallout titles after having completed the story line, but what's the point in doing that when you already know how it is going to turn out. I pity the player who always has to rush to "beat the game."

I couldn't agree more. I couldn't help but laugh at the people who were saying "I beat the game" like 2-3 days after it launched. There is no possible way that you could thoroughly complete this game in that length of time. Beat the main quest, yes. If you were seriously devoted to it and did practically nothing but go from one main quests straight to the next, it's certainly possible. But that's not even half of the game. Some of the side quests in FO4 are among the best quests in the game. If you don't take the time to thoroughly play a game like this, you have not 'beaten' it. I don't even think the term applies in games like this. Fallout 4 theoretically never ends. Yes, you're going to reach a point where you've completed all of the main quests, faction quests, and side quests, completed every radiant quest numerous times, and completed all of the miscellaneous tasks, on top of having all of the settlements established and well built. But the game can continue for as long as you want it to. It's not like Call of Duty where you play through the 15 missions in the game and then you're left with nothing to do but play those same 15 missions again.

There are so many cool locations and little bonuses in the game. Like the Fens Street Sewer with the Dear Detective tapes. I've got 250 hours in the game and I've explored all of the map pretty thoroughly aside from the far southwest quadrant. I just discovered the Fens Street Sewer earlier today. It's a hard to find location that's really easy to walk right by and completely miss. But it's worth finding it. I didn't find the

until a week or so ago, despite having traveled through that region numerous times and having a settlement right in the immediate area.

For that matter, a lot of people haven't even discovered the

Once you find them, you can't help but wonder how you hadn't found them sooner. I mean...they're right there...but very easy to miss.