Essentially this, although I wouldn't want the Mojave to be trimmed down. If anything it could just be remedied by making the North Vegas Square, Westside, and Sewer (Thorn) communities a little more dynamic - similar to Freeside, almost. Westside comes close, admittedly.

That said, I still would have liked more glitz and more mischief. How can you include five different casinos in the game and not a single "Heist" style quest?

More casinos would have been easy, too. Anyone who's been to Las Vegas knows that almost every drug store, gas station, and pawn shop tended to have at least one slot machine if not an entire bay, it would have been easy to have one of those modified by enterprising folks in the middle of the Mojave. All this talk makes me wish I had the skill for modding and voice acting, I'd devote the next years of my life to making a "More Vegas Vegas."

I also was confused why there weren't at least more ruins of casinos to explore, because I would have jumped at an opportunity to explore a rusty, broken down, abandoned casino. Skeletons and notes, a plan for a heist like in Dead Money would be cool.

Maybe the Strip was just the right size for the Universe. Have you ever seen pictures of the '50s Strip? It is ridiculously tiny. And that was the strip ingrained in pop. culture memory, with so few people left, the strip would have to be even smaller.

Still wish there was more but it might not have made much sense for the Fallout universe.

I'd agree that the Strip is fine as it is in the actual game, but everything surrounding the Strip should have had more content. When I first heard about New Vegas I assumed it would be a labyrinthine place that most of the game was going to take place in. Like Bridges85 said, if the other areas had been similar to Freeside in terms of content that would have been great.

Oh, I wouldn't either. The Mojave as depicted in the game is very interesting. But if they had to cut something I'd prefer a more detailed Vegas to a larger Mojave.

I agree with you, NV feels tiny compared to The Capital Wasteland and Skyrim (yes I know it's a different series).

If I could use the G.E.C.K (which I'm absolutely terrible at) I would definitely add a few more casino's to the strip and improve on the Strip's Vault, turning it into a casino as well as a motel!

It's already a casino and motel.

There are multiple mods that add casinos to the Strip.

Well, I was a bit disappointed, actually. I mean, I thought the opening sequence only shows a small part of the place (game trailers tend to do that, don't they?) and... well...

Turns out it's the entirety of the place :/

But I'd say the journey to New Vegas is worth more than the New Vegas itself and they did a good job creating a stark contrast between the crumbling wasteland and the preserved haven. Seeing the Strip's lights during the night made me even more eager to get there. The place really stands out

They pretty much HAD to stop with the casinos they have technically speaking. There's a reason The Strips exterior is rather small in terms of activity. Everything you see there already is VERY resource demanding, not just on consoles, but computers as well. The gates between sectors aren't there lore wise, they are only there to keep certain NPCs unloaded until you go to that spot. A lot of it is the engine of the game, it's been pushed to its limits, a lot of the mods for The Strip aren't very impressive IMO, and add a small tunnel or whatever to get to their casino.

NVR (or NVR + SMOTS) and NVFR are pretty impressive unless they crash your computer.

I can't remember which one I have (its one which makes the strip open and removes the gates), but I know that while awesome its more demanding on my computer than I imagined.

Not so demanding that it slows down significantly, but it definitely starts working hard whenever I head into the strip.

That's why I had to get rid of it. I'm going to download it again now that I have the newer mod manager and made some space on my computer.

FYI: NVR is New Vegas Restoration, and NVFR is the partner mod, New Vegas Freeside Restoration.

I agree with this completely. While it was based in Vegas, there wasn't enough involving the casinos themselves.

Obsidian did an awesome job with New Vegas in the time Bethesda gave them to make it. Bethesda had what three years to make Fallout 3 and Obsidian was given less than a year to make New Vegas, and Obsidian did a far better job.

But yes I wish there was more to New Vegas, if only Obsidian was given another 6+ months to work on the game. But in the end I am still happy with what we got

I suggest you go back and play the game again because there is alot going on with the Casinos.

Styles has got it down. I'm 99.95% satisfied with New Vegas. Obsidian did an amazing job and is not given enough credit.

Oh, please don't take my original post as criticism in the slightest. I just get that "urge" whenever I stroll into Freeside that I want to stay amongst the neon lights and melodic chirp of the slot machines forever, but can unfortunately breeze through all the content "New Vegas" itself contains in an afternoon, most of which are quests that send me trudging back out into the Mojave in the first place.

It's certainly not a negative, I'd just kill a small nation if I could get a Fallout : Just New Vegas game going. It's not a condemnation of what has already been made, it's a burning desire for more.

And that speaks volumes of their success at creating it in the first place.

Actually, I do have one complaint. It was kind of awkward for the Strip to end with a dilapidated embassy building, motel-and-casino that you can't actually gamble at, and a warehouse. I think they should have spaced it out so each of the three sections had one of the major casinos.

The strip being bigger would of helped obviously but the strip in it's current state should be big enough I just felt underwhelmed by the amount of quests and things to do .

Tbh I do agree to an extent but it's not as black and white as that .Obsidian were given a very successful template to start with and just flesh out while bethesda had to figure out just what approach they were gonna take and ultimately decide what they wanted and what goals for fo3 were .While obsidian were told specifically what sort of game to make and had a template to work from (and see what worked in fo3 and what didn't bethesda had no such luxury) obsidian did well no doubt but thay had it easier in some aspects than bethesda.

Erm...

There's a large quest for each casino and building, as well as Mr. House's quests.

Again, the Strip isn't all of Vegas. People forget North Vegas, South Vegas Ruins, Westside, Freeside, Thorn.

Key word being quest and not quests the strip is the focal point of the game (and hoover dam)
It should of had more meat to it yes or no?

I'm only talking about the strip btw.

It's also true in game. I don't know how much power Vegas has in the game. But I do know that more power could always be redirected to help New Vegas.

Not really and here's why. Fallout 3 uses the same platform as Oblivion does it not? So the engine was already made. Yeah Bethesda saved Obsidian some time by creating skins for people and creatures and animations, but that doesn't justify why Obsidian was given such a short amount of time. The Bulk of creating a game was done from stratch by Obsidian as it was with Fallout 3 by Bethesda. The creating of a story and developing characters and quests and designing locations was all done by Obsidian in far shorter amount of time. Bethesda had three years to do all that and Obsidian less then a year and we got a much better result from Obsidian IMO.

Also I doubt Bethesda told Obsidian what to do and how to do it. I am sure it was more along the lines of "do what you feel is best but run it by us first." Bethesda had the luxury of a fanbase that was willing to by any crap Bethesda turned out (not saying Fallout 3 is crap but the fanbase is very loyal lets just leave it at that).

Obsidian wanted to make Fallout Fallout to please the fans of the Originals and the pressure was on them. They didn't have the luxury of knowing their game would be a hit or not like Bethesda had. Bethesda's fanbase could have eaten Obsidian alive. But thankfully that didn't happen. From what I can see Bethesda's fanbase is starting to turn on Bethesda.

Anyways to sum it up, only a small amount of work was already done for Obsidian by Bethesda. A fraction of what goes into making a game was already done. Obsidian had to make New Vegas from scratch just like Bethesda had to make Fallout 3 from scratch.

It would be like Bethesda and Obsidian making cupcakes and Bethesda had much longer time to make them then Obsidian. In the end Bethesda comes along and puts a few sprinkles on Obsidians cupcakes and takes the creadit for making Obsidian's as well, "Well we did most of the work." When all they did was add a few sprinkles and in the end Obsidian's still tasted better than Bethesda's.

Speaking of, I feel The Thorn should've been on The Strip or at the very least in Freeside. I've seen far too many people who have never even seen that place (cough, Alchestbreach). It would add to The Strips size and people would stop [censored]ing.

Edit: To add on to whats going on ITT, I believe Bethesda pushed for New Vegas to be done when it was so they could release Brink (or was it RAGE?) in the next 3 month time span. Basically, they like to have sales spaced out through the year as any business would. Still, I don't think 'I like money' is a very good excuse, and could've at least given them early December.

To use the cup cake anology.
It would be like Bethesda giving obsidian a good recipe for them to use and not leaving them to figure out a recipe (in the sense of openword emphasis on some sort of exploaration game engine etc).
For all we know had obsidian had the fallout license they may have realesed a turn based game wich could of flop'd.
While bethesda gave them strict orders but ultimately would yeid almost guaranteed succes allowing obsidian to play to there strenghts and fleshing outgames or putting all the ingredients together rathe then making a recipe.Obsidian does have a history of working on high profile sequels.
Sorry if my spelling is wild.

Thorn is wildely overrated had pretty much a giant fetch/kill quest and a semi gimmickie fights/betting.