I have to agree though it's pretty damn pathetic that they charge 25 quid for the main storyline to last 12 hours. Even though you do have replayability the main story should last far longer than that. I would rather a more elaborate story driven gameplay than aimless exploring in a single player world. It just doesn't cut it in my opinion.
I think it needs to be a mix, the main story does indeed need to be WAY longer and more detailed.
The main story in FO3 is really very short, follow dad, get geck, activate, done. Its very uninvolved, there aren't any twists, there isn't a bunch of great characters involved in the main story line, its a fairly dull affair.
But there is a massive massive gameworld there, for me theres too much content thats just buildings, kill everything in side, get 50million bullets that you don't need, a bit poo, but there is lots of VERY good content in there that is well worth playing through.
While taking you around every last place to see every last thing on the main story line is mental, not everyone wants to get every last bottle of cola before finishing the game, a significantly longer main storyline that at least shows you 1/10th of the content is something I think it should have and is painfully badly missing.
I'm only just into NV, been playing FO3 properly for the first time, mixing main story with mostly exploration and side quest stuff. Again the problem is I have the DLC, which vastly changes the dynamic of the game, and I'm lvl 26/27 and basically invunerable at this point, with like 250 stim packs, ridiculous guns and ammo and tonnes of the game left to go.
Its FAR from perfect, the DLC breaks the leveling/game/power of the player, and far too much. THe main story is WAY to short and uninvolving, end of the day the main story should take you through a lot more highs and lows, because really a fairly weak character and fairly weak story doesn't really make me feel like I even care if my character gets every last weapon, or saves or kills every last person.
Basically a truly epic and great main story, which frankly with the size of the game world and the sheer number of massive buildings with tonnes of content that has no story using it would be so easy to have made, would simply make the rest of the game better.
Getting more involved, and feeling more for your character, and making life better or worse, whatever, makes every single action you take elsewhere mean more and seem that much more worthwhile.
FO3 is great but could have been epic, I'm sure NV is pretty similar. Size wise its massive but in FO3, you clear one power station, you've cleared the all, its like having the same level repeated 5 times throughout Call of Duty to make it bigger.
The dialogue in the first hour of NV though is significantly, really hugely worse than FO3, it feels out of place, it gives you options before you're really heard of the situation/person they are talking about. its asking almost instantly if I want to help take over a town or help defend it, with really not even the slightest clue which side I might want to pick. FO3 was far more fluid in conversation.
Even though it was a good quest line 12 hours isnt worth the 25 pound i paid on the friday. And what bugs me is you cant even carry on after you completed it you have to go to the last save
