I didn't care much for FO3, as it had very little of the first two games' charm. It mostly felt like a series of boring dungeons that looked the same. New Vegas was much better and more varied.

But I did get that fallouty feeling once in FO3. It was a minor quest that involved helping the small population of Bigtown (basically teens with no real skills) survive the attack of Super Mutants. Depending on my skills, I could teach them to shoot, set up a minefield, ambush their enemies, lob grenades at them or repair a rusty old robot to defend them. And then participate in the defense. The quest summed up what Fallout was for me: survival in a post-apocalyptic world with limited resources.

It was that level scaling problem that forced me into playing Operation Anchorage quite "early" because I was encountering Mutant Overlords and Ghoul Reavers and Albino Scorpions galore and I really needed that winterized T-51b Power Armor to make those encounters less painful.

Agreed. For exploration, Fallout 3 was a lot better. The world and its characters seemed like they couldn't make up their collective mind about whether the bombs dropped 20 years ago or 2 weeks ago* but the world itself was well crafted and I enjoyed exploring it for the sake of exploring it.

With Fallout New Vegas I explored it because it was required to move the brilliantly crafted story forward.

* By no estimation did they drop 200 years ago.

I explored every nook and cranny in FO 3 and read all the computer entries I came across. I just didn't find anything that I thought was particularly interesting, surprising or memorable. In NV, the story behind Vault 11 alone had me hooked from start to finish. It was like playing through a really nasty sci-fi short story, and I really had to take a break and think about all that for a minute before I continued playing. The same went for the story behind the Sierra Madre, Big Mountain or the diaries of the Father in the Cave. There are more examplesm for that, and I can safely say that NV as a whole really has stayed with me. Fallout 3 has not.

There are always numerous ways to explain character drive / choice making and background, even in F3 as this is done in the players head.
My problem with NV remains, that you can actually go and kill each and everybody as soon as they appear in your world, the courier / chip story STILL continues no matter what. If this is considered quality choice / consequences done right, I'll pass.

In NV you step into the Lucky 38, a feat no one did for 200 years or so. The first time you leave, you hear ONCE a few NPCs (5 or so) talking about that fact. Nobody ever will mention it anymore after that point.
I haven't tested it (always wanted to) but I'd take bets the ranger girl in the Mojave Outpost would still send you to investigate the smoke coming from Nipton, even if you slaughtered everybody in Goodsprings and Primm - it doesn't get mentioned.

Ermm... nope? You probably wanted to get to Rivet City which was fairly easy even for a lvl 5 char. The main quest put you into DC with the whole Galaxy News Radio part. Everything else about it was pretty much optional as far as I remember.

I really ain't going to put up examples of side stories in F3 that stood out for me. They didn't stick with you, they did for me where the NV ones didn't. And so I still have F3 installed, but not NV.

Maybe it was because of the metro system that all looked the same. I got turned around all the time and escaping DC was a great experience for me. Any time I had to go into DC, once I got to GNR, and the Museum of History and Technology, I just fast-travelled because anything else was unacceptable. Exploring the rest of the map was just fine, really, it as just DC that was a problem.

As I said, I'm complaining about it, but I do think it was a good game, I just wish I'd played it before NV.

My random post here:
I just finished F3 about a day ago. It blew my mind. It was awesome. And that guy who wrote exploration is boring, HELL. It was the reason I started playing and it ruled. Even if buildings and dungeons are modularly built and look alike, they all have some unique stuff in them, something that makes me say "hehe, cool" every time. I absolutely loved exploring the capital wasteland. Now, F3 is the only Fallout game I played so far, but seeing how much I liked it, NV got to the top of my 'to buy' list. Will see how it is in a few months...

If you like exploration, there's a mod that opens up a load of the DC building interiors.

That's fine, but IMO NV is more flexible in that regard. My character is more of a blank slate there, and I'm not burdened down with backstory (like in Fo 3....) I frankly do not want, Lonesome Road being the obvious exception, and even that is debatable. Besides, in my experience, NV gives you a lot more actual feedback, concerning both your in-game choices and your skill choices. To be frank, NV's main story line is pretty simple when you get right down to it. But that is, IMO, an advantage, as this simplicity can accomodate for all kinds of scenarios that you create in-game and you still do not end up breaking the whole thing because the developers accounted for a lot of possible scenarios. I really enjoyed that flexibility.

An example: In Honest Hearts, I accidentally shot a plot-critical character, meaning I antagonized the faction you're supposed to ally with if you follow the questline properly. It was a mistake on my part. This would usually mean that you ruined the whole thing and normally you'd be forced to try again. Still, I kept playing just to see what would happen. And what do you know, the developers even took that possibility of accidentally antagonizing your potential allies into account and even created an ending for it. It's a "bad" ending, to be sure, but it's still valid. I really felt like the game respects my choices, even if they completely go against what the developers probably had in mind.

Well, my point is that character development is an important part of any RPG that is supposed to keep the player occupied for many hours. Hence the whole distribution of XP in RPGs. If New Vegas and Skyrim have the same problem then that makes them bad RPGs as well. I wouldn't know, I never played them (much). But I played Morrowind till I reached level 65 so I didn't have that problem here.

I quit playing Morrowind eventually because the storytelling was substandard. Sure there was a lot "to do" but all those quests seemed alike and uninteresting and couldn't reach me on an emotional level. So the compelling telling of an interesting story is another important part of RPGs and open world RPGs seem to usually fall behind on that matter.

The only thing that keeps the player going in a game like Fallout 3 is the exploration of the world, which isn't quite enough to call it a good RPG.