It looks like Bethesda has learned from its mistakes with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and its first downloadable content – over-priced horse armour – which has gone down in history of Xbox 360 DLC as one of the most ridiculous pieces of new content released on the Marketplace, as Fallout 3’s first wave of 360-exclusive DLC is planned to be several hours long.

In an interview with Bethesda’s VP Pete Hines and Fallout 3 lead artist Istvan Pely, Shacknews has learned the first details on the downloadable content for the heavily anticipated post-apocalyptic RPG:

Shack: As far as the DLC goes, what type of content should we expect?

Pete Hines: The type is really–we want stuff that’s going to be several hours. Not just like a one-off thing, but something like where you can download it and play it for X number of hours. It’ll be similar to what we did with Knights of the Nine in Oblivion, where it’s like whole new quest lines, new stuff, that kind of thing.

We want to do stuff like that, where it’s adding hours of tangible stuff to the experience. And it plugs into your existing game, so whether you’re starting a new game, or you’re playing for 40 hours, you can go off and play this.

Shack: Will development of that begin immediately after launch?

Pete Hines: It’s always flexible. We stopped doing content a pretty good ways before we finished the game in terms of adding new stuff. So we already have folks starting to look into what [the DLC] might be.

Those still having nightmares about the infamous horse armour DLC can now be at peace, knowing that Fallout 3’s first batch of DLC won’t consist of Dog Meat armour.