It's a lot easier to populate a game with repeatable missions than individually crafted ones. While it'd be nice to have Fallout style missions throughout the world, it would require an insane amount of work.
These missions would all have a timeout and scaled difficulty. Levels 1 - 3 will give you a certain difficulty mission. 3 - 6, 7 - 10, and so on. Edit: Or maybe, these get more difficult from town to town. Klamath is very easy, Den is easy, Reno is medium/Junktown is easy, Boneyard is hard. I like the idea new players start in easy towns, can do some work there, and move on to bigger things.
The intention is that these people are found in the same kind of places in every town, so people looking for work always know where to go. I suggest bars, they seem like a logical centre for employment of this kind.
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So, here goes:
Assassin Missions
Found in bars/obvious criminal locations (Decker's, Reno Casinos). One Assassin NPC in every town. You speak to them, they give you a farm/shack/cave where somebody is hiding out. You go there and kill them and their friends. Report back, get paid.
Your victim may or may not bargain for his life. If he does, he offers you more money than you're going to be paid to let them go. If you accept, there's a luck roll to determine if your employer finds out about it. If he does, the timeout is doubled/tripled/quadrupled.
Paramedic Missions
Same as always, but this time you speak to the town doctor. He puts a location on your map. There's an unconscious but not dead guy who may or may not be surrounded by people trying to kill you. When you speak to the wounded guy, there's a few doctor and first aid checks/random rolls in dialogue to see if you're skilled enough to save this guy.
You either:
1. Kill him. Bummer. No pay for you.
2. Get him back on his feet, but in need of professional medical attention, and have to escort him back to the doctor who assigned you the mission. Medium pay.
3. Save his life, send him on his way. Full pay, maybe some meds.
Law Dog Missions
Like the assassin, but with an exciting twist! These people, being good guys, want you to bring your quarry back alive. You can kill his goons, just for the sake of ease. They give you a rope/some kind of handcuff item. Once your target is down for the count, but not dead, you put use them on him and bring him back to your employer.
Because this is obviously more difficult than just killing him, the pay is better.
Escort Missions
The most frustrating thing in every game ever, now in FOnline! Some guy in a bar wants protecting. Say you're in the Den, he wants you to take him to Modoc. He pays you upon safe arrival. That's it.
Thief Missions
Same as always, a guy in a bar has a job for you. You need to go to, surprise surprise, some newly found home on the worldmap and steal an item which is either on a person or in a locked container. Maybe both and you get rewarded double.
If you kill them, you've failed.
Scavenger Missions
Go to an old pre-war base/building swamped with critters. Find a specific machine within each, grab a part out of it. Maybe you get more parts depending on your science/repair skill. More parts = More pay.
(Thanks to Alvarez for making this idea not shitty.)
Rescue Missions
Someone's shouting about their enslaved companion. Go to the location, shoot a few thugs, get a key, open a door, save the damsel in distress. Take them back home. Maybe if you pass a charisma/speech check they decide to come with you. Free NPC companion that isn't a slave.
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Yeah, that's all I got so far. Even though the general theme is 'Go here and kill some guys', it beats using encounters to level up. And these are obviously intended to be done by a group as well as an individual. Anything in any game is always more fun with a group.
