It really had a lot of potential with the vampires the vale and the soul cairn,the vampires coming out of ice,the daedric prince,it could have gone into a lot of detail and have some really epic moments like a cool scene would have been if you joined the dawngaurd you all venture out unto the ice to search for the castle and all of a sudden vampires drag to NPC's down under and start coming up from out of the ice a long with the castle having Harkon sitting at the top of the castle in a gargoyle like stance in his Vampire Lord form. And having the vale explore more with the strange and wild creatures it has.The story was short and not very interesting imo and could have explained and expanded a lot more,also expanding skyrim more across the ice around the area of the castle and had a bigger area for the dawngaurd,also more ways to get into the soul cairn multiple times and more things to do.They also could have expanded on the werewolf side with the werecreatures and whatnot but I have another thread for that.It just could have been a lot better and was a bit of a let down in my opinion. What do you guys think of this and what would you guys have liked to see in Dawngaurd?,story wise,gameplay wise,new area wise.One thing I don't like in skyrim,is how much of it takes place under ground especially when Dragons take to the skies,Dawngaurd only added to this,the caves and the dungeons and underground areas,it gets old after a while.

Not sure. I'll let you know what I think when I can actually get the content. Still waiting on PS3.

Yes like my colleague above me said, we can only respond to your question if we actually get to play it! But hey if Bethesda says it's not ready then it's not ready, we don't know how "ready" they actually are and what they did in the month of exlusive play-time on the XBOX, but we will wait..till it comes out next year on 11/11/2013

I really enjoyed it. I can't go anywhere without being ambushed by 3+ vampires which is awesome. Had a few attacks happen on the ice floes near Winterhold.

Been playing for 2 weeks now and just beginning to finish up the final quest, even though I might hold off so I keep getting the random vampire attacks.

Lost to the Ages was fun with an awesome reward.

Overall, really enjoying Dawnguard. Looking forward to the vampire side on my next character.

Yes.
I was interested in the idea of the Vampire Lord, until I actually became one and realized it was just a floating Werebat that can shoot magic and (surprise, surprise) not go into first-person.
Which presents the problem of being less accurate with your magic, which you are specifically told is the Vampire Lord's greatest weapon.
Also the fact that you can't open chests, and that the form doesn't look different for every race (or at least the beast races).

The most interesting stuff, to me, was everything in the Forgotten Vale.
The Soul Cairn was a forgettable mass of purple, with purple draugr and a purple skeleton horse, the most interesting thing being (in my opinion) the strange inclusion of Jiub--who doesn't even look like Jiub did.

It was interesting, because Vampires were pretty lame in the Vanilla game, and I thought this would fix that, but it didn't really.
I like the new eye effect, but my Orc already had red eyes (and fangs, too).

For me, it was worth the money, because it added variety, and anything that adds variety is a very good thing in these games.
Keep in mind I have a skewed opinion on the value of my money, and my ultimate justification for buying the DLC once I'd completed the better part of it was that I got more treasure and a few new armor sets.

You're still going to get the attacks after you finish.

-They balanced out Vampirism to make it comparable with lycanthropy.
- Added a stronger weapons class
- Added more monsters
- A mount that can be summoned
- Crossbows as an alternative weapon
- Stronger Monsters to fight
- Unlocks the ability to change the appearance of your character.
- And more!

It's sucessful in my mind.

For what it was i don't feel it was worth $20 15 or ten maybe but not twenty.

Not in towns.

Yes, I did feel like it wasn't worth twenty dollars.
At the same time, Knights of the Nine was twenty dollars when it was released, and Dawnguard is larger than KotN.
That doesn't change anything, I'm still disappointed with Dawnguard, and I'm glad I got KotN basically for free in the Game of the Year edition of Oblivion, but it puts things somewhat into perspective.

@Shorakhan: Sorry to nitpick here, but in your signature.. Isn't it supposed to be spelled Orsimer?

I've still gotten some attacks in towns.

It still came with a lot of problems like how the vampires were supposed to be,the stupid feeding thing,the mount was a small thing,crossbows and a stronger weapon class are meh and stronger monsters could have been added at any point in time,I don't think these things are DLC worthy.Dawngaurd had so much potential which is upsetting,hopefully they'll do better with Hearthfire.

Yeah, for me they show up around every third town visit or so.
More frequent than dragon attacks, even.
Considering I sided with the Dawnguard, I would've expected this sort of thing to become managable.


Oh, I guess you're right.
I probably should've made it a different color, it's hard for me to see.

The only thing that upsets me are the horribly bugged vampire radiant quests. Specifically Vingalmo

The first DLC is never all that great. Same thing with Op Anch, Dead Money, etc.

Still managed to impress with the crossbows though.

I fail to see how they "Balanced out Vampirism". Mainstay Vampirisim (As far as i'm aware) wasn't really changed all that much. And the Vampire Lord was a flop IMO. Even with all its perks I hardly used it without a VL enhancing mod (though then again that might have to do with the fact that I'm running Deadly Dragons/Monster Mod/ SkyRE on top of that.) Basically just a weak absorb-health ball flinger with a watered down claw attack and a useless bat teleport spell and a severely watered down version of the werewolf's claw attack (without the cool knockback effect which is what makes the werewolf so deadly.) Not to mention the fact that you couldn't interact with ANYTHING made it even more utterly useless (which makes no sense by the way. With Werewolves it makes sense: You become a feral beast incapable of processing much else other than "kill-and-eat". But with a vampire lord... you retain your intelligence and composture while becoming an ultra powerful demigod thing that's capable of ripping people to shreds with powerful (yeah right) magic and sharp (yeah right) claws.... That's smart enough to use blood magic, teleport from place to place, become mist on a whim, and kill entire armies (supposedly)... Yet can't remember how to open a door or pull a chain? WTF?!)

Yeah, the human-telekinesis spell and summon gargoyle was somewhat useful, though I could probably just get the former in a mod and the latter was still too weak to be any real use.

Better luck next time with that.

A summon mount was... kinda convenient , but then again, convenient horses makes this kinda pointless too.

Town attacks was a nice touch. So was the person who could change your face though I think the latter should really have been in a patch rather than a DLC (like the horse combat.)

I liked soul cairn and the new enemies. And the new dragon summon. I have to wonder though if that's going to become something of a running feature/tradition in each DLC where you can get a new dragon partner in each one.

Serana was just the sort of partner the game needed. Interesting to be around, had a backstory, had character development.... Almost like the Fallout NV companions. Basically what all the other partners in Skyrim SHOULD have been like instead of this "quanity over quality" boring companion nonsense.

The story (only played vampire side) was... okay. Not great, but not terrible.

Haven't played the Dawnguard side yet so I can't comment on it.

So all in all, meh. It was fine, but not the best. It tried, but the first DLC is never all that great.

Too bad Serana has a massive bug that turns the Vampire Lord form into tickle-me-elmo

In regards to the OP I felt it was a let down. They claimed 10-20 hours of new content, but it's just large areas. The quests are short, the Soul Cairn, Vale, etc are giant areas... but nothing to do in them! Walk from point a to point b then to c then to d, then you're done there forever. Lame. The bugs with the ewer were worse. having to be in 3rd person or the client locks, that's just lame. Why release the update if you don't test it in first person? The werewolf tree is useless, werewolves are still weak! I haven't even had the desire to play the vampire questline. The game is missing animations for the crossbow. The killing move camera shows you standing there as a T with your arms up, nothing happens. the MOB actually doesn't even get killed, it runs at you and kills you during this pathetic cinema. All the bugs and stuff, I feel like I paid $20 to be involved in a beta test. Honestly large quest mods like "Moonpath to Elswyr" contain less bugs, and more content.

Rather disappointed.

I personally loved it, though I did enjoy playing as a Dawnguard much more than vampire. I dunno maybe I'm in the minority, but I feel like I'm getting my money's worth from Dawnguard. I think part of the problem is people are rushing through it which to me can make this game less enjoyable.

Fair enough,I do admit I rushed through it,I didn't plan to but I got bored.But that's a small part of the reason why I disliked it.

Oh, I never noticed that really. Maybe its because after the first time being a vampire lord and getting my rear end handed to me by a bunch of bandits, I got a Vampire Lord Revamped mod that probably got rid of it.

Leave it to the mod community to fix up Bethseda's mistakes yet again.

You must have not been used to the Vamp lord yet or something. To me its overpowered. If you don't have serana following you the drain life spell does massive damage

For their first knights of the nine type dlc? I think it was absolutely great! Although a certain NPC needs to stop getting stuck EVERYWHERE!

I do feel like it could've been better. Specifically the areas you mentions the forgotten vale and the soul cairn could've been much more interesting and they hardly did anything with those areas other than the main quest. I wanted some side quests. I wanted to actually meet and talk to the Ideal masters and visit the Coffin Chapel and the Chapel of Love in the soul cairn. I also feel as if the "overhaul" on the vampires could have been MUCH better (My vampiric drains still svcks, I can't have thralls etc.).
-Sigh- I think that sometimes. There's a mod that fixes Serana nerfing your VL powers already. There's also mods that improve the VL's powers. The VL is a welcome addition but I feel as if Bethesda should of improved the base vampire form. Give vampires some neat spells that you don't already have. Blood of the ancients is cool but is only useful for the VL form and not the base vampire form. Maybe I've been spoiled by looking at some of the mods for vampire overhauls and then I see what we got in dawnguard and think this is all bethesda can come up with? I still enjoyed dawnguard but I feel as if they could have done much better.

I personally could care less about story lines plots ect, I care more about features, like a bow that blots out the sun or makes it rain fire, crossbows to use with the rest of my questing days, a vampire form that is as good or better than werewolf form, werewolf and vampire perks to make sure they are still relevant and good at max levels.

Also my evil wizard character now has pale skin, darker circles around his eyes, glowing eyes and a hooded black cloak he got off a vampire, plus when I kept killing stupid horses before, now I just conjure another arvak with my wizard whenever I want one. It added alot to the rest of the game for me.