Skyrim has no free will. If you start a quest, it will always end in one way and no other.

Umm.. actually that rather like a whole lot of fun.. much more so than that lame exuse of a civil war i fought in. I tore through Windhelm as a werewolf for hours gorging my self on stormcloaks er i mean unluck SOBs during that little dust up. Realisticaly there can't be more then a few hundred stormcloaks scattered throughout all of skyrim. And only slightly more Imperial soldiers.. But a choice that leads to my character actualy having to defend that big creepy castle? Hell yeah!

I don't see why you couldn't have at least these five options:

Side with Dawngaurd and defeat Harkon
Side with the Dawnguard, but betray them and wipe them out
Side with Vampires and Harkon
Side with Vampires, kill Harkon, and become the head of the clan yourself
Kill them both

Yeah, why can't we side with the Reapers in Mass Effect? Talk about so unfair! I really wanted to be a brainless Husk! Bioware these days taking out what is truly an RPG!

off topic but I enjoyed knights of the old republic 1 and 2. That seemed good with the free will aspect. Some parts of the endings in 2 are no matter what going to be there while the rest of the ending changes, but in 1 the endings were drastically different.

If games like skyrim could implement that sort of story they'd be pretty great. Even mass effect had a level of choice.

I understand skyrim is ment to be linear but freedom and consequence are what make an RPG stories to me. The ability to play your own character (not just make) and have them deal with the consequences of their actions.

We get a few choices like marriage. But that adds like 2 repeatable requests in the conversations lol. Gimme money and gimme food.


They could have expanded on that.... somewhat. Radiant quests from spouses? Take a queue from Fable where you kid kept running away into caves to be a hero and you had to save him?

Dammit now I miss fable. Why'd I sell it? That was a fun game...

Take a look at The Witcher 2, now there you have consequences for what you do. I'm surprised I can't block out the sun, I was just now playing a Vampire just to get that done! So it's all linear then... no choice, just a story without any other direction than forward. Now that is poor. Very poor and I don't really feel like continuing my (now bugged out) vampire run anymore. I sound like a whiner, but I just lost the urge here.

OMG. You guys REALLY don't see how absolutely stupid siding with Harkon would be? Really?

Let me repeat, a handful of vamps against an ALL OUT ASSAULT from not only all of Skyrim, but Cyrodil, Hammerfell, Morrowind, Elsweyr, Blackmarsh, etc. EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE who wasn't a vampire would be at risk. There is no way at all in any fathomable stretch of ANY scenario that the vamps could come out on top. None. Castle found. Here comes the invasion. You're there, stuck on the island, surrounded, and your ONLY resources are those that you currently have. No resupply chain, no way out, and hundreds of thousands of invaders endlessly pouring in. That's a no-win scenario. Read it again, there is absolutely no way you could do what Harkon proposes and come out on top. Hence, it's stupid, hence, not an option. And you're faulting the developer for not allowing you to be a complete moron and not dropping you into an unwinnable situation as a result of that stupidity? Essentially ending your character. Forever. Done. Please.

Yup lets not forget all the feral vampires coming out of the caves and slaughtering the population causing food shortages for vampires.

All those "ferals" would also find that the dark is not quite what you thought it'd be when you've got ever human and mer in the vicinity hunting you. In fact, it's more likely they'd go as deep into hiding as possible (or join the humans).

If vampires permanently blocked out the sun, would killing them really make the sun come back out? After all the world wipes out vampires it'd still be pretty dark outside I bet.

Lore-wise... If the sun goes out, people wouldn't know what the heck happened. They'd probably blame the dragons.

Hehe! There ya go!
I loved all of those games you mentioned. In their own way, each was great

Your tenacious assertions of Good triumphing over Evil would be inspiring, if it wasn't sooo cuuute...

To think that the cattle would ever think themselves greater than their masters...makes me smile. When are the wolves ever concerned what the sheep think? The wolves care only when the wolves feed, when the wolves instill chaos in their minds and fear in the sheep's heart, right before the wolves rip the still beating heart from the sheep's chest. At least that's all my character Raven has to say on the subject,

...but seriously.
I respect your point of view. I just choose to disagree...because it's fun to watch your head explode
I can almost hear the gears in your head grinding.

Delving into a dungeon filled with zombies raised by a lone necromancer is fairly common place in Tamriel. At least it was in Cyrodill (cerca TES:O).
The way these Vampire Lords are presented in Dawnguard leads me to believe that each has at least some rudimentary necromantic skill. It wouldn't tax the imagination much to think that the older VLs in Harkon's court would have greater talent than you (being that your still green to the ways of being a Vampire Lord). So raising an army of undead and skillfully placing them for ambush wouldn't be so hard.

Northwatch keep is fairly defensible. Filling it with undead shouldn't be too hard. It's already filled with Thalmor so killing and raising them any one Vampire Lord could do. Better yet, turning them as Vampire Thralls might be the way to go, and yes there would be time enough to do that. There are always greedy, power hungry people so it wouldn't take much to find one or two within their ranks to turn into Vampire Lords to lead that rabble. Sure, it's not a permanent solution, but if for every one Vampire that is killed they take 10 with them, that's 10 more bodies to be raised in their defense.

I'm positive that there would be groups and covens that could be convinced to come to Harkon's defense, and still others that could be "persuaded". If I were Harkon I wouldn't fill my castle with them, instead I'd send them out into towns and villages to kill or turn men, women, children, in their sleep. That would slow Skyrim's momentum if not completely demoralize the people. Sure, there would be those that would be emboldened and driven to retaliate, and it would be these that are picked apart as they march on the castle. Like a pack of wolves slowly picking the herd apart, one by one. They'd be lucky to arrive with half of their forces in tact.

How many times do we come across a story where one lone Vampire has existed for years within a community causing all sorts of chaos before they are discovered, or you (the PC) are brought in to discover them? How many of these quests result in the town raising up against that Vampire? In how many do the towns sheeple lean on you (the PC) to take care of their business for them? You say that the towns and villages would be hunting the vampires down in their caves with torches and pitchforks, I say they'd be too busy looking inward, making sure their "trusted neighbor" for the past few years wasn't in fact one of "them". Not every town or village would fall, but I think a vast number of them would quickly become ghost-towns before anyone knew what the hell was going on.
[Edit: Ooo! and lets not forget that a sudden and skillfully timed/planned invasion of Solitude (City and Hold) along with Markarth (City and Hold) would be in order. Solitude would be overrun long before they could put up a proper defense. Only a few unlucky may be able to hold up in the Blue Palace, but eventually they'd all die or be turned or enthralled.]

Remember also, there are other factions of Vampires throughout Tamriel, and not just Harkon. They may not get along, but the blood sun* might be the factor that temporarily unites the clans...so it wouldn't be all of Men and Mer against Harkon and the PC. Harkon may be crazy, but I don't think he's a moron. He wants the power to rule over his cattle and not hide in the shadows. He wants to visibly sit upon his throne and be worshiped, not wipe out all of man and mer kind. He just wants his turn to play the Game of Thrones.

* just to clarify, I call the "blocking out of the sun" a Blood Sun, only because I think it better fits. The sun isn't truly "blocked" or "blacked out". Light still gets through, though diffused and tinted red. Iit may severely affect the world in horrible and unforeseen ways, but I don't think the world would come to an end. Men and Mer would still survive. But that's just my opinion

It's not like bethesda would've made blocking out the sun the canon ending anyway. In future games Bethesda would just exlain that Harkon and his group of vampires was exterminated somehow.

I think it might be because the ability to blot out the sun, and subsequently trigger a war with all non-vampires, would derail the overarching narrative of the TES world lore. The consequences of this choice would be TOO significant to allow. Just in my opinion.

Yes - also, Harkon is a kind of typical megalomaniac tyrant bad guy. I'd presume that once you'd helped him do the quest, he'd either turn on you anyway, or embark on some even crazier idea.

Bioware has some wonderful RPGs.. Mass Effect 3 is in no shape or form one of them.
just so you know, accordingto the wonderful new slap you in the face extended endings on three, Shepard was indoctrinated by the Reapers the entire time...

Can't. Just can't. No matter what they do, what they put out, what expansions they create, I will never play ME3 past my first, one, and only play through. For me, it was a crash abd burn that just got worse the longer the game went on. And, because the ending was just the biggest crap all of all the mounds of crap, I'm not even looking for DA 3, and don't even know if it's being considered.

But interesting point... because of the NPCs, their stories, etc. that "were so live, so real", the game itself lacks replayability. No matter what you do, it doesn't change a thing and plays (more or elss) exactly the same. Anyway point being, there's a fine line between too much and not enough freedom. Which brings it back OT, allowing the player to ally with Harkon would be too much freedom.

Okay, just as an aside, the Extended Cut was not a slap in the face. Not at all. It was a gesture of goodwill from a company that had no reasonable requirement to actually give it. And, no, Shepard was not indoctrinated, most of what is shown in the Extended Cut directly counters the Indoctrination Theory.

Anyway, as for siding with Harkon, there's really two factors at play here. One has been previously mentioned. No matter how many thralls they raise, and no matter how accomplished their necromancy, there's no way in hell that the Volkihars would be able to hold off an invasion by the Empire and the Thalmor. The Thalmor alone posses much more powerful spellcasters than most of the Volkihars, and as such would rain destruction down on the castle and its inhabitants. Plus, they don't even need to directly assault the castle. All the have to do is besiege it, which is fairly easy given its remote location and its island setting. Blockade it with the Imperial and Thalmor fleets and voila, a castle full of starving, feral vampires who will either die or be driven so mad that they'll probably kill each other.

The second factor is Harkons own unhinged nature. There's no way that he would let you last very long in his court. The very fact that you've done so much pretty much guarantees it. You've acted with quite a bit of ingenuity and ambition, enough to gather three elder scrolls and the bow of a god. That pretty much marks you out as a potential competitor for the throne, and I'm assuming that his obsession with taking over the world has led to him having at least a little bit of paranoia. He'd mark you out as a threat and have you killed fairly quickly after you handed over the goods, because your usefulness is at an end and your ambition is dangerous to him. At least, those are my arguments as to why it ended as it did, and it seems to make sense to me.

Something that confuses me about this whole "the entirety of Tamriel will rise up and vanquish the Vampire Lords if Harkon does this," train of thought so many people are going down is it assumes too many things:

1) The governments of Tamriel would be able to effectively calm down and organize the masses, who would no doubt be panicking because of the continuous darkness.
2) The governments of Tamriel are able/willing to coordinate with one another to stop whoever did this.
3) The governments of Tamriel are able to find out/locate the guilty party and where they're based.
4) The governments of Tamriel won't have to worry about the other 100 strains of vampirism, all of which have different powers and abilities, taking advantage of the eternal night to prey on the people.
5) The governments of Tamriel won't have to worry about the wildlife attacking their soldiers as they march to Castle Volkihar.
6) The governments of Tamriel won't have to worry about bandits and other knaves taking advantage of the chaos and attacking/raiding areas.
7) The governments of Tamriel won't have to worry about people willingly becoming vampires because of the advantages now that the sun is gone.
And these two are major ones to me
8) The Vampire Lords would just sit at Castle Volkihar and twiddle their thumbs and toes while they wait to be besieged.
9) After traveling for days/weeks/possibly months in total blackness, the various groups of soldiers would be in well enough mental health to be able to cope with prolonged battles in the dark against enemies who can see perfectly fine in total blackness, have superhuman strength and reflexes, can disappear, fuel themselves with blood, can revive their recently killed friends and force them to fight one another, summon gargoyles, turn into bats, throw them incredible distances, paralyze them, and can transform into winged monstrosities without panicking and routing.

To me, this seems like way too many variables for the humans/mer/beast races to be able to effectively control and manage. There's no way that this event would be enough to unite them to work together to save themselves. Even when it was only two factions, they couldn't even agree to work together, and that was when the World Eater returned. The most they agreed to do was grumble in their respective cities, waiting for things to sort themselves out. I can't imagine this being much different, and you're looking at organizing entire countries with vary different political aims. Who's to say the population of Valenwood that wants to be free of Thalmor control wouldn't just start killing them in the confusion, rather than working towards fighting the Vampire Lords? Same with the Stormcloaks. Solitude is closest to Castle Volkihar, so the Stormcloak soldiers could seemingly march towards the vampires, but then attack the city and take Jarl Elisif hostage and force her to kneel to Ulfric.

There's too many variables for the mortals, which I think really pushes things in the vampires' favor.

Why can't we side with Alduin?

Yes, why is this not an option? I want to destroy the world and then build a cabin in the middle of nothingness so that I can stare at eternity. Why was this not implemented Bethesda? RPG is the svck, offers no choices, roar, lolololo.

Wouldn't the shops be closed permanently if you did that?
And do you really think Harkon wouldn't kill you later?
I don't really know why you would want this!

Give it up, some people just don't want to see it.

1stly, Lord Harkon is too evil. He is willing to throw away everything to complete this.. I mean seriously.. He doesn't care for his own family.. Why would he care for you enough to let you in on it? I'm not surprise he does betrayed you when ye' gave him the bow.

2ndly, Story. Every game has a story and normally the main stories are dead-set, in a way.. (Guild Questlines, Main Questlines, etc) Now, Dawnguard does have an Evil Side but it is just that Harkon betrays you at the ending and you take over after killing him.

3rdly, It is a stupid idea. Once the people of Skyrim learn that the sun is gone for good, they will attack the castle plus you have Serana's mother ready to escape and well spit it out. It just isn't a good idea.. Also, people will know it is cause of Vampires because of the attacks that are happening more often than normal.

Lastly, someone should make a mod that will spawn enemies like said.. You know? You sit at the front of Castle Volkihar then fight armies of NPCs constantly.. No break at all.. That way the PC users can test it themselves and see what it would be like.