yeah, just no.
If you are cornered and your only chance for survival is fighting, alright, but it's completely idiotic to see some level 5 Nord raise his fists and run into a cloud of thunder spawned by vampire or a [censored] dragon. There is such a thing called a survival instinct
The AI is Skyrim is just horrendous, and there is no sugarcoating this, it's easily one of the worst aspects of the game, and I feel like all this wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for this.

Regardless of the truth of this statement, I wish I had that kind of time/money...

Its like if a Lion had escaped from the zoo, and everyone decided it would be a good idea to wrestle it into submission!

Stop complaining..

The statement that Vampires only attack when a player is present is false. I traveled back to Whiterun from a night of questing to walk into the front gate and see three dead Vampires and a pile of ashes from one of the NPC townsfolk who was reanimated. I would have loved to have been in the battle - it was just done before I got back.

I would recommend not making blanket statements on information you don't have all of the facts on.

This thread is hilarious!

First people complain how static the world is, now there are some random events that can change the known world and everybody complains about it...

Oh and how "it is inevitable to happen", right. Did you know this thing was in the game from the very beginning? Only it wasn't with vampires, but Dragons! I guess dragons attacking cities was a bug too and it needs to be fixed, it made the game completely broken, huh?

What you say is technically impossible.
Things cannot happen, unless you are in the same cell, same area. If you are in Windhelm, Riften cannot be attacked. Things can continue in some way if you leave after the attack started though.

Doesn't matter what gets changed, someones nose will be put out of joint.

However, if people genuinely are experiencing ghost towns because vamps are spawning excessively (and aren't exaggerating just because a shopkeeper or two happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time), I can understand how earth-shatteringly annoying that would be. IMO it sounds like a bug, and a pretty nasty one at that.

I haven't had any problems with vampire attacks... Not to say I haven't been attacked by vampires, but it's never been a problem for me. I've lost more friendly npcs from dragons than vampires.

As a pc player and periodic modder, I've been lurking on the Dawnguard forums for several weeks, trying to get a picture of the DLC's plot, characters, etc., in case I elect to mod it. Since Dawnguard launched, the issue of vampire attacks has been salient and deeply contentious. Accounts vary wildly, seemingly dependent on character level, game difficulty, etc.

Descriptions range from the exaggerated (tales of the Mysterious Traveller extirpating entire towns in the player's absence) to feasible (NPC's quietly murdered when the player fast-travels to Dragonreach).

The fundamental problem seems to be a lack of player agency in delaying/mitigating/stopping the attacks. At least with Dragons, the player can postpone the onslaught by ignoring the central questline. To bombard cities with vampire raids from the onset, irrespective of the player's actions, is a mistake, in my opinion. This is easily remedied by delaying the attacks until the player initiates the questline. This affords players a chance to advance inchoate characters that are less able to rescue vulnerable NPC's (and thus miss out on numerous quests). It would also seem that unavoidable, nearly instantaneous (level 10, I believe) vampire attacks actually alter the theme of the game from "Holy [censored], Dragons!" to "[censored] me, vampires!".

To be clear, I'm looking forward to the vampire attacks - for a time. It sounds like an exciting addition while I'm actively pursuing the Dawnguard quests, especially for a high-level character. However, some players report the attacks persist after completing the Dawnguard faction questline. The idea of a short-term, all-out attack by insane vampires is believable, but for a "Vampire Cong" to wage an interminable Tet Offensive against every major city, regardless of the player's actions is questionable (if in fact this is the case). There are several fixes:
- Stop or severely curtail the attacks if the player completes the vampire hunter questline (I'd prefer they stop - akin to the Oblivion gates). This may in fact be the feature's design, but it's bugged.
- Treat it like the Thieves' Guild: After completing a handfull of tedious sidequests in each city (with periodic "boss fights" sprinkled in), it would render that city/hold immune to vampire raids. As a grand finale, the player could enter the realm of the Vampire Cong and vanquish Ho Chi Bloodsvcker (and discover how in the hell vampires, who are normally a shadowy, opportunistic lot, can summon the manpower to launch endless raids).

Other general suggestions/thoughts:
- Some players have suggested adding Dawnguard troops to the cities. While I'd welcome the extra population, this might only exacerbate the cluster[censored] that is urban combat in Skyrim.
- I believe that most NPC's should not be essential (and the player must deal with their deaths), but should instead possess a modicum of self-preservation.
- I don't know if the answer is ultimately "toning down" the attacks. I would prefer intense attacks, but only while I'm undertaking the questline.

I'm excited to play this DLC - seeing the first trailer got me interested in both Skyrim and modding once again. The new quests, gear, perks, etc., all sound solid (though I've yet to make a decision on their alterations to vampiric lore). I just hope Bethesda grants the player a bit more control in this particular matter. If not, I'll just mod it (hell, I might just make a quest mod - who wouldn't want to fight a vampiric Ho Chi Minh?).

Hah, when does it hit PC?

No word from Bethesda, but I'd guess... late September (judging by the timing of Dead Money). Anything earlier would be a pleasant surprise, as I'm remaining staunchly pessimistic on the release date.

Yeah their beta testing on the Xbox as we speak!

I don't know if you've noticed, but shopkeepers are always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something is seriously borked with their schedules - every time I arrive in a city, day OR night, I see:

1) A crowd of NPC's leaving the inn in Markarth

2) NPC's en route to where they were supposed to be hours ago in Whiterun

3) At the market in Riften, before moving to where they're supposed to be for the time of day

And so on

Exactly what's a kid doing out on the streets at 1:00am in the morning? I have seen more people walkinng around the town at this hour than in the middle of the day.

Doing a lot of fast traveling will screw up NPC's schedules, you can always wait for a day or two which will reset their schedules. Also, by 8:30pm everyone heads to the local pub for a mead or two, then leaves after a couple hours. I guess you could call it Happy hour in Skyrim come 8pm I had the same issue with shops not opening on time, NPC's sleeping during the day etc...etc... A 2 day wait and the fact that I stopped fast traveling straightened everything up( for me anyway ).

WOW. Bethesda must be proud (:

Music To my Ears... I never got a non-bias opinion on this DLC yet.. Sadly its a big negative.. But I am getting for PC.. and there will be a community made patch if its that bad..

Yez... Sadly negative.
But at least... They try their best hahahaha

So what's wrong? NPC's die, I don't care, the point is to save them, which, if they are all dying, you are failing to do.

It was building a third story on a home with a sand foundation. The base game was unstable and they added more crap to it.

I uninstalled it and have stopped playing because it was simply beyond frustrating to have paid that much for something that caused more problems than entertainment.

I'm not talking about the whining about vampire attacks, I mean honest-to-god bugs and glitches that accumulate at an alarming rate.

The folks beta testing have mentioned dozens of times that they told Bethesda about most of those errors.

That leaves two options: Bethesda is incompetent and can't fix the bugs, or they didn't care and released it anyway.

Nope, belethor is occasionally late opening but that's about it for me...

Not disputing your experiences mind, I'm aware that people see varying levels of bugginess etc across the board. Just saying my experiences. Maybe it's fast travelling, like another poster mentioned? Or maybe I'm just lucky in this respect? Who knows?

I had too.....sad panda

The constant loading screens take up enough time. I don't have 2 hours to run to Riften and get attacked by 30 bears on the way. I'd rather be trying to check off on that quest list. I would venture a guess that most people who play are going to use fast travel. The attacks just get annoying after a while. It was cool at first, but not as interesting as dragons, and it is a pain when a vendor or quest giver dies and you didn't even have a chance to save him. If it went away after you finished MQ I'd be fine, but now we are stuck with it. 360 does have a few drawbacks, as mods would be the answer on PC.

Well there was your problem, you walked in the front gate. Only takes a few minutes for the battle to finish and you obviously wasted that time strolling around sightseeing. You got to the stables, and the random event loaded, you were in the wrong place. Next time just fast travel to Whiterun so you are in the right place at the right time. Either that or you went wandering around on your previous visit, and left without checking what visitors you brought with you. They can load as you enter the town, or come out of a door in the town. You the player are causing those attacks, by entering the area and triggering that random event. And just like every other random event in Skyrim, you are just going to have to work out how to beat it instead of waiting with hope Bethesda is going to make it idiot proof.

Sadly I'm coming to that opinion I'm even shelving Vanilla Skyrim on the Xbox I don't want to progress any further with any characters If I move to the PC, at least then I won't be at the mercy of Bethesda as much. In the mean time if they come to their senses they may provide a patch or the PC release won't be as bugged, either way mods would help.