I think that if you joined the dawnguard you should have that same amount of fun as playing as a flying neck muncher. The first point I will make out is the fact that the side quests for the dawnguard side of the dlc are in my opinion rubbish. the only interesting thing you get from them are a couple of weapons that are useless agenst anything that isont a vampire, whal the vampires get rings that boost health and magica by 100 and overpowered amulets for the vampire lord. my final point is the end weapon (SPOILER AHEAD).In the end when you kill harkon you get a weapon called harkons sword (...) that has a effect ONLY A VAMPIRE CAN USE! so I think Bethesda should release a patch or dlc that adds some more interesting side quests for the dawnguard faction.

Counteracted almost completely by the fact that DG members can be VLs though, no?

The Vampire Lord you become from siding with the Dawnguard is NOT NEARLY as strong as the version you become if you side with the Volkihar.

You have to take into account the..

Blood of the ancients..coffin buffs...and artifacts...oh yes the glorious artifacts <3 =P

All of which, the Dawnguard can't take advantage of.

Well they can use the coffins but they don't get the magicka resistance bonus even if they become Vampires if I recall.

If anything siding with the Dawnguard gives you a severely nerfed Vampire Lord and gameplay experience.

People say Dawnguard gets better stuff but all they really get is better crossbows..which is balanced out by Volkihar getting overpowered artifacts and buffs and they of course can get the default crossbow and when you kill the Vampire Hunters in the wilds they have enchanted crossbows and some have exploding bolts.

Woah, did you just say "coffin buffs?"

Elaborate. NAO!

Dont tell him. I want you to suffer

Good. Let your hate fill you! Bask in it, moan in it! Use it!

I'll just look for the UESP.

Well its really just one buff you receive from the coffin, I typoed the s on buff..well TECHNICALLY two since you get well rested as well..lol.. D=

Its a very significant buff though in my opinion if you don't have that set up that makes all magic do nothing to you anyway.

If you sleep in a coffin you get 10% resist magic buff.

NOOOOOOO, you all ruined my fun...
CURSE YOU

Which is added to the magicka suppression necklace (Like..25% magicka resistance or something..) you can get off Harkon's corpse...for even more resistance. =P

Lots of little things that can easily woo a player into siding with the Volkihar.

Lets not forget the ability to make your spouse a Vampire and make several fledgling vampires all over Skyrim all of which will have a coffin in their homes for you to rest in when not at the Castle...and yes you don't get in trouble if you go into their house at the very middle of the night, no guards are called because "You aren't supposed to be in here!"

The Dawnguard gets better crossbows and a significantly weaker Vampire Lord so it all balances out. =P

Great guys you made him happy...

Well it is a vampire based DLC. It is like complaining about KOTN be biased towards the KOTN.

If I have remember correctly, there's also a powerful ring very useful for mages, which cannot be obtained in any other way, right?

I figured there was a huge bias towards vampires from the early news about the DLC but I'm wondering if there is enough content for someone who doesn't play as a vampire so they can enjoy Dawnguard? And someone said you become a VL when you're in the Dawnguard? Is that forced on you or can you play and finish it without being a vampire at all? I'm on PC so haven't played it yet and I don't want to play as a vampire.

The content is balanced,you can have a lot of fun even playin' only one of the factions or avoiding totally the VL thing,you can be again a werewolf even if you've cured yourself,you can cure your vampirism if being infected etc.

Thank you Cicero. My character just wants to be Dovahkiin and a vampire hunter and stay a human. I'm looking forward to it but I'm worried now about NPCs dying a lot. I'm hoping it's like with dragons in Skyrim and if you fast-travel to a town, it can prompt a dragon attack on the town. Hopefully, if I only fast-travel nearby, the town won't be attacked by vampires. That works great with dragons.

Vampires get the spotlight they deserve! I don't care much about the bias against Dawnguard. They're the bad guys anyways! Dovahkiin is the hero for the Volkihar Clan!

Doesn't seem to be a consensus as to whether or not vampires have the advantage, but for the sake of argument, let's say that they do. I prefer to play on the Dawnguard side and I think it's perfectly fair that vampires have an advantage. They are, after all, meant to be a great threat to Skyrim and it's denizens, so they ought to be more powerful. It'd be difficult to take them seriously if they were no more threatening than organized skeevers.

The DLC is bias towards the dawnguard faction!

The dawnguard questline gives you so much more, your honestly saying its bias towards the vamps due to the ancient blood and the rings/amulets?

VL form is still incredibly viable without the rings/amulets, and the ancient blood is nice, but definitely not necessary.

People who join the Dawnguard, get dwemer crossbow fully upgraded, frost trolls, and a much better fortress.

I wouldn't agree. It has a smelter in the smithing area. That's about the only thing I can think of that it has over the vamp castle. Otherwise, the weapon racks don't work and it isn't safe for storage apart from the wardrobe closets and some of the sacks (the chests and barrels all respawn) making it pretty much unusable as permanent housing. I keep a home in Riften and regard the fortress as "the office." Just a place I go to work.

Also I have played through on the vampire and the Dawnguard side. The vampire side has way more bugs than the Dawnguard.