Hello folks,

Just some advice I wanted to share with you.

My game of Skyrim is empty.....

When I say empty I'm talking about the cities and towns. It's almost void of NPCs! Beside the obligatory 'essential' NPCs walking around (who prettry much stay in doors anyway), it's only populated by auto-spawning guards.

How has this happened, I hear you ask? Well, the dragon attacks have whittled the populace down anyway since release date, but since downloading Dawnguard.... the Master Vampire attacks have pretty much finished off the remaining townsfolk!

OMG, the towns and cities in my Skyrim contain only self-procreating guards (whom, Im assuming, mate and breed like rabbits overnight in their barracks to replace their dead from the day before) But when it comes to normal everyday townspeople, there is none! They're all piles of ash or lying dead in the city gutter somewhere.

My last NPC to kick the bucket was the cowardly Belathor of Whiterun who must have acted un-characteristically bold and took on a Master Vampire with his iron dagger. And no matter how many times I tried to re-load and re-enter Whiterun, the battle was already in full swing with the same inevitable consequence.... a dead Belathor. In truth he was already dead, as when I entered the Whitrun 'cell' Belathor was a dead thrall of the vampire, so there was truly NO way of saving him.

Anyway, I digress. My point is, guys, gals and lizardmen of the forum, just be aware that the more you play this game the less people you'll see and meet in world. It's an inevitable result of Bethesda's programming and design, something you'll have to come to terms with, especially with the Dawnguard DLC. And despite what Todd may have told you about the death of shopkeepers in Skyrim..... FRIENDS/FAMILY RELATIVES DO NOT TAKE OVER THE SHOP FOR THEM!.

Thanks for listening folks, hope your world isn't as barren and desolate as mine. Anyway, back to my game of Skyrim, I'm off to visit my favourite NPC Svana in the Bunkhouse in Riften, she's beautiful and always very welcoming to my character... oh, hold on, where is she? Oh no, not you too Svana *sob sob*

I don't want to get into an argument on these forums about dawnguard, but you have a very very exceptional case there then. I have played dawnguard for over 300 hrs. and haven't lost anyone. I did reload once because I walked out of breeze home with no weapons at all straight into a vampire who killed adriane before I could get him.

Dawnguard hasn't changed what I've done at all, I don't go though towns checking, I don't have to take a minuite every time I enter a city to be ready, as you can see, I sometimes don't even carry my weapons.

I do think that npc's should run away instead of attack with their daggers, but it has in no way detracted from my game at all

A game with diminishing returns...this is something a beta tester would find out after playing for a long time is what I'm thinking. I feel like this should be a report in the bugs forum too. If you didn't help to kill everything, the vampire lords et al might be taken down a notch or two or three so this won't happen? Thanks for the info. I'm on PC and don't have the addon yet.

shouldn't this be somewhere else? Also that is your experience it is not a common one. I do not have your problem and no one I know that plays has it either. So either your game is bugged or you just let it happen.

In all my time of Dawnguard, I don't think I've lost any NPCs due to vampire attacks. They usually die before they can take a life.

*Sigh* if you care that much about npcs as a member of the dawnguard you also have the duty of giving the means to help people protect themselves raise up your pickpocket abit and reverse pickpocket some weapons to the towns folk and guards. Giving people the means to protect themselves helps alot more than you trying to protect a whole town.

Anyway I see no problem with the attacks maybe cause I don't really care for npcs and I can't wait for the destruction and carnage these vampire attacks will cause it may spice up city life.

Plus this thread should be in the dawnguard section.

Seeing as you haven't downloaded dawnguard yet, it may be worth reverse pickpocketing townsfolk that you like (as suggested by one of the members below) to safeguard them against 'death' before you purchase the add-on.

...that's only if you value your skyrim game populated with people other than guards (& essentials)

There's console commands for that

Is it like the dragons where it only seems to keep occuring if you fast travel or use carriages ?

I know basically every time I got a carriage to Dawnstar in my original game an Ancient Dragon would spawn.

oh dear, you've completely missed the point. I wasn't complaining about this game. I love this game, I have clocked up hundreds of hours and still going strong.

simply giving advice to fellow members. your *sigh* is misplaced, need to be less defensive. oh dear

anyway have a fishy stick youngling

Sadly little buddy, I'm on Xbox

(must save up for that PC)

I have a lot of NPCs still around. I have a level 72 character. It depends on what happened during serveral quests including the civil war. If some battles with some dragons took place and you did not take out the dragon a NPC could die and they do. If you are lucky a lot of them will not die even during the civil war quests.

I would love to the console players to have the ability to use console commands but that means that you have to have a keyboard but I think you can get a keyboard for xbox or PS3.

Well I see this whole dead people thing will be easy to me

* Resurrect * * Resurrect * * Resurrect *

Actually yes.

I don't fast travel 'teleporting' but I do use the carriage system (as it feels less like cheating).... does this activate the attacks?

Well using carriages is essentially fast travelling, at least to the game. This was what seemed to constantly spawn dragons in places like Riften, Dawnstar, Windhelm etc. for me.

I'm pretty sure it's a bug, travelling on foot very few dragons seem to actually spawn in comparison.



Is it just me that longs for the safety of cities in Oblivion again ?

I must try this suggestion

"Svana come back"

I think you might be onto something. When I first got the game I ONLY walked/ran/horse/sneaked my way across Skyrim and Dragons would attack during the journey. Then when I began carriage travelling, the dragons started attacking the city when I arrived.

If I only use horse travel from city to city would it lessen the vampire/dragon attacks, Sthomsom18?

I'm playing on Master if that makes a difference to NPCs health

I imagine so, probably cost you a lot of horses though, but they're replaceable.

In my current game (only 7 hours in) I'm just completely leaving the MQ until last. After recieving the Bleak Falls Barrow quest from Farengar I'm just going to completely abandon it until later, that way dragons won't even be in the game, meaning I can use carriages without a nagging fear that several NPC's are going to die as a result of it. When I do eventually complete the Dragon Rising quest (mandatory to advance in the CW questline) I'll make sure not to use carriages at all.

Every time a vampire attack has occurred in Solitude or Whiterun where i live the most the vampires has been mauled by the guards. And I I engage them aswell the fight is pretty much no losses for my team. No civilian has ever died. Although I wish Nazeem would have.

Funny you should say that, I've had three horses die due to Dragon attack whilst travelling from A to B, including Frost

But you're right, its easier to buy a horse (i've got 21,000 gold) which may prevent another NPC death

btw, thanks for not being facetious buddy, a few members on this forum seem to think that if it doesn't happen to them then its not a real and existing problem!

Well in my original save the first horse I purchased was mauled by a dragon while I was on it. Was pretty epic but also very frustrating as I didn't have a lot of gold to spare at the time.

I was on my way to Halted Stream Camp, enjoying the scenery of Whiterun Hold and the gentle relaxing music when before I knew it I heard a roar, seen a shadow, then went flying a short distance through the air. Got my wits about me, slew the dragon and ate the meat from my dead horse. This became a ritual of sorts for me, whenever a horse of mine died I'd eat it and drink some alcohol in a strange funeral ritual.

ha ha

after having lost a couple of horses to dragons, I was determined to hold onto Frost, in fact I would reload if he ever died (I play on Master difficulty so this happened often )

as I was travelling from Whiterun to Rorikstead, a dragon attacked as I was crossing the path of a Giant and two mammoths. After an epic fight I managed to slay the dragon which in turn had killed the mammoths. I was particularly proud of this accomplishment (no followers, no exploits, no grinding, master difficulty etc) as I had kept Frost alive during the confrontation (with a mixture of spells and tactics)....

...I absorb the dragon soul, and as I turn round, what do I see? The giant delivers a killing blow to Frost!

I chalked it down to experience and carried on with the game and eventually bought a new horse. RIP Frost

Soul crushing.

There are bigger problems with the new DLC. My game literally doesn't work because apparently it was programmed by drunken chimpanzees. I can't load critical zones and it tends to lock up at an alarming rate after the installation of Dawnguard. That's IF I can even load my saves at all.

During what little time I've been able to play without cursing the developers to the bowels of hell I've only lost a handful of NPCs to a dragons or a vampire. Also, I'm on master.

Worrying about what actually happens when you have control isn't a big deal, I would say not to buy Dawnguard because it only exacerbates the instability problems of the base game.

Edit: it should be apparent that I'm on 360 since I have DG, but I figured it was worth saying. I'm not using some exotic PC. i'm using the same thing millions of other Skyrim users have.