I've read a few posts recently where people are complaining that the Dawnguard side quests are really Radiant quests. Will someone explain the difference and why it matters?

Well, technically they are radiant quests, but I fail to see how that matters actually. Regardless of which side you choose, the main quest is pretty much unchanged, you still do all the same things more or less. The side quests for each faction then are really repeatable radiant quests which you can pick up throughout the course of the Main Quest and then infiinitely afterwards, as they will always just pick a random location and spawn more baddies for you to fight.

This is essentially the exact same set up as the four main factions from the original game, so I fail to see why anyone would have a complaint against it.

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Mhm, thats what the side-quests are comprised of: randomly generated fetching/killing in locations you have/have not been to.

But abstaining from voicing your objection against something (this case radiant questing) simply because it has already happened is just silly.

I find it more silly to complain about something without a cause or reason. I said I failed to see WHY you would complain about the side quests since they are literally unchanged, I never said anything about people "abstaining from voicing (their) objections". Your hubris is noted and as always ignored.

Why, you almost sound like a fan.

But I'm still not sure what it is you mean by "quests being unchanged". I'm not trying to be snide, but that's what I understood from your original post: That complaining about radiant quests in Dawnguard is silly since there were tons of them in Skyrim.

I'm not much of a fan of the Radiant quests in Skyrim. They're ok for a time or two but quickly become extremely repetative. I would rather just have a couple of truely unique side quests that are different and appealing. I never do a radiant quest more than twice anyway.

I complain about Radiant quests in both base Skyrim and Dawnguard because randomly generated "Go to X and kill Y" Radiant Quests are dull as all get out.

To me, sidequests are structured. They usually have stories, take longer than five seconds to complete, and offer rewards worth getting, either from being really good, or by being unique.

The Daedric quests are what I'd call Skyrim's sidequests.

Other examples would be things like the Stranger Missions, as well as the Hunter, Survivalist, Treasure Hunter, and Sharpshooter challenges in Red Dead Redemption, the Bounty Hunting in Final Fantasy XII, or the Ultimate Weapons and Summons quests in Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy always had enjoyable sidequests.

I agree completely.

Having radiant quests isn't a bad thing, as they provide filler in between the tastier quests (I space out my Main/side quests with radiant). But having them be the only thing aside from the main quests in Guilds/Factions, and consequently Dawnguard, is disappointing.

Agreed. I have nothing against the whole Radiant Quests idea as a concept, but you shouldn't have it stand alone. It's too insubstantial and emaciated to carry a whole game's sidequest system.

I think the radiant quests are a good thing. They add to the game without too much development work.
Creating non radiant side quests takes up much more time and therefore delaying the release of the game or expansion.

And in that case, people would be complaining too.

What would you rather complain about? That the next game/DLC took longer than expected to release, yet you loved the content they added? Or, that there's not much or at least not "unique" content and side-quests?

First off, I apologize for being so venomous in my initial remarks. Reading through more of what you've written, I think I understand where I misunderstood you and where you misunderstood me. My main point was that (at least to myself) ALL side quests are radiant quests, so I was confused when the OP said that people were complaining about it, because to me there wasn't a fundamental difference. Also, it seems odd to complain about a feature that is carried through an expansion but that isn't important here.

The part I mentioned about unchanged quest related specifically to the MQ in Dawnguard. I mostly mentioned that to make it clear that there wasn't a vastly different experience between the MQ's two different sides. That being the case, the two factions are mostly distinguished by the radiant quests they give, and that was the point I was trying to get across. Truly, the only real "side quest" in Dawnguard is the Aetherium one, but I would personally consider that just a regular quest, because it is pretty involved. So a lot of the fracas surrounding our discussion is being caused by my own caste system of quest organization ha ha.

Basically then, I think the point you initially made in your response to me was meant to imply that it is silly to not complain about a lack of "side quest" (using your meaning) content merely because there were radiant quests and if that is the case, I agree completely. Dawnguard didn't have a lot of interesting additions to it, quest wise, but then again I personally like radiant quests, just because they give me areas on to trek all over. Hopefully, that was a good treatment of what you were trying to say and what I was trying to say. If not... well, at least I tried lol.