Bassianus annoys me to an unreasonable extent. I take revenge by strolling along in my underwear, just to hear him complain, "Put something on! You're making me unseasonably...warm."

Heh.

I was still very upset when he and Fastred died in a vampire attack. Well, I could have cared less about Bassianus, but I felt deeply that it was my fault that Fastred died, because I'd told her to go to Riften.

It actually isn't DLC related. The vampire attacks a la Dawnguard occasionally fixes the problem but this is purely incidental. I first posted about it back in http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1367147-were-missing-out-on-a-lot-of-voice-acting-here-what-causes-this/page__fromsearch__1thread. That was back in April, which was two months before Dawnguard was released.

Here's the thing: in almost any settlement where two or more NPCs are living, you should be able to occasionally overhear conversations between the NPCs. It's all been scripted, voiced and programmed into the game already. If you spend a significant amount of time with them and nobody says a word to one another, then chances are, you've run into that stalling issue. Also, cows should be mooing. Seriously. The cow in Whiterun. Your Hearthfire cow. If your cow won't moo, then you've got the stalled dialogue issue.

Now, I wasn't aware of this back before I wrote that thread. What happened was, I was a member of the Thieves Guild and I was just pissing around one day. I lured a bunch of city guards and villagers into the Ragged Flagon Cistern just so I could watch a Thieves Guild vs City of Riften altercation. The guards were tougher, but the guild being made up of semi-essential NPCs eventually won. Once the fighting ended, something occurred that had never happened before. Sapphire and the others started having conversations with one another which shocked the crap out of me because they'd always been silent unless they were speaking to me.

Something during that fight corrected my game and restored the ambient conversation. The vampire attacks on towns appear to have the same effect. It doesn't mean the stalling won't occur again, but each attack seems to correct the problem.

Again, great info. I would love to see Beth fix this stalling issue. It sounds like it specifically has something to do with guards entering combat. Maybe after combat they return to a passive state, and that resets it?

Braggens guards have been very busy with combat almost since the day he arrived in Skyrim, he used to attract a lot of dragons and over in Riften still attracts a lot of thieves getting caught and ex Riften guards causing trouble. Which is probably why I never had the bug, everyone he meets including cows are very vocal. Yes he got even more attacks with Dawnguard, but apart from obviously blind guards now yelling Vampires! every time something attacks even if it is a dragon or the Dawnguard idiots, I never noticed any change in the frequency or content of the conversations.

It would seem how you play the game might affect if you get stalled conversations. My second character is very chatty (and never walks around without clothes), but is not a dragon magnet and till Dawnguard never got attacked in towns, yet she also only had the glitch with the guards now being fixated on vampires even when none are around. She does not seem to get many insulting remarks like Braggen does either. I always assumed it was because she was female and most guards are male. They usually comment on her armour, weapons or just say something nice.

It might, but it could be townsfolk, too. All I know is that I can't seem to "un-stall" the dialogue on my own, no matter how many fights I pick with guards/townsfolk. It seems to be reliant on a fight between other parties (e.g. guards/townies vs vampires)

Well i bet the guard with no clothes still comes out with the "you use 2 hands on your weapon-i can admire that line!

*cackling* Too funny!! Bet he wouldn't care for the 'delicates' comment!

My cows moo, but I don't speak moo, so they may be insulting me. LOL

Just glad to be hearing so many more dialogs, it's fun!