What do you think will be the Catalyst that starts the DLC?

Meaning;

Will it come in a letter from a courier (Like in Hearthfire)

Will it come from over-hearing a 'random guard' talking about a rumor... (Like in Dawnguard)

Will a new NPC, come to you w/ a request dealing w/ the DLC (Like in Dawnguard)


Or

Perhaps it's something new, like the Greybeards summoning you with troubling information

Or

Perhaps you'll just stumble upon a new boat that'll take you to Solstheim

Thoughts?

All of the above... maybe

"Solstheim? A terrible place I've heard."

This I can see happening

How did we become aware of Shivering Isles in Oblivion? Wasn't it just hearing some random mumblings about something popping up somewhere. It'll probably be like that.

I bet this new Dragonborn guy, or the first one I guess, will be stealling all of our dragonborn thunder. Like we've been slaughtering dragon after dragon and we go unrecognized for months. This guy'll show up and all the guards will be chatting it up about him.

Personally, I'd like to be attacked by these 'followers' of the Dragon Priest/Dragonborn. On them will be a letter, starting the DLC/quest.

"Did you hear? There's word of a Dragonborn in Solstheim! It's good to know heroes will rise to protect us, even in times like these."

As long as it's not 'you've heard a rumour' or 'oh look, you narrowly avoided execution, then found a note in your pocket you never knew was there 'til now'. Oblivion handled this terribly. The simple wait until level ten then someone seeks you out because you have garnered a bit of fame from Dawnguard might not be fantastically deep, borderline cop-out perhaps, but it's a thousand times better than leave first dungeon, magically acquire information. At least FO3 had the flimsy excuse that your PipBoy could pick up scrambled transmissions, but still not good.

/rant, OT, they use couriers for everything else.

Paying your money for unlock.

"Hey, you mix Solstheim rite? Can you brew me a Dragonborn?"

woke up on the wrong side of the bed didnt we?

PC thinks: super trolling!

Just telling it how it is. You are arrested, dressed in rags, thrown in the IC jail, and the neither the guards or yourself find the letters of inheritance to the big tower on the mountain or the place with the shrine to Sithis.

Let's just hope they include random Reikling raids on the cities to kill our NPCs or else it won't be a true Skyrim DLC.

LOL

I have a cousin on Solstheim. The poor guy took a spear to the knee.

Maybe you need to collect all the Dragon Priest masks, obtain the mask of Konahrik, and then you have some sort of nightmare about him next time you go to sleep.

I doubt they'll do that. Many people would scream how difficult that is only to start the DLC.

As awesome as that would be, I think they'd have to un-dungeonlock the Morokei mask for that to happen. All that work, and a required 3/4ths of a questline?

Quest-locked Morokei + all the people who threw away/sold their masks... I don't see this happening.

I think the Greybeards will sense a new Dragonborn's presence. This might not be the start of the DLC (that'll probably be another rumour you hear from guards), but it will happen.

But the altar is in the trailer, which suggests to me that it is involved in the DLC in some way. What other use could there be other than to fill it up?

Perhaps you start the first Dragonborn quest earlier, but at some point I suspect you must collect all the Dragon Priest masks to proceed.

Like the unmasked Dragon Priest, it's only purpose is to visually support the line "once he was one of them... a Dragon Priest."

I don't deny that Konahrik might be the Dragon Priest from the trailer, and I believe that would be awesome, I just don't see his mask being a requisite artifact for procession through the storyline. It's already pretty clear that we'll have to start (and possibly finish) the main questline, but a second, largely unrelated questline that's divergent from several playstyles? I doubt it.

Furthermore, what would be the purpose of the mask?

Upon meeting Konahrik: Hey ugly! Got your nose...and the rest of your face... Want it back? FACE ME IN GLORIOUS BATTLE

As to my catalyst theory, it could end up being like Hearthfire. Some guy in Solstheim hears tales of your exploits from some migrant worker on the excavation site, and sends a courier with a letter telling you about this little problem he thinks you could help with, so could you please drop what you were doing and sail up to the island to check it out please? We'll pay you!

I haven't gone back to watch the trailer again but someone mentioned a snippet in it where you see the PC riding what looks like Odahviing with what looks like High Hrothgar in the background. Which gave me the thought that maybe all the crazy business with Alduin coming back and dragons being resurrected triggered something with this "first Dragonborn," woke him up, piqued his interest, whatever. The GBs and/or Paarth sense this the way they sensed a new Dovahkiin was in the hizzle after you shouted the first time, and summon you to HH. They're all "we have sensed a tremor in the Force, Dovahkiin" and you go talk to Paarth (if he's around) and/or Odahviing for more advice/info and end up with a quest to go off and investigate and then Odahviing flies you off to your destination, because, hey, you're right there and he's right there and he's got the flying thing down and it's a long hike from TotW to Solstheim and time's a-wastin'.

Personally I think that would be cool, but then I like the whole High Hrothgar vibe and enjoy going there.

Altho it's probably not gonna happen as it might be tricky to implement for players who have incurred the ire of the GBs for, uh, doing certain things, and doing those things would mean that the NPC most likely to overrule them and summon you anyway and provide advice and assistance isn't there any more.