Do the vampire attacks only occur at night?
If so, one could just circumvent attacks in towns by not not going out at night.
You know, that old medieval paranormal paranoia about the darkness.

So you're basing your decision to buy it off of other people's over-exaggerations?

I've played well over 100 hours of the Expansion through the Beta test and after that. It's really not as bad as a small minority of people are saying. It's no more common or lethal than a Dragon attack. Seriously.

I've only seen two guards attack at most. I don't know where the three cities worth are.

I've had attacks in all of the major Hold cities, and even in the smaller Hold Capitals like Morthal and Falkreath, pretty much every guard in the Cities (both inside and out, the ones inside came rushing out, etc...) comes rushing out side and starts stomping mud-holes into the Vampires and their thralls.

I'm seeing a lot of people complain about it. I'd expect some are over-exaggerating and some underplaying it. The variety of experiences does seem very varied though, so I do wonder if there isn't a bug in there somewhere. I already thought the Chicken Wing Lords look stupid so I'm not interested in them and from what I'm seeing on youtube it looks okay but not worth risking messing up the core game for. Skyrim is already experiencing a civil war and dragon attacks, so I think adding a vampire invasion on top of that is asinine and symptomatic of Bethesda's inability to write creatively and intelligently - instead they've just bunged in more attacks to make it more 'exciting'. So the whole invasion idea does not appeal because I regard it as very silly.
Dragons are easiiy noticed, there's one of them and they can usually be dealt with. And (in my game at least) they very, very rarely attack inside a walled town. I see the towns as a chilling zone and think they should have plenty of people in them. The idea of regularly having to defend their populace when I've popped back to do some trading or talk to quest people I think would make the game tedious for me.

And again I'd emphasise all game. I'm sure some people finding it fun now will pretty soon start getting frustrated. Just look at how people started moaning about dragon attacks after the initial thrill wore off. It's only been out a couple of days and it's already doing a lot of people's heads in. That makes it sound pretty unappealing to me.

+1.

Ok, I understand what people are talking about now... Just fast traveled and saw a Vampire shank Adrianne... Reloaded but thats just annoying as frick.

The irony of this quote being that if you play this DLC long enough you'll ONLY have kids wandering around.

I'll just mod the random vampire attacks out, simple as that.

After seeing so many topics... I'm not buying this DLC before a mod comes out on the PC. Too many complaints about it, it's just too risky. I cannot believe that this stupid feature on such an amazing dlc made me avoid it. I was really excited for the DLC - Crossbows, Werewolf perks, new armor and story. I never expected or wanted a stupid vampire death squad to come into cities and start killing everyone. The guy in the office who suggested this, should be slapped!

What is the whole point of these invasions ? For immersion ? And I cannot believe the people who are saying that these things are okay. That it's okay to lose a few NPCs in a city... IT'S A CITY! A safe haven . NPCs are there to give me misc. quests (which I love doing and collecting when I visit a city), being forced to NOT FAST TRAVEL (as some people suggest which is lame) or look over my shoulder as I conduct business in the stronghold. The Fast Travel is an option within the game and apparently I should avoid it because of the DLC? Hell no!

Have in mind that even 1 dead Misc. quest giver is 10-15 minutes less gameplay for you depending if you explored the area for the quest or not. And every one of those misc. quest givers have a unique story behind them. THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE KILLED!

As I understand it, the attacks start as soon as you install it and you're level 10 - that's simply a consequence of puchasing it.
Consequences are when a character makes a decision and that decision has repercussions. Consequences are not about random attacks killing random NPCs for the rest of the game.

I lol'd at all of this.

It's your game, buy it or don't, it won't in any way affect me or the tens of thousands of people who will enjoy this expansion.

The people who can't get past this one minor detail of the invasion themed expansion are in a vast minority amongst players. Bethesda wrote it this way for a reason, and it fits in with the overall mood of the expansion very nicely.

So do what you do. It won't change anything about the game, and you're not going to sway the vast majority of people who really love what they've done with this expansion.

It's getting rave reviews all across the gaming community, and even the city attacks are far more loved than hated.

Have fun until Hearthfire comes out.

What I fail to understand is how the Vampires get through the legion of guards between the Whiterun outskirts and the Main Gate.

When you have a city of nothing but guards you won't

I've had playthroughs where I couldn't BUY a random dragon attack, and ones where I get attacked 5 times in 10 minutes....bet it's the same with vampire attacks.....I just don't want to defend against them all game long with EVERY character I make, just because I have Dawnguard installed

It's because they're disguised as "Traveler" until they reach a certain point in the target city.

I don't recall saying anything about swaying anyone - I was simply giving my personal opinion.

And I don't see it as minor. I see it - as i have said - as potentially spoiling the core game quite significantly and making it a chore. I do not play games to experience tedium, I play them to have fun.

And I appreciate it's invasion themed - and IMHO the whole notion is, as I said, bad writing given the existing set-up. There's a civil war going on, but I haven't seen anyone complaining hordes of Stormcloaks aren't marauding around Falkreath killing everybody. And dragons are attacking, but people still get irritated when they wipe out NPCs. To me it seems far more tedious than immersive - to a degree the content I've seeen isn't worth it. And that's just what I think.


And as I also said, I think a couple of days is far too short a time to be saying it's wonderful if it happens all game. I would assume whatever backlash there is has barely begun. The fact so many people are complaining so quickly is what concerns me.

As a VL, I have only had one Vamp attack on a city and it was one Master vamp who the gate guard easily dispatched. I finished the main quest and have had no reandom vamp attacks as of yet. (Knock on wood)

If they did it properly, people would be boarding up their doors and windows. More guards would be posted. They would hire vampire hunters to patrol the streets. Npcs would run into their homes when a vamp shows and carry a crossbow just incase. It isn't immersive, it's just annoying.

I got the DLC playing as Vampire lord only random attack I've suffered so far was from 2 dragons and a bandit I came across while wondering in the wilderness. My character is currently lvl 40 almost 41 and I've completed the MQ,all FQ's, and the Civil war chain.

I was just lurking in another forum (where people are moaning about it) and someone said the vampires can enter buildings - is this true?

And it happens no more often than a Dragon attack. Everyone easily handles those, these vampire attacks are taken care of just as easily.

And the frequency of the attacks drops dramatically once you complete either side of the DLC (Vampires or Dawnguard), as that side is seen to have "won", attacks from the opposite side don't happen nearly as often.

Seriously though. It really is not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

There....fixed that for you

I heard something about a "Mysterious Traveller" on another forum, an npc that is actually sneaking and can enter buildings to kill NPCs.

That explains alot.. I'm a Vampire so they don't attack cities as often..

And there are many, many more people that agree with me than ones that don't.

And you failed your cleverness check. That type of edit is about as old and worn out as it gets. Try being creative for once.