i have been reading over the forums about these vampire attacks and i have also been a victim of these ruthless seiges, i managed to fight off the two attacks and thought that i managed to save the npc's in my game. I have found out that the courier which contacts you gives you a letter about inheritance from a dead npc, i recieved this note the second day after purchasing dawnguard.

these vampires will attack any town you go near or enter
an example is that i had an attack while i was in whiterun, the master vampires managed to rip the villagers to shreds so i reloaded. A vampire attack happened again, this time only one master vampire i managed to kill him off with no casualties. i went outside the gates of whiterun to the stables only to find two death hounds taking out the npc's there as if they were nothing, my horse was thrown into the air and killed instantly. i reloaded multiple times trying to save all the npcs but every single time they managed to die, i then decided to reload to before i travelled to whiterun so that the attacks never happened.

I'm paranoid because i know that the vampires can kill npc's without you being aware of it going on, whether the vampires massacre the npc's on the other side of town or the mysterious traveller sneaking into house without you ever knowing they were there. i dont feel safe entering any town now even if i dont see an attack because i know that there is a massacre probably happening on the other side of town. i have played atleast 20 hours plus since buying this dlc and i will have to reload it to before then because i dont feel comfortable knowing that npc's are dead, they should only die if i kill them myself.

the people which think these are just as bad as dragon raids need to think harder, dragons attack towns on their own. they have their own battle music and are easy to spot, they only ever focus on one person and most of the time its the player, if npc's die then you can reload. lower the difficulty and get rid of the dragon with ease.

now with vampire attacks they come in a variety of forms. master vampire and the weaker vampires attacks in groups and can eliminate npc's with a single blow most of the time. the mysterious traveller killing off npc's in their houses while you are busy killing off the other vampires, death hounds are unfairly fast and over power npc's very easily.

the people which think this is a good feature are wrong, you may think its fun now but do you really want to baby sit every npc in every town, stable, camp you visit for the rest of the bloody game? it WILL become an annoyance inevitably. in time every single npc will be dead. no more shopping or collecting quests. bethesda said that the player controls their own experience. if you want danger go to a cave, ruins or fight dragons and giants. if you want some time to relax, store your gear. go to town and speak with the npc's. this new feature has removed this and turned the whole game into a war zone, it feels more post apocalyptic than the fallout games, and its more unforgiving than dark souls.

I'm all for vampire attacks just not in towns and cities, let them attack me in the wilderness as long as npc's dont get harmed. bethesda get your [censored] together.

What can I say? The security in Whiterun is terrible.

Shameful is what it is.

That guy complains so much about whiterun's guard, while he sits on his ass all day and drinks mead.

Its not "Every player that has installed the DLC" Its every HIGH LEVEL player that has installed the dlc xD Im level 20 and a typical vampire attack (one master and two thralls) managed to kill one guard before dying (fighting 2 guards vs 3 vamps).

I am confident that the town guard can do well. I hope, if I could hire more guards I would. I just hope they do not kill Aela, without her I will no longer be able to feed in the safety of my own home.
I wish I could have a Thalmor patrol in Whiterun. They are good guards.

I am level 60 and only had Whiterun attacked and I easily dispatched the vamps. They have not been an issue for me yet.

This is the bit that really concerns and what I think some people aren't bearing in mind. Ok some people don't care if NPCs die - some massacre them all themselves - fine for them.
Some people seem to be enjoying the drama - fine.
But forever - this stuff going on every time you play Skyrim as long as Dawnguard is installed and you're level 10 - c'mon. Zombie apocalypse mods are fun, buit not the sort of thing you want permanently installed. I can't get my head round it. Bethesda's whole pitch is you do what you want when you want. Want to ignore the MQ? Fine. Want to have 20 quests on the go? Fine. Want to start a quest and finish it 80 hours later when you've done eberything else? Fine. It's one of their major selling points. Not Want to do blood on the ice while you totally ignore Dawnguard? Fine - it's just vampires might keep spawning and killing people while you do. A DLC should not actively interfere with the core game in a dramatic fashion whether you're doing itsquests or not. Who the hell at Bethesda dreamed this up?!?

For the people who are having the guards manage this and it's not that apocalyptic - can you really see this remaining fun in two months time when you're bored of the Dawnguard quests but still want the extra gear and abilities?

Most of my vampire attacks end with a dead guard or 2. I manage to kill them before they get out of hand and kill named Npcs.

Nope.

I don't fast travel.

To be fair the quests basically deal with a vampire threat to all Skyrim if not Tamriel anyway XD

you have claimed that you fought off the vampires, but those are the ones you have 'seen'
think about the vampires attacking without your knowledge, this high possibilty will drive you insane with paranoia

I'd like the idea of being able to upgrade the guards. Like pay the Jarl of that town money to upgrade them, or something.

I thought I would add my experience to the Vampire Attack debate. I’m level 50, playing on the Vampire Lord side and I just finished finding the 2^nd Elder Scroll. I don’t usually fast travel but after reading so much about other peoples experiences I became curious to see if I could trigger the Vampire Attack. Let me say that before I fast traveled I have never “noticed” a vamp attack in my game. I traveled to Winterhold where I immediately saw a vampire, vampire thrall and later a master vampire attack guards. Crazy enough… an Elder dragon attacked right after I killed them. The guards seemed to handle the fighting but the Jarl was running around outside. I can’t be sure if any NPC is dead besides a guard but there is an ashpile with no name. I searched it and thank god no college robes. I would be extremely irritated if a mage trainer died and I couldn’t complete the master ritual quests. Soooooo yeah I agree now… this needs to be fixed.

Edit: I reloaded and walked back into town this time. There was no vampire attack this time, but the Elder Dragon still showed up... what I noticed is that with the dragon, the Jarl waited until it was dead before he came outside and then it was only to look at the corpse and say "In all my life I never...". I'm officially sworn off all fast traveling now.

2nd Edit: It's definitely time dependent. I arrived at 6:30 PM walking into town, went into a tavern for a bit and came out after dark... the vampires were there the second i opened the door.

the vampires will still attack for the rest of the game so the issue will never be solved unless bethesdagamestudios removes the attacks in towns and citites

its good to see how you realise that over time this will completely ruin a game, its ridiculous that this problem doesnt affect the dlc quest at all. but can obliterate vanilla skyrim

Nothing to do with fast travelling at all. Go to any city, wait til around 11pm, enter a building, exit the building and almost 100% chance some form of vampire will spawn in your city.

vampires only attack when you enter cities and even then, for me anyway, its pretty rare

that wouldnt really fix the problem, npc's are still [censored] as hell. like i said in my post, do you really want to get into a fight everytime you want to go to a store, or your house and drop off some gear? i dont think so

attacks for you are either really rare, or that the mysterious traveller attacks in your game are really common so you wouldnt notice them. think about that

Not technically true, they spawn anytime the city cell is loaded, so this means anytime you leave an interior cell at night time and the city reloads, the event has a decent chance of happening.

I actually fast travelled about 20 times to whiterun at night trying to get vamps to spawn and they wouldnt do it. Only time it happens for me is upon leaving a building.

On a related note, Kotaku posted a review of Dawnguard, and even had a link to one of these threads in the review. He didn't clarify of course that you also get the attacks if you're a vampire as well though.

I recently had an attack in Solitude where the Master Vampire and two death hounds spawned in at the other entrance to the city. By the time I had reached (ignoring the time it took for me to realize that there was an attack) the area two people were already dead, and they were well on their way to killing a third. I managed to save the last person, but then later found the ash piles of the other two civilians.

Ok I have NOT experienced this yet and I have quite a few hours in this dlc. But for those that are, if it is as your describing it then it is a problem for you guys.

I do have random attacks on towns, but only right in font of me as I enter the city. What can I say, I was lucky enough to get into the beta so maybe I'm just lucky

Also I have never seen this mysterious traveler you speak of. I though all of you where just making a joke because you kept finding dead npc's on the other side of town I didn't know this was an actual guy that you where seeing

you need to remember that npc's will die in your game eventually, give it time and you will realise how empty the towns have become....

On the topic of the mysterious traveler, Monkeybiscuit had a thread on him which was later merged into one of the other threads. Here's a quote from him on it:

3weeks of nonstop play and not a single npc is dead