Why are Vampires and death hounds attacking cities when I'm only level 9 and haven't been to Dawnguard yet? They've killed 2 people I've had active quests with. I managed to save one by loading a checkpoint and running to save the person but surely this shouldn't be happening yet. No?

You probably should have been reading forums like this one over the last month.

Welcome to the world of Dawnguard.

Welcome to our world now

Really? Is this what I have to look forward to? My god, it's one thing after another with this game.

Yep Dawnguard is good but if you dont take some necessary precautions your Skyrim world will become very empty very fast.

Which precautions should I take. I really don't want this to happen. Do they attack random towns or only the ones I'm in? I'd like the chance to try and save the town.

You have to be kidding me. Bethesda didn't fix this before the PC release!! Do they even know there is a forum here!!

Dang I can't believe it. Thankfully I can wait until there is a user patch to fix this before I buy the game.

Dont enter citys/towns after dark try not to fast travel if you are going to enter a city at night save first. Dont do the whiterun redguard quest as it will keep the two redguard guys standing at the gates. Dont leave inns after dark as that can trigger an attack at the city gates. You could even go as far as to reverse pickpocket the NPCs giving them some decent weapons. As always unless your playing dead is dead then follow the three golden rules of Skyrim. Rule 1 save often ,rule two save often, rule three see rules one and two.

Is that a feature or a bug?

I'm beginning to wonder if this DLC is a feature or a bug.

Wait, you mean vampires and werewolves randomly attack villages? THIS IS FRIGGIN AWESOME!!!!

Especially if you enjoy not being able to do dozens of quests because of the dead NPC's. Awesome!

Save before going into a city and problem solved. If you FT straight into the city, then it's a risk you'll have to get used to. FT to the stables and save before entering gates and you'll be ok. As for places like Riverwood etc, if you do have to FT, then FT to the nearest point available that isn't the village and walk. FT increases these encounters considerably.

one save i used FT and had countless encounters and in my current save, which i haven't used FT, I've yet to encounter any vampires or death hounds and I'm now level 47.

Makes the game that much more realistic, and sometimes gives the a sense player of not being able to do something, instead of the game holding your hand through the entire quests.

I've only seen vampire attack cities/towns with a couple of Death Hounds at their side. They killed the blacksmith in Riften and then the elven woman selling food out the back of the bee and barb. Both gone for good! I wouldn't mind this but the towns won't repopulate and people will miss out on quests they never knew existed.

Preach on!

Yeah - who needs quests in an Elder Scrolls game??
Or cities with the tiny amount of NPCs there in the first place left in them??
This is the COD generation where it's all about killin', none stop killin'.
Cities are lame - people are just walking about and stuff giving out quests and lame stuff like that - cities are only any good if it's a good old fashioned massacre.
Wait until the next DLC finally introduces werebears - that spawn in traders shops and marketplaces only!
If you can't stand the heat then concoct elaborate strategies about where you go and when and do lots of reloading - who wouldn't pay $20 for that???

Empty towns and citys are not more realistic if they repopulated then ok ,but when I fist started playing Dawnguard I lost the whole of shors stone most of whiterun half of riften and all of Darkwater crossing.

I've always thought vampires launching totally pointless suicide attacks that achieve nothing except killing a few traders that serve only to irritate the player was the epitome of realism. Whenever I think of Vampires I always think of a kind of undead Al Qaeda with a set of dire grievances against traders in Riften that compel them to sacrifice their lives for the greater goal of taking down Brand Shei. It makes perfect sense.

I also thought Skrim's fantasy fiction wasn't realistic enough with dragons attacking in the middle of a Civil War. I find suddenly introducing a suicidal vampire invasion on top of that makes the whole narrative that much more plausible. All it needs now is a zombie apocalypse and alien invasiion and the game will truly come alive.


Games are so much more fun when they arbitraily present the player with random situations they can do nothing about that adversely affect their gamep[lay. It's the pinnacle of good game design.
I'm really hoping when Doom 4 finally emerges the gameplay consists of the player locked in an impregnable transparent box while they helplessly watch demons kill everybody with them totally powerless to stop them. That would be awesome.

Its an intended feature. It just is supposed to be rare.

Just like the bug where Dragons attack cities... oh wait...
Yeah, RPGs are about static enviorments, NOTHING SHOULD EVER CHANGE UNLESS YOU DO IT, random events are bad.

I mean, guards are only there in case YOU do anything, nothing should EVER happen in a town unless YOU do it, otherwise it's a stupid FPS...

This totally makes sense...

Except Bethesda have had a month of a sizeable proportion of 360 players telling them it is not rare for them and complaining about it and yet apparently done nothing to remedy the situation for the PC release or even acknowledge it's happening.

It takes time to make a patch.
Get some patience.

gwads be praised. Nexus has mods already to help with this for us PCers.

I used to be a problem for me, but if found out a few things that help deal with the attacks.
1. If you have the detect dead spell in alteration, USE IT. It really helps you find the vampires before they have a chance to kill someone.
2. Play on master. On master, enemies may do 2.0x damage to you, but they do 0.5x damage to each other, making it less likely npcs will die in one hit.
3. Always be on guard. If you're not, hello dead city!
Don't get me wrong, I want this "feature" fixed, but these are just a few things I do that really help stopping vampires from killing npcs.