Okay, this is complete and utter nonsense.

I was a level six, I had enough built up level ups to reach level eleven BUT I WAS STILL LEVEL SIX. That last bit is important. I'd been in Whiterun doing little quests here and there for people before I was going to LEAVE Whiterun and head on down to where the entrance to the Dawnguard area is.

So I gave one last look around Whiterun, everyone was alive and well. And I left. I got to the road leading up to Black-Briar Lodge(?) where you get Frost. I decided I was far enough away and did my level up. I saw that I was close to level twelve and decided to kill the guards again at BBM. Upon exiting a courier delivers four, FOUR, letters of inheritance from Whiterun. Adrianne, dead. Carlotta, dead. Ysolda, dead. Breuin, dead (how the hell does a beggar have any money to give).

And no it wasn't a dragon attack, I hadn't even fought the first dragon yet.

I'm on the 360. What the hell were developers thinking with this crap? I wasn't even in Whiterun HOLD when I became level ten, let alone the city itself.

They need a patch to disable the city raids until they can fix it so that the vampires don't massacre the entire city while you aren't even there.

I can feel your pain. But I also welcome the vampire raids. While it is unfortunate that NPCs die it also adds some kind of threat to the game. I mean the Stormcloaks vs Imperials thing is a joke because you never actually experience fights between them. They only talk about it. Removing these encounters would do the same to the Dawnguard vs Vampire conflict because you would hear people talking about the vampire menace without ever seeing it for yourself.
So instead of removing them they should work a bit on the AI so that people run away from them and hide in building while the Guards defend the city.

You've never seen stormcloaks and imperials fighting each other? Maybe you should get out more. I've seen it all the time. Stormcloaks always win. I've also seen stormcloaks fighting Thalmor. Thalmor alway win. There are plenty of these 3 on 3 fights going on.

What I mean is that everyone talks about the "War" but the game never give you the feeling that a war is going on. A few NPCs fighting a few others is no war.

If you join with the Volkihar Clan (No idea if I got the spelling right), how do these raids work? They seem like quite a problem, but, if siding with the vampires do you have any control over them?

Nope.

The vampire raids make no sense as the raids are being done by thin blooded volkihar with no relation to the castle volkihar.

When you join the volkihar, the raiding vampires are still your enemies. They will still attack you and the towns. They will even be the targets of your side quests while working under the Volkihar as they are seen as "mistakes" created by accident, by the castle dwellers.

The point is the game just killed off FOUR characters when I wasn't even anywhere near them or the cell they are in. Nor did I meet any of the requirements for vampire raids to occur while I was in the cell.

This game mechanic is broken and until it is fixed the devs need to disable it because it's making the game not fun.

When you left Whiterun, did you go out the gate and by the stables? Or did you fast travel? I would suspect simply not using your perks and levelling up is not going to make any difference to avoiding the attacks happening, and the attack in the town, can spawn when you visit the stables, at least in Whiterun and Riften.

Read what I said. I was only level six. I didn't become level eleven until I was at the bottom of the hill that Black-Briar Lodge, which is in The Rift, is on. I didn't re-enter Whiterun Hold let alone visit the stables or the city itself. I went into BBL killed the guards inside and when I exited a Courier delievered the inheritence letters. Again I didn't enter Whiterun Hold or Whiterun or the damn Whiterun Stables.

This DLC is bugged, plain and simple. It does not operate as it is supposed to. It is broken and game breaking. When a game becomes NOT FUN it is not doing the job of being a game.

It's true the DLC is bugged but is it possible that they didn't get killed by vampires but instead they bugged out and died? Did you find ash piles as well?

I won't argue against the DLC being bugged, I know it is lol. But attacks shouldn't be possible while outside the cell unless the attacked started while you were inside, and then you left I guess?

I'm sure that if you leave during attack, wait 24 hours, then come back you don't see the fight right where it left off. Rather you'd see dead bodies.

Ysolda cannot die as of patch 1.5; patch 1.6 at least is requisite to run the DLC.

There's more to it than what you've said, so kindly tell me your platform.

Easily the 2nd worst decision that Beth has made with Dawnguard (The Dragon Scroll is 1st by a mile).

The very fact that this isn't optional and it kills Merchants and merchants don't have infinite gold is absolutely terrible. This was a great idea in theory but there's no way that this should have gotten through testing. What should have happened is that Vamp raids shouldn't begin until you visited Fort Dawnguard the 1st time. After you leave Fort Dawnguard then the attacks should start. The very fact that I have to do Dawnguard in order to avoid shopkeepers getting killed is [censored]. This is not a good feature at all and just adds more useless repetitiveness to a game that doesn't need it.

I don't know how people can defend this feature, the vamps will kill all your NPC's if you aren't vigilent and I shouldn't have to waste time just so a precious shopkeeper won't get killed. More tedious activites is bad.

People defend the feature because they believe that every player should be vigilant and should have to play the game in said fashion.

It's typically why any feature is defended. The individuals believe that you should play it that way and therefore it's your only option xD

Missed the point...vampire attacks should only begin once youve begun dawnguard...once youve visited the fort.

They dont make sense until then.

If it were like that alot of people would be more satisfied as they don't like that it's forced

I also welcome the raids. Fallout New Vegas was a sad joke when they tell that events occur , but never show you it, instead you have to "pretend" which was a reallly pathetic excuse for laziness even with the limited engine they had.

To OP:
What fun would it be if everyone was immune to dragons except you? Then you have to "pretend" that dragons are going around slaughtering people and you need a responsability to stop them.

Trust me, its a good feature whether we think it is or not.

Well, my current character is level 45, and didn't sight a vampire until level 30 something, and only had three dragons up to that point, and two of those were scripted.

I guess that means it isn't broken, and therefore nothing needs defending on the forums...or, it means that the vampire situation is very random, and that there are things that players can do to minimise the damage raids may cause.

Now, going back a few games, I remember people complaining about how lethal the DC wasteland could be, etc etc...yet these same people refused to use the good advice they were given on how to make it less lethal.

My point is, the raids seem on the evidence that they are random, and that there are things you can do to minimise the threat.

As Princeshroob said, there has to be more to the story.

I think they are completely random, fun, but pointless to the story since they aren't Harkons vampiers.

I don't think it should be removed. I think the NPC AI needs a tweak and that the variables for the attacks should be narrowed so that everyone gets a more even amount of attacks. Not 1 ever 50 days, or 50 in 1 day. But 1 every so often, sometimes a bit more often, then calm again.

But it seems that if your attacks started slow, they will always be slow. If they started high, they will always be high. It's like when you made the game there was a random number generated between 1-50 and that decided your attack experience. It's like you rolled a 1, and most rolled around 20, then a few people hit 50 lol

I've already said I'm on the 360.

Ysolda may be essential but Dawnguard doesn't care. She's dead. There were ash piles so I know it was vampires. Why is everyone asking these stupid questions like it's somehow user error. The DLC is bugged. It doesn't work how it's supposed to. The vampire raids happen in places the character isn't even near. I really fricking hate repeating myself. But I'll do it one more time.

I was only level SIX in Whiterun. I may have had the levels to be level ELEVEN but I WAS ONLY LEVEL SIX. Does everyone understand? Good moving on. Before I left Whiterun I patrolled the entire area within the city. There were NO FRAKKING VAMPIRES, got that? Good. I left Whiterun via the Gate. I got to Honningbrew Meadery and fast traveled to the Stables of Riften. I AM STILL LEVEL SIX. I rode to the end of the road where Black-Briar Lodge it (where you steal Frost). I leveled-up. I was now level ELEVEN, inside The Rift, NOT Whiterun Hold. I was close to level twelve and decided to kill the guards at and in the lodge.

After exiting the Lodge a Courier ran up and delivered the four letters of inheritance. Understandably confused, I went back to Whiterun and saw the ash piles. And I knew it wasn't a random dragon attack because I hadn't even fought the first dragon yet let along gotten the Golden Claw or the Dragonstone. I took all these precautions to avoid this sort of thing in the first place.

The DLC is broken. It starts when it shouldn't. It happens where it shouldn't. And kills who it shouldn't. I wouldn't mind having to fight off a random vampire raid but when the things happen halfway across the frakking map I DO FRICKING MIND!!!!

I'm uninstalling this piece of badly coded crap until I'm standing right outside the cave from now on.

Edit: Oh and it happened again. This time everyone else that could be killed in Whiterun was dead.

If only things that made sense happened, Skyrim would lose an awful lot of content.

And they don't make sense anyway - there doesn't seem to be any explanation in the game as to why vampires have suddenly become suicidal lunatics.

This is a new condition that has emerged this year known as "Dawnguard Syndrome". This mysterious affliction causes sufferers otherwise fully aware of the way in which Bethesda games can present bugs, glitches and randomness that doesn't affect every player in the same way to suddenly fail to accept Dawnguard can possibly play in any way other than the way in which they personally experience it.

The point of the raids is to kill everyone. The Vampires are dangerous enemies. Everything has its consequences. You just werent there when they were attacked. Grief can do that to you.

Edit: Vampire raids is not a bug. They were put in the game. Nothing wrong there. I think people are just grieving. Its alright. I lost 3 people to the evil blight of the vampires. But i grew stronger and fought Harkon and now the Vampires have stopped attacking towns in fear of me!

If it is a feature then it's a very poorly-thought-out feature. I don't want my game to kill off NPCs before I have a chance to interact with them. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's poor game design.

"The point of the raids is to kill everyone?" You can't be serious. Your idea of good game design is for the game itself to kill off everyone? Often when we are not even in a position to do anything about it? If this is your idea of good game design thank the gods that you aren't a game developer.

This is not fun for most of us. And it is not good game design for any of us.

Why do people persist in framing gameplay mechanics as "consequences". "Consequences" of what? Installing Dawnguard? Not rushing through an add-on above all other content as quickly as possible?

It's no wonder Bethesda persistently get away with their lousy writing and lack of actual consequences in their linear FPS style quest design when people routinely have such strange ideas of what "consequences" are. I truly do despair.

I Thought they did not attack if you dont have the Dawnguard quests in your log?

its best to save a lot with Dawnguard installed