First of all, I think this game is absolutely amazing, beautiful and wonderful, so thank you for creating it.

However... the installation of the dlc Dawnguard added a negative twist to the game. Vampires keep attacking cities and killing merchants and other npcs. Sometimes I can prevent this, but sometimes I have to reload a save, as npcs got killed. One time I entered Riften during the day and entered the general goods store the Pawned Prawn and the man Bersi Honey-Hand that usually sells goods was gone, replaced by his wife Drifta. I never even saw a fight or that merchant's body. Because of this I cannot always sell my stuff there because the wife is walking around town or the door is simply locked. Some merchants don't have spouses or a shop assistant, which means you cannot sell or buy anything from that shop anymore when the owner is dead. It's quite demotivating having to expect a fight or finding out npcs are gone. I sometimes even avoid going into cities at night because of this. I even heard from other people, that some of their cities were quite empty of npcs, so please don't let those vampires turn my cities into ghost towns.

Please let me know whether you are experiencing this too. Do you consider it a problem? Does it even stop upon completing Dawnguard?

I truly hope you will fix this problem, because it does not improve the game. It would be much better not having to worry about entering a city at night.

Ps. this is my opinion, thus this does not mean that everyone agrees or has to agree with me, but please do respect each others opinion.

Happen here aswell, I enter Windhelm and there's 2 dead body. A vampire master and the female dark elf who's take care of the kid.
Reload is your best choice. (I can't be bother to that)

What?...did you think all that negative feedback and hootin/hollerin about ditching/uninstalling Dawnguard was about art direction or something?

I've been lucky to only have like 2 attacks in a town, and one in the wild.

Idiot shop keepers run in head first at the vamps, I try to aggro the vamps and a rogue attack hits a guard. All of a sudden all the guards are more concerned about me than the vampire so... Things get annoying. It's not like hitting a dragon, hard to miss a dragon. No I'm hitting one guy in a mob of 8, that's a bit easier when everyone is constantly moving. Luckily I've yet to lose any shop keepers to them.

On a side note when dragons attack cities the guards yell out vampire! They need glasses...

All in all it would be better if all non guards ran inside at the sight of trouble, just like the random civilians.

I don't have a problem with named shop-keepers being killed, not at all. But leaving a shop empty is just bad all around and kills the game from all standpoints, RP or otherwise. This, I think, really needs to be fixed in some way. It makes no sense that a thriving shop or market stall would not be taken over by another entrepreneur.

Vampire attacks ? A great feature that add thrill and immersion,i wish we could have even falmer,werevolves and fornsworns attacking towns in the future - but with a good ai that prevents normal citizens to start a fight with such enemies,they've to run in their houses instead,and so horses

If and when an npc dies accidentally someone else must replace him in the game after tot. days if he was a merchant or someone involved in an important quest - otherwise patience,it adds immersion after all

I'm surprised they didn't change this in the last patch. Thank God there was a mod on Nexus to fix this.

Thanks for your replies so far. I was hoping with that last patch that this would be solved too. Who has finished Dawnguard? Do the vampire attacks stop?

Vampire attacks stop after the main Dawnguard quest is complete.

I disable Dawnguard until I'm ready to blitz through the main quest start to finish. While doing it I don't go near any settlements to avoid having NPCs killed off.

How do you disable the Dawnguard dlc? That would be a brilliant option. I play it on the xbox360.

Finished dawnguard and was wondering what happened to all the vampire attacks! Unfortunately I lost the merchant in Winterhold but it's no biggie at the end of the day. Thought maybe it was removed from all the complaints. I noticed that the random dawnguard soldier attacks have stopped too.

Until you finish Dawnguard it doesn't stop. It keeps going and going and going and going....

It's obnoxious. I can't imagine why Bethesda thought this was a good design choice. It's basically a reoccurring pest that systematically removes useful NPC's.

So it's possible to go through Dawnguard without entering any of the cities? (I mean, there aren't any quests that require you to talk to any NPC in the cities/towns?)

That would be helpful, I've been putting off buying Dawnguard because I really don't like the idea of under-populated cities in my games.

You have to go to Dragon Bridge, but your fanged fans if they follow will appear a very long way up the road, just head up the road and check and you can wipe them out before they get to the town. If you go to the Mages College, it seems random events are turned off, it never caused an attack on Winterhold for any of my characters, not even a dragon turned up. Side quests require you to go to towns, but you can leave them till after the main quest. I have done side quests on both sides after the main Dawnguard quest and not got any further attacks, but I am not expecting that to last. My VL caused an attack on Dawnstar working on his vampire perks after the main quest, he only went near the Sancuary, no where near the town.

On paper it seems like a good idea, but in game the stupid AI of the town folks make those attacks obnoxious.

Fix the AI so that only guards run towards vampire (while other folks just flee) and it would be ok, right now it's just a pain.


And sometimes you run into a dead body in the street, but with no evidense that it was due to an attack (no dead vampire or traces of blood). It happen with my fence in windhelm, she lies dead in front of the entrance but no sign of figthing or other dead bodies. Hopefully i have already finish the thieve guild quest that involve her (but still loose a good fence). I can't reload since i don't know when this happen.

I just created a new character, but I don't feel like doing those dlc quests so soon, but I don't want my npc to die off either...These attacks kinda force you to complete Dawnguard as soon as possible, right?

Does anybody know how to disable it, so I can enable it when I'm a higher level, without having to delete the dlc? I do want to play the dlc, and it is useful that it enables you to make arrows and more stuff that it gives you, but I don't want it to influence my game as strongly as it does now. Maybe I should finish the dlc now... is the dlc doable when your character is a low level?

i love it i do. whats the point in having a vampire uprising, if they never attack???? admittidly the npc A I needs work, surely they could patch it in where civilians run and guards stay. but then maybe the civilians skyrim are very brave and would rather fight to the death? if someone was attacking my street and they were hellbent on killing everyone i wouldnt cower in my frontroom waitin for them, id be out there gettin stuck in with everyone else...

Excellent, that's good news. Thanks!

You have got to be kidding right? Nice joke.

Maybe they should have got the NPC AI right first before they dumped these raids into the game.

Secondly If someone was hellbent on killing everbody in my local area I would hope that my police force was out there dealing with them. If they came into my house with the same intent , well then game on!

Another question, can you still do all sidequests after finishing the main quests of dawnguard? Or are they only temporarily available during the main quests of dawnguard? E.g. the side quest Lost to the Ages or Bolstering the Ranks.

An hour ago I was playing with my new level 9 character and came back to Whiterun at about 4am and there was one vampire attack outside the city and I killed it. After doing some business in the city I went outside the city gates for another quest around 9 am (thus daylight time), and I heard some fighting down by the horse stall where I saw two of those death hounds. One npc was already dead. I don't get it I thought that these things would not occur before level 10, and the sun was shining bright.

I think the DLC also broke the time in the game. I can enter towns in the middle of the night and villagers are walking about when they were normally in their homes, asleep. It's so annoying. Even in my own home, my husband and housecarl will NEVER sleep, no matter the time of night. I can even use the bed for a few hours and they are still awake. It's very annoying as I'll never get the extra bonus.

That wasn't the DLC, my wife and Housecarl don't sleep ether and i don't have Dawngaurd. (stupid Bethseda) But ya not everyone should be up at 3 in the morning.

Probably because it is impossible to patch DLC directly, the most they could do is make regular citizens flee from battle.

Really I've heard complaints of attacks even after Dawnguard is finished.

Are you on the PC? I'm sure by now they've made mods to do the job. On the 360 you happen to be screwed.

Yes there is a mod on the PC, I have used it from the begining and not one attack, must get back and endorse it.

They were always walking around when you fast travel to a town, they were even walking around in the early housr of the morning if any of my characters went through the gates, they start in the default postion and retire if it is night, so just about everyone is walking around. Housecarls do not normally sleep, my only character who is married had his wife sleep once, and she had a snooze after he turned her into a vampire. Maybe you just never noticed some things before?


You can do side quests at any time, like with other questlines, vampires can attack at any time, just like a vampire character you are playing can wander around at any time. No idea why you would get attacks before level 10, had you done something to start the Dawnguard questline? You can I think start Dawnguard before level 10, but you would have to go looking to start it before you got the hints from the guards or the recruiter found your character. My newest character is still happily ignoring Dawnguard despite getting all the hints, he told the recruiter he was not interested and no attacks have happened yet.