My point wasn't so much that I think the Dawnguard NPCs will be lacking, but rather I think Dawnguard has probably caused a lot of other NPCs we've seen to be lacking.
My point was that Bethesda seems...undisciplined. If they get bored with an idea or concept, they just drop it. If a new idea comes along that they like, they devote all their time to it (and may drop it again in the future when it becomes boring). While this is, in a sense, perfectly fine, they should at least have the discipline to tie up loose ends in a believable way with a natural transition.

A lot of people are saying "it doesn't break lore!!" Yeah ok, let's get real here: with the godlike ability of the Daedra, it's pretty hard for ANYTHING to break lore. Any time something outlandish happens, Bethesda can say "Azura did it" as the excuse.
But more importantly, it lacks natural transition. We've NEVER heard jack about winged vampires or demonic looking, all powerful vampire lords. Some say "well they've been hiding!!" No see, that doesn't matter. If you're the WRITER, you at least provide some clue for the audience, for example maybe briefly mention this strain of vampire in a book written by a man thought to be crazy or the like.

But let's take a second and look at factions and groups that seem to lack natural transition:

-Volkihar are M.I.A.. Reported to be the Skyrim brand of vampires in Oblivion, they're now suddenly missing entirely without clues as to why or how.
-Werebears were famed for being a real problem in Skyrim. Again, they're suddenly missing entirely without explanation or clues as to why or how.
-This new vampire strain is suddenly here out of nowhere, hopefully they'll explain why or how.
-Redguards have gone from detesting magic in Oblivion with one NPC's entire personality type being that he was the token black guy for the mages guild, and he went out of his way to make it perfectly clear to us that redguard hate magic. Another Redguard necromancer found in the game had to flee Hammerfell because the people there wanted to kill him for practicing magic. Come Skyrim, Redguard utilize magic no problem. The argument again is "a lot of time has passed!!" yes, but Bethesda left behind zero literary tools to suggest such a change was coming. Hell, they pointed us in the OPPOSITE direction, saying they hated it. Now they use it and Nords hate magic....Very awkward transition.
-Shadowscales. They're presented to us in Oblivion like this interesting new concept of Argonian culture, then next game Bethesda says "NEVERMIND THEY ALL DIED LOL." Like wtf?


Bethesda seems to get bored with ideas and isn't afraid to move on and try new ones. This is fine, but again, at least leave behind REALISTIC TRANSITION for us to follow. Things like the Shadowscales and the Redguard adopting magic, that's the sort of thing where it's best if Skyrim shows slight usage of magic by redguard (more specifically, it shows them as a culture trying it for the first time and admitting they'd like to experiment with it more) and where the statement on Shadowscales isn't "I'M THE LAST ONE LOL" but rather "my homeland is starting to walk away from the concept of Shadowscales, no longer forcing such children to become assassins." THEN in TES VI you can make Redguard full-on adopt magic or make Shadowscales extinct if you so choose. Things like the volkihar and werebears? Those just need to be here.

Natural transitional flow and commitment is all we're asking for. It's quite a simple request. Right now though Bethesda is handling these factions and groups like a child who gets excited over the idea of building a treehouse, but then annoyed at how hard it is so they leave it as a tree....platform. Then they get excited about learning to ride a skateboard and whine for a really expensive brand of skateboard, but then they ride it and fall and scraqe their knee and never try again and the $200 skateboard collects dust in the closet. Then they decide they want a pet dog, but after it grows from a puppy to a full grown dog it's no longer cute and they neglect caring for it. Then they decide they wanna join the baseball team but but but.....

A LITTLE commitment to your own lore, please.

That's what I was hoping for, but we know nothing of the Dawnguard yet - maybe there's more to them? Maybe they have a deeper purpose and they're hunting vampires not simply because they're vamps, but because of what they're trying to do?
There's a "guard" in their name. What are they guarding? And from whom exactly?
They could just be protecting the world from abominations, like the Vigilants of Stendarr - or maybe something more interesting, something bigger, something that spans beyond just saving living from the undead.

Maybe they're not the Volkihair.

This.

Also we don't know the story, I'd rather actually play the new questline to make my decision on how "dumb" it is. You obviously, can decide on a minute trailer showing mainly cinematic clips.

I mean.. it DOES look like it could add some fun elements. But Cheesy action movies can be "fun" .


On the dawnguard order side we have an Ancient looking order that has APPEARED FROM NOWHERE and has never been mentioned before. Furthermore there are already Orders dedicating to fighting undead.


On the vampire side...
Firstly skyrim's Main Group of vampires are the Volkihair . Who Live (or stay dead, whatever) underneath Frozen lakes. They are basicaly "ice vampires" and so probably look like Drowned corpses covered in frost. Not a bunch of Fancy people living in an island castle (which might be akaviri).
Secondly the bat magic- What a horrible cliche that doesn't fit with the magical rules of Tamriel . You Summon spirits or Daedra- Not small and fluffy animals! It does look nice but so do shiney things.
The werewolf like transformation is also a Non tes thing. It's like they just ripped ideas of a movie to be Epic and hip.

The only way we'll ever know about this DLC is if we play it. I'm keeping my options open and to be honest I do want new lore imo.

This 100%, I have no problem with new lore. It's not like lore is scientific fact, it's just rubbish made up by developers.

I can sort of understand why some people are a little annoyed if they contradict previous lore, but maybe they are looking at it too black and white, this isn't earth. Who's to say what's possible and what isn't, so when people say stuff like "vampire transformations like that aren't correct to TES lore" and "bat transformations are against TES lore", I ignore them.

*snip*
its posted above

They're vampire hunters who hunt vampires that want to black out the sun. The Dawnguard guard the sun. Hence the name dawn-guard.

I'm guessing the dragon breaking the ice of the lake has something to do with the Volkihar.

if the Volkihair get involved, that might complicate things. I dunno, the more factions/groups a questline focuses on, the weaker each sides roles, involvement, and storylength.

That might be true. Their symbol in Oblivion was a blood drop inside a sun, maybe they've become the Dawnguard over time.

Who is to say that the Volkihair are even around anymore? We know the primary vampire strain that we find is NOT them, but more likely a strain of the invasive and dominating Order. By Oblivion the Order had already wiped out the vampires native to cyrodiil and taken their place. With a couple hundred years passing, they could have expanded their reach into Skyrim. The Order seem to be individually weaker, but they work better in tandem. Couple in the fact that they live with their food source and don't have to take nearly as many risks to get caught.

even though i was right on all points i didnt edit out?

the only vampires that exist in skyrim during the time of the game is The Order and a few remaining volkihar

ignoring that though, lets talk about this bat idea, there is no vampire clan that can do that in cyrodill, skyrim, high rock or morrowind (we seen 3 province's vampire clans first hand and read the volkihar of skyrim, none have that ability), there is no way it has grounds in the lore.

now for my next point, it is painfully obvious that bethesda needed something that everyone could tell is evil to have as an enemy, besides that being boring a hell, they look as cheesy as a party in sheogoath's madhouse.

Who's to say this clan of vampires are from Skyrim at all? They could have migrated from another region. Ya know, like The Order did.

There is also no lore to make it inconceivable that there *are* vampires that can do that. Lack of information does not mean it doesn't exist.

That same fail logic could be taken and applied to *any* game, movie, or book that has an evil antagonist. And it's believed you don't necessarily have to join the vampire hunters, so you point falls on its face the moment a person sides with the vampires and the goodytwoshoes vampire hunters are the enemy.

we don't know if its in the rift.

Agree completely with OP. Its just a reskinned Bloodmoon with vampires replacing werewolves. Just another lame end of the world B-movie plot.

Agree completely with OP. Its just a reskinned Bloodmoon with vampires replacing werewolves.