Yeah, I get the dawn part, but if hunting vampires for the sake of it is ALL they do, then I'll be disappointed. Because then there's absolutely no reason not to make Vigilants of Stendarr the opposing faction instead of an organization we've never heard of before. I hope there's some juicy lore behind Dawnguard...

It hadn't occurred to me to use the Vigilants instead of creating a new faction. Normally, I would prefer new factions, but the Vigilants were very under-developed in Skyrim. I wouldn't have minded them playing a large role in Dawnguard just to shed a little bit of light on them. I'd rather have fewer, well developed factions than a bunch of undeveloped ones.

Either way, I'm still excited for this expansion. Bethesda's expansions are always equal to or better than their vanilla games in art direction, dialogue, storyline, and overall creativity. I am hoping Bethesda can put their own unique touch on a rather bland topic (vampires).

I don't think hunting vampires "for the sake of it" even exists, they're evil and kill people and feed on their blood, that's more then a good enough reason to kill them. And these vampires want to block out the sun.

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

I think Rosveen means that unless the Dawnguard has a personal feud fueling their battle with this new faction of vampires, there's no reason they couldn't have cast that role to the Vigil of Stendarr.

^^ but that's the thing, Dawnguard are likely to have a personal feud with these vampires.



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.

Also isn't that castle belonging to the vampires? Or I guess it belongs to the Dawnguard, but the new vampires should have their own amazing castle too. I'm not expecting Castlevania sized castle, but maybe it could be a castle with a multi floor dungeon lair beneath it?

That would be better than just some cave for vampires.

I don't want there to be a Volkihar faction per se, but I want to see them included. A Volkihar faction would seem contradictory to me. From what I've read, they live in seclusion and only venture out for food. They don't strike me as the type to pursue social networking.

I just want to fight them when they shoot out of the ice and have the option of being infected with their strain of vampirism rather than the Cyrodiilic strain.

That might be true. Their symbol in Oblivion was a blood drop inside a sun, maybe they've become the Dawnguard over time. There were other factions they could've used for this though, the Vigilants are still a filler-faction right now and the Order of Arkay is known across Tamriel for laying undead to rest.

Exactly. I don't want them to be generic vampire hunters; I want Dawnguard to have a reason to hunt. A reason different than "they svck innocent people's blood" - we've seen this before, give me something new.
What sets Dawnguard apart from other demon-fighting factions? That's what I want to know.

Now that's something. That's better. Still not exactly what I expected, but at least we have 200 years of history.
I've never done that quest, I'll have to go back to Oblivion and see

Stop making assumptions. You're basing your argument on a few clips from a trailer. None of us know ANYTHING about Dawnguard and it's associated lore or plot, so stop acting as if you do.

Give it a chance. When I first heard that Skyrim was going to be all about dragons I thought it was lame as well. I mean dragons, of all things. But it turned out great. Just wait and see what they do with it.

history wise, OVB is interesting, but I think in Oblivion, I think I recall anything that was vampire hunting related was kind of plain, dull and too straightforward. Well it's been a long time, but the only good that came out of it was the founding of that Order which may have ties with Dawnguard now.

maybe there's more to it, but I'm more interested in the new vampires backstory and their questline. The whole "hunters hunting the hunted" is found in virtually any common quest that involves "finding and killing those people".

the Vampire side of things is what really innovates things which have bigger plans and could produce bigger and more rewarding results instead of
"we wiped them out!! and saved the sunlight!! Let's celebrate everyone!!"

Plus the vampires could have more interesting lore than the dawnguard. the only thing really new people can get from the dawnguard is crossbows, and maybe some other gear, but vampires have abilities not everyone can use, probably their own perk tree, and the rare experience of spreading vampirism (at least through prescripted npcs the vampire order targets to spread their inflience) and absolute vampire domination over Skyrim.
Nothing else has something like that, especially for open world.

I think someone mentioned in the lore forum that they think the dawnguard are the future "order of virtuous blood". Seems like a good theory.

This.
We don't even know if those vampire transformations will be permanent changes to our characters or are only part of a specific area in the DLC that we can't take back with us to Skyrim.
A lot of posters here are setting themselves up for massive disappointment.

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

The selling point will be turning into a demon and 1-shotting bandits with a blood svcking kill cam (patched in 1 month after DLC release)

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.

PS, did they ever confirm that the castles are in the Rift? Somewhere along the line, the idea that they might be on an island to the north was implanted in my mind.
If they are to the north, from what we know, they could be Atmoran vampires from all we know, or vampires that sailed northwards.
Another possibility is that they are a purer strain from Lamae Beolfag (first vampire). Then they possess the earliest vampire magic that hasn't adapted to individual regions or lifestyles.

As it stands, we don't really know anything about Dawnguard.

Have you ever heard of vampires doing something as ambitious as destroying the sun? This particular Vampire Lord is obviously... insane and something else. For all we know, the Volkihair are still doing their thing, under the ice, but this dude has his own clan, perhaps made a pact with Molag Bal for more power or something. It's an unusual happening.

Also, the old clans may be destryed like Khalkists said. The Order wasn't in Oblivion either.

Typical, people complaining about how a dlc svcks before it's even released. This thread that you have created is as cliche (if not more) as the dlc that you are criticizing.

What makes you think these vampires are the Order?

This "strand" of vampirism has'nt ever been seen before, the order were given the ability to "mend" into society, who knows what there true form is? For all we know the vampires in oblivion and Vanilla Skyrim were just a generic form of vampirism.

All this time we came to the uncertain conclusion that the Sanguinare Vampiris vampires encountered in Skyrim are the Order, or at least share the bloodline of the Cyrodiilic vampires. With Movarth Piquine and his history of being bitten by a Cyrodiilic vampire, and the ability to blend in the game already(exclusive to Cyrodiilic vampires). I figured these vampires shown in Dawnguard are other vampires.

These may not be the Order. But I could be wrong.

You assume its in the rift based on what?

Loch Ness looks like Loch Lomond, grass and water, therefore Loch Ness is Loch Lomond.

This place is the rift, grass trees, misty, therefore it is the rift? Your grasp of the possibilities of geography is amazing.

Well, we know from in game lore that the vampires in Cyrodiil are the Order, being their true name has been lost for a long time.

Oh [censored], i have a idea, maybe these were the first vampires, direct "blood" descendants of that girl who was [censored] by Molag Balg, while other vampires were created later, perhaps Molag put his "seed" into her, spawning these vampires directly form her womb!!!

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Cyrodiil_Vampyrum_Orderis a more detailed page on the Order.