We know really nothing about the factions and events surrounding Dawnguard, and I am certainly all for expanding the game lore with new content that we can avtuqllu experience and witness new sprawling stories based away from the main quest so I am very interested. I certainly hole the quest are better and longer than what we were offered in the base game.

So you're saying there's a castle exactly like Dragonsreach that's going to be included in this new province?

Whether or not the full dlc pack takes place in Skyrim remains to be seen, but it's clear that at least part of the story takes place in Skyrim by looking at the trailer.

I'm just not a big fan of vampires....or werewolves....or dragons. I swear if the the next DLC is about another cliche fantasy villain, I'm going to commit suicide



...meaning I'm going to have my character jump off the Throat of the World.

Part of it looks like its in a new realm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIZ-o5VlhCo look at 0:33, that looks like a daedric realm to me

made me LOL, LMFAO, ROFLFLMFAO

I'm pretty sure I saw a Molag Bal altar in there somewhere.
Isn't Molag Bal the creator of vampires?

It's almost certainly going to be in Molag Bals realm I'd say.

as your doing that the Become Eternal shout activates itself

Who knows? Maybe they can add a cliche Gryphon.

Yes, and I'm assuming we enter that realm from the portal step things seen just before it. I'm also assuming it's Molag Bal's realm. My point was that to argue that we aren't going to be in Skyrim at all seems inaccurate considering the shot of Dragonsreach.



Yes. Molag Bal is the creator of vampires.

My thoughts exactly.

YES WE DO, but not without explained [censored] first.

That they added Dawnguard out of nowhere does feel silly, especially when we have an underdeveloped Vigil Of Stendarr already in the game.
I want new lore, I want new content, but that doesn't mean that it won't be new if you expand upon an already existing faction.
They should have used Vigil Of Stendarr IMO, it would have made more sense (at least from what we know of the premise).

I don't mind a place suddenly just "being there" in Skyrim, like *poof* Now it's there! Cause the way I look at it, it's more like "this place should have been here all the time, they just didn't have time to implement it".
Like, if I draw a drawing of a fine muscle man and I forgot to draw in a navel then I can correct it later on by drawing in that navel and updating the drawing.
Think of it like that with the new locations, they were meant to be there, but they didn't have time to implement them, so they corrected it in a later stage.

As to the cliché stuff, I don't really care, we're in a fantasy setting with elves and orcs and enchantments and fire magic that doesn't give your hands 3rd degree burns so vampires being classical vampires? Couldn't care less
A faction that is stereotypical to hunting vampires? Couldn't care less.
Only thing I do care about is the morality of the two, I do not want to see "good vs evil", I want morally grey characters, storylines and quests, not stupid evil or stupid good.

Wait, so how do they expand the lore, if they can't add stuff to it? If they never added anything, Khajiits would still be humans with tails and face paint.

How can they explain it, if it haasn't come out yet? I'm sure they will, but [censored], give them a chance, all we've got so far is a trailer, that barely even mentioned the story or plot.

Meh.
We dont know much about the plot of dawnguard,But it could be better then the main quest.
IT could be really good.I am looking forward to it,Excited

This "expand on the lore is good and needs to be done" argument is just stupid.

Finding out what makes a hand a hand is good.

Finding out that the hand has it's own pair of feet.. that's just stupid. That's what Dawn guard is doing.

Somehow... I just know this image is going to be in my nightmares in the near future.

Yes I an hoping we can extensively explore a new area thay we have yet to see in adding to Skyrim, I am sure if this is an expansion it will add new thing to the current game and some new places to explore, and the wasteland sure looks like some new land to explore and I am also thinking it might be Molag Bals tell seeing as how he is the created of the vampires.

I think the whole point is to make Dawnguard something no one knows about. this is adding some more immersion to being a Vampire, and though i admit it is kind of shoved in there, i like the idea of making the game a bit darker and creepier like Oblivion. You can't please everyone, but lets see how it plays out. i can understand not knowing anything about Dawnguard. their probably secretive because of what they do.

Exactly.
Bethesda can't decide what it wants, creating an idea halfway and then quickly dropping it to create another new idea it wants. The result is that we have factions and ideas and lore laying about everywhere, half finished and full of plot holes, lacking justification or purpose.

I agree it does not need to be done if its full of holes but if its done well with all loose ends tightened and so on then expanding on the story is always good if you don't expand on sonething eventually it gets stagnated, I am going to reserve more critical judgement of this expansion tor when I actually play it.

You've taken my argument out of context. Might Dragonsreach feature prominently in the game? Possibly. However, I find it unlikely that a vampire fortress and a vampire hunter citadel are going to be -- to quote thomson -- 'plonked' in the middle of Skyrim or even anywhere near it. Thus, the sudden appearance of a new clan of vampires and a new order of vampire hunters is neither unprecedented nor lore breaking.

As long as it is well thought out I think it will work.

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?
-The Vigil of Stendarr are just kinda....there. They do nothing. What's the point? Is this an idea that was never fully fleshed out?


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; that's a commitment you basically made when you wrote them into the lore without providing any clues for their absence in Oblivion.

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.

Guys, seriously some relaxation is in order, lets consider some things.

Understandable that some random keep appears out of nowhere will cause ruffled feathers yes.

Understandable that a completely new faction with no known history appears out of the blue is annoying yes.

Vamploard is a Design decisions, and The Scrolls ability is new, yeah. but consider that this is an expansion, yeah it could have expanded on the vigil of stendarr, but they didn't exist before now and were a result of the Daedra more so than Vamp and witch covens they wouldn't fit entirely in the theme (KINDA) it WOULD have been interesting to provide a hardass faction of Mythical beast stompers that you could join, since every one of the Vigilants seem to be pissed off constantly. I say wasted oppurtinity

but what seems to be not entirely considered is that their are more than just the Dawngaurd faction to Join, you weren't given the name of the vampire Faction, and nothing says they didn't originate from Highrock or that there are more implications than simply blotting out the Sun

The vampire's castle looks to be hidden somewhere in the sea of ghosts, or perhaps along the Northern coast, which makes sense as they would obviously want remain somewhat secluded, so that's not issue. The location of the Dawnguard's fortress looks very similar to the Rift, based on the trees (not 'the middle of Skyrim', I never said that). So it seems fair to assume that unless another area is going to be re-using the Rift's aspen trees when it is in fact, no where near the RIft (which seems highly unlikely), that the Dawnguard's fortress is in (or very near) to the Rift.


I agree, I don't think it is really all that lorebreaking. Both organisation would probably attempt to maintain low-profiles, I'd imagine they're both somewhat secretive. So again it's fair enough that they haven't been mentioned before (even if it is kind of hard to believe that the Dawnguard can hide a fairly large keep). I remember a while back, Bethesda said that whatever is in the games is the canon, which is fine and dandy (at least, to an extent).