Not according to other accounts of open cities or ones with multiple entrances. Solitude for example, they can appear from different entrances apparently meaning they will have slaughtered half the district by the time you reach them. Depending on their level they can easily 1 shot most NPC's.

And you should not have to rely on reloading to do this. The frequency of attacks means reloading will become natural to playing and it shouldn't be.

Again, it is very minor.
It is a simple save and reload.

Yes, it breaks immersion just as much as being attacked by an uberpowered Dark Brotherhood assasin does to a level one in Morrowind with Tribunal, but that does not mean that for this one time you cant work around it and enjoy the great content that the DLC does offer, and does improve on vanilla quite a big deal.

Let us hope it will be fixed, but meanwhile with normal RPG savegame managment, the kind everyone does since 1985, youre fine.

Can you change Race or just appearance?

the only things you cant change are race and gender

Okay you twisted my arm. I know you can nit pick about things so if you can put up with it for now it so can I.

Savegame management in 1985?! Could of told me that before I took a hammer to my Magic Land Dizzy cassette.

Reloading is notoriously problematic with TES games. To avoid savegame corruption issues, you need to quit to the main menu before reloading, which becomes a major chore with frequent reloads.

Save and reload when it does not work as intended is as far as I know part of games since the beginning.
Used to be games were brutal. Took left when you shouldve gone right?
Oh dear, youre dead.

Then games started to have 'save points', so as to guide you when to save and that was terrible.

Then games passed the year 2000 and you couldnt fail anymore no matter what you do.
I dont know why, possibly cause whiny adhd kids with 0 intelligence or aforethought are the norm one wants to sell stuff to.
Gods, just look at the 'puzzles' in Skyrim.
Equivalent to any game aimed at pre-10 before 1990.

throughout my entire gameplay experience with TES games I have never had to do this

This is an important point that deserves repitition.

Healthy savegame managment:

- Do not overwrite, delete and reload.
- Go to main menu on reload.
- Disable all autosaves. Save manually and often. Autosaves are a large contributor to savegame bloating.

-Tes since Daggerfall:
-Save before accepting a quest, save on turning in a quest.
-Save before entering any cell.

Just appearance.

They usually attack just after you walk through a door - which means right after an autosave. If anybody you care about dies you can always just reload.

That sounds like A LOT of saves to go through. 100% agree with saving before and after quests and I wish I've followed it more diligently.

Gets pretty intense on these forums, lol. Thank you all for the input. Special thanks to Merari, y'all don't mess with him just cause he's smarter, haha. Still haven't bought dawnguard, but hopefully soon!

Dawnguard is a great DLC and city NPCs don't get wiped out if you defend them, or if you don't go into the cities. I haven't lost a single NPC in 2 playthroughs of Dawnguard.

Your towns only get wiped if you decide to stop the MQ of Dawnguard at any time and ONLY if you side with the Dawnguard themselves, siding with the Volkihar replaces them with Vampire Hunters that ONLY go after you, once attacked every villager/guard turns on them for you though, its a very good opening to run out of town so no one'll get hurt.

Reviewers obviously weren't smart enough to figure that out.

Sun goes away temporarily due to an arrow coated in Vampiric blood fired from the Sun God's bow, so those that enjoy the sun don't have to worry.

You get two chances to be a Werewolf, once when you first join the companions and once more after you cure it by talking to Aela.

Remember...Vampires ONLY attack towns if you are near them and don't finish the MQ and are sided with the Dawnguard vampire hunters.

So yeah, while you could say "WHY DOES THE (CENSORED) DLC FORCE ME TO FINISH THE DLC'S MQ AS SOON AS I DOWNLOAD IT!?"

My answer and everyone's answer is: "Just cuz"

I'd also like to point out that Vampires can attack towns and cities BEFORE you decide to join either faction; found this out the hard way. Started a new character, and around level 16 or 17 or so, a random Master Vampire attacked Whiterun. 2 NPCs died, Idolaf Battle-Blood and his father, whose name I can't remember. I hated those douches anyways so I was actually pretty happy they got axed lol.

But Vampires can attack before you even choose a faction to side with, so keep that in mind. Personally there are really only a few people I'd be upset about losing, everyone else is fair game .

I actually thought the main story was better than the trite crap the Bethesda usually manages (Go find your dad, y'know that guy you met for 10 minutes, you instantly felt a connection to him, right?).

The appauling presentation (bugs out the whazoo) and price tag set too high (should have been 15 tops) make it decidely mediocre, in my mind, though.

In the past this was true with world states bleeding across game states. Not the case anymore. I am easily at the 900 save marker, use autosave all the time, make manual saves in critical locations and reload when killed or making a mistake many times without going to the main menu. No corrupt saves on my end and almost no bloating and no bleeding of world states The savegame system of Skyrim is much more solid compared to Oblivion or Fallout 3. Especially if you take steps in the game to help, like placing weapons back on corpses or in chests.

The game's a blast, especially on higher levels. It has its flaws like anything else but I recommend this dlc. New powers, weapons, stuff in general.

Just stay away from towns you care about as soon as you download the DLC.

The attacks on towns stop after the MQ of the expansion is finished according to Gstaff which I've been saying all along.

Two players get the same number of attacks in the same cities, one has most of their NPC's killed, the other has fun killing vampires and working out how to save NPC's. Luck has nothing to do with it, it is how you play that determines what results you get, just like in any other game. It is up to the player to work out what is going on and plan a strategy to defeat the vampires before they get a chance to kill NPC's, assuming they actually want to keep their NPC's alive, or just avoid towns while doing the Dawnguard questline and avoid the attacks if they cannot master how to knock of a few vampires fast enough. Most players would have enjoyed the extra challenge of the attacks.

I keep having to point this out I guess . there is a bug that a lot of people are getting that causes the attacks even after the main quest is over. there is also reports of one that causes attacks if you even pass by the city. This is a problem and players should have to figure out a "work around" for something that is the DEVs fault

I'm just glad it is a bug and there for (in theory), will be fixed so I can enjoy as intended. This is my only real major concern about Dawnguard as I'm not a fan of the constant attacks (to the point it puts me off playing and yes I have tried but as it is now, I just can't), but otherwise it is a very good addition to Skyrim IMO from what I have seen.

Just to make it clear. It's the constantly babysitting towns and the frequency of them I have problem with. If finishing the main quest is meant to stop the attacks on towns I have no problem with that and will actually get some fun out of trying to defend the towns AS LONG as I know at some point I can control when I want them to stop. Please Beth hurry up and fix this already!

I prefered Shivering Isles, i wanted a new foreign world to explore with new foreign content.

If your towns and villages only get attacked by vampires then surely if you become a vampire yourself they wont attack the towns and villages. But do dawnguard soldiers invade your towns/villages aswell?