vampires will still sometimes attack towns even if your a vampire due to a bug, in addition to dawnguard. but luckily the dawnguard only attack you

Even if you join the vampires, your towns still get attacked by vampires. They are attacking the towns, not your character. I have had the Dawnguard attack my VL character in the smaller towns and Orc Strongholds, just about all the time in the wilds (I usually fast travel) but never had them attack in a walled town. Some have said they were so it seems possible. But the Dawnguard only attack vampires, so unless the NPC's are defending your character or are a vampire they should be safe.

Now they attack orc strongholds. Skyrim's population was already small, in the first place now it is being cut in half.

I have four playthrus, a level 54 Breton Spellsword werewolf, a level 41 Argonian Fighter vampire lord, a level 43 Orc Warrior werewolf, and a level 49 Khajiit Thief, and have only had 3 npcs killed on my Khajiits playthru, mainly because i was to busy looting the town during the panic, if you want the npcs to survive its not that difficult.

Hardly. Only if you allow them to. Hell, places like solitude and Riften, I dont even have to do anything. Everyone gangbangs the vamps no matter what time of day it is. Its so bad, that all the guards and towns people wont even let me hit the vamp, because they're all in the way. They dont even need my help.

3 playthroughs later I have yet to see any NPC's killed in my game and that's cause I'm on Expert (sometimes Master).

Normally I'll change into beast form then charge into the gates, clear them out, then leave to change back. Its worked every time so far.
I'll use (not all at the same time) slow time, fire spells, fire enchantments, swords for quicker swings, calm spell, Fear howl, Fear Spell, Fear shout, Call of Valour etc. Seems to have worked so far...

It all comes down to having to babysit the towns people. its fun for about the first 5 times, but after that it starts being annoying

My towns are never attacked . Dragon bridge was attacked but I easily killed a couple vampires , if the vampires do wipe out EVERYBODY in your towns that's your fault for not killing them fast enough. They do not attack while the system is off . And if you don't like it, join the vampires , or don't play

Well you wouldn't last very long in a war scenario , that's the whole point of the attacks, to drive you towards ending it. During said war you should be triple checking the towns and cities for any invading forces, the " mysterious traveler " has scared me for the rest of my TES life The attacks add a sense of urgency, constant attack, in other words a WAR. It would have been better if you could post Dawnguard troops in the cities and towns as a protective force, but you and you alone should be enough to stop an attack before it gets out of hand, and the best way to do that is to be ALWAYS on high alert.
I have about 100 hours clocked into Dawnguard without the loss of any towns folk, the main reason is.......... I have been shell shocked by the attacks and have developed O.C.D when it comes to checking the cities and towns, the second I walk in I do a complete search of the entire city / town, then post myself at the main gate / entrance for 1 hour ( in game,without waiting ). I then carry about my business, if I have to enter and exit a building I repeat the process of checking the town. This and this alone has stopped many attacks before any of the towns folk even realize that the vampires are there, and has put a quick stop to any already in progress fights that I encounter.

OT.....
I think Dawnguard is most certainly worth $20, or 1600 MSP. It's not as good as Shivering Isles was but it's pretty damn close in my books just for the fact that I've been shell shocked by the attacks on cities and towns.

If your towns are never attacked, how do you know it's the fault of the people's who are attacked?

I've don't have Dawnguard and don't intend to buy it, but I know how vulnerable NPCs can be.

Example 1 - Walked into Riften, hear that 'thief' dialogue blah blah. Run to the market just in time to see the thief pulling a killing move on the blacksmith.Kill move already underway when I saw him. That sort of thing is very, very rare, so it was fine (I've never seen the random thief actually kill anybody before). I guess it's much less rare if there are constant attacks from vampires significantly stronger than traders.
Bear in mind I'm using the populated cities mod that adds extra NPCs, so there was a huge scrum around the thief - he still managed to kill the blacksmith despite at least eight NPCs surrounding him.

Example 2 - Walking past Kolseggr (sp?) mine - courier runs up with two letters of inheritance from miners. The forsworn had repawned inside the mine and killed them (they were not outside the mine). I hadn't set foot in the mine since clearing it. Either it shares thesame cell with the exterior or the courier arriving as I walked past it was some weird coincidence and it shares a cell somewhere else I'd been. Either way it demonstrated to me people are not lying when they report vampires killing people when they're not there. I witnessed for mysel NPCs a loading screen away being killed.

I've had Riverwood attacked on a character straight out of Helgen. So yea, they spawn at any time. I've had mutiple towns killed off as well on other characters. Bethesda went overboard when they put the random vampire attacks in. Skyrim isent a vampire game so it shouldnt be focused on vampires. Installing Dawnguard effectively makes vampires a worse threat than even Dragons, and Dragons are part of the main focus in Skyrim. You play the Dragonborn afterall. Bethesda should, but wont, release a patch that stops the random attacks on cities. If there has to be vampire attacks on cities than make it part of the Dawnguard's radiant quests to clean up skyrim of them. I dont like baby-sitting my game. I want to be able to get home from work, turn on Skyrim, and beable to relax while I'm playing it. The random attacks on cities and towns leave me on edge while playing.

Dawnguard is great, but it destroys the relaxing atmosphere it used to have. Until the the random vampire attacks on towns are removed, I will play Skyrim without it.

I hate war, always have. I dont get involved. So having to babysit townspeople due to a glitch is just a pain

In the game I'm playing there's already a civil war on and dragons are returning. They work fine conceptually without affecting the cities apart from their questline and rare attacks respectively.
It doesn't need another war - that's getting ridiculous.


That sounds incredibly boring.
You do this for fun?

It sounds like a torture to me.

Some say the attacks cease after the MQ is over although other people report to have witness attacks regardless if Dawnguard questline was finished or not. It seems like another potentially game braking bug. I wonder IF and WHEN a patch comes out for DG, this issue will be resolved or clarified.

I have not had an attack before level 10, and attacks stopped in cities alltogether for me after the Dawnguard quest.
Ive played it three times now, once on a character I had made especially before Dawnguard came out and twice on new characters.

I have only played the vampire side and I dont know if there is a difference with the Dawnguard side.
However, after the sidequest to kill the vampire leaders Dawnguard attacks in the wild still happen but very rarely.
It may be possible that this is the same for city attacks by vampires for those that play the Dawnguard side, but Im inclined to say its a bug.
Attacks before level 10 are most certainly a bug, thats not supposed to happen.

Considering the massively varying reported experiences, it sounds like it's seriously bugged.

If it is intentional to have vampire attacks stop after finishing the quest but start at level 10, then I think that is seriously poor game design. A manageable level of attacks might fit in during the questline itself, but these should not be triggered before starting the questline. When people buy a DLC they of course want to play it immediately. Over time, people will focus on it less, perhaps wishing to ignore it on some playthroughs and of course people will be focusing on subsequent DLC when it arrives, perhaps starting new characters especialy for it - DLC should not impose itself on the main game just by being installed and prod the player into completing it asap with every character.

I don't know about xbox games but there are some causal pc games that run even when the computer is off. My tribe and all of the virtual villager games which are sim like city building games. I know because I own those games and when I quit, I pause the game so it doesn't run when it's not being played. Otherwise I would open my game to a dead village because the sims age and you have to command the sims to have babies. The game runs even when the computer is off by the game programers designing them that way.

I highly recommend it!

I'm on the fence about buying it too. I already lost some NPCs due to dragon attacks in the non walled towns. If they patch it so the NPCs don't die, I'll buy it.

But it's not a glitch or a bug. All it is, is that some people have a higher random encounter spawn rate then others. The dragons are the same, everyone will not experience encounters the same way which is why it's RANDOM. I have 3 separate toons going through Dawnguard and each has had different amounts of encounters, be it either vampire attacks,werewolves,gargoyles etc...etc... All have been different, and it because the randomize programing varies between each toon/ save file.
Did the allies think it a pain to search house by house when clearing an area of Germans? No they didn't, it was their job. If you find it tedious or boring to have to ensure the safety of the inhabitants of Skyrim, then you sir deserve to have ghost towns seeing how you could care less about their safety.


But it's not a " game breaking bug " it's different people( games ) having different levels of random spawns, what so hard about understanding this ? Your encounters will vary from mine just because the randomization is different between games, refer to the dragons for example. Yes there are places that everyone will see a dragon, but there is also random encounters that vary from game to game.
And it's not tedious, it's war! You have to be constantly at high alert, to ensure that your never caught off guard. Most of what I do checking towns and cities is just my O.C.D kicking in, you more then likely do not have to go as far as I go, but to me it's fun, really makes me fell like I was actually in a war. Unlike the civil war where you only encountered the opposing forces in the wild or part of some quest, the opposing forces should be invading you occupied cities / towns in an effort to destroy your side. And my comment above about deserving ghost towns applies to you too, it's clear your not too concerned with the safety of Skyrim, both you guys must be vampires.

I basically agree with you here. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they "deserve" ghost towns, seems a tad harsh....but I really agree that this is just part of the game and not necessarily a glitch or bug. Some people are going to experience this function differently from others. I also have multiple characters running, 3 above ten;1 started the DG quest, 1 completed it, the other is waiting to start. All have had different experiences.

Here is my opinion about dawnguard:
The main plot is not bad but not worthy to play it a second time even if you side with the other faction because there is not much difference between the dawnguard plot and the vampire plot.
I find it highly annoying to have serana as companion along the most quests because i can't stand serana, she seems to be like those modern twilight teens speaking only about her problems with her parents and how difficult life is as a kindred. bla bla bla, i would like to literally carve the words S*T*F*U [censored] on here face everytime she get's on my nerves but sadly it's impossible in game so i have to you Fus Roh Da here instead. I wish there would be a way to play the quests without her.
Other than that i like the most parts of this dlc, but it's not an add-on imo. it's bigger than the KotN dlc for oblivion but it comes not even close to the amount and quality of quests, content and new landscapes Shivering Isles had to offer.
But there is still time for another dlc "Heartfire" maybe and there is still room for dreams about the new add-on something in the tradition of Bloodmoon, Mournhold and Shivering Isles.

Only thing I don't like about DG, I had to leave my goreous Epic Elven wife at home and drag this emo vampire chick around the place.
She even had the cheek to insult my nice wife, who could tear Serana an new [censored] in a second, if she wanted.
Might let her do just that once the storyline is complete.

yeah she really is an annoying emmo brat, makes me wish to have the pc version of skyrim just to remove the essential flag on her and then ... you know the drill. Might just start an Anti Seranna Club.. i have some nice ideas for anti seranna t-shirts like http://tinypic.com/r/35jx8vm/6 or http://tinypic.com/r/2ugm0rb/6

Well, on PC I have the Open Cities mod and so far it seems to have prevented attacks. Then again, I avoid most cities due to slowdowns (which are present with/without OCS, OCS merely makes it so the slowdown occurs sooner) Windhelm in particular is a pain.

I've found that so far my character doesn't need cities so that could be a factor in not seeing attacks. Still, it's a problem.

Also, Serana may be annoying sometimes (as a fighter she's pretty good though), but she is still the only character in the game with any personality at all. Bethesda needs to take the basic idea (volume of dialogue and reactivity) and apply it to all future companions.