Judging by comments from the GI leak, "players must travel the world for a bit, learn about shouting," before they can start dawnguard and information from e3, namely that we fight a dragon who will teach us a new shout, makes it seem like players must be forced to start the main quest before doing dawnguard. This is something I really would not like to be forced into doing.

It doesn't even take that long to it all.

yea i agree that it doesnt truly take that long but getting to the end of the introish part, ( i think the dragon at Kynesgrove is where it begins as part of the big picture.) can take about 3 hours and after 5-6 tines it can be very unappealing to some people, it might also affect RP'ers.

Yeah, the main quest is fairly short. If what you're saying is true then you will only have to do the first 30+ minutes of the main quest before you learn about shouting. All in all doesn't sound like that big of a deal.

This isn't an issue of the length of time it would take before starting dawnguard but that I do not want to do the mainquest, ever, on many of my characters.

Be thankful you don't have to find the Blackreach Elder Scroll...

I really hope this isn't the case. I avoid the main quest just before the point of triggering Dragon spawns because they are just tiring to deal with all the time, especially when they keep spawning over towns and wiping out a chunk of the populace each time.

I read somewhere that it is intended for experienced characters so they probably expect that you have done some of the main quest at least by the time you get around to Dawngaurd.

It's not that long to wait anyhow so we will all know for ourselves in good time.

You just need to advance the MQ far enough to trigger Dragons. All you need to shout is a word and a soul. If the DLC pits you against a dragon and therefore you get a soul, then so be it. Otherwise you may not even need to talk to the Jral in Whiterun. We will see.

Length is not the issue I believe.
It's that some of us have characters that we intended NOT to be the dragonborn and never wanted dragons to spawn in that save file.

It's really easy to say that you are always gonna be forced through the main quest... It is a real problem.
It could have been nicer if it was like fallout new vegas where everything kept silently and you actually have to choose which way to go and when to encounter the main quest.

That would svck if we needed to do the main quest. My main character has the no dragonborn mod installed so I can completely avoid it.

The first major piece of DLC for Onlivion, Knights of the Nine, required you to complete the entire main quest before gaining access to its content. As a matter of fact, every expansion they have ever done was developed with the assumption that all players going into the new content have already completed the entire MQ of the vanilla game and the MQ of any previous expansions when applicable. So they most likely are assuming that most players at this point have either completed or at least started the main quest to the point that there are dragons in the game world, since dragon slaying was the primary focus of vanilla Skyrim's marketing.

this.
dragons are the most annoying thing ever,im also sick and tired of seeing there damn corpses littering the towns.
with ervy single new character i make i never play the main quest.

I hope this isn't the case but honestly, the main quest is so short I wouldn't really mind if you had to.

I believe dragons are part of the DLC, so you would just not play it on those files.

The DLC is ment for experienced player's from lvl 20-40 or was it 10-40? I forgot...
And by saying ``they must have travelled a bit`` might just mean that you must have explored let's say Solitude or as far as it. Some speculation's was that it (Dawnguard) will take place somewhere northwest of Solitude.

You guys do realize there's a dragon you'll have to fight in the Soul Cairn to get the 'shout' to become a vampire lord, do you? I'm not saying I like it or anything, but it was already predictable from the trailer that you had to at least activate your shouts by visiting the Greybeards ... And well, then there's the dragon diving under the ice, so we can safely assume dragons will play a certain role in the story ...

The one thing that is a little disconcerting though is that, at least in vanilla, encountering a a fire-shouting dragon while you are a vampire at stage 2-4 is almost a guaranteed death. If they're going to force you to have dragons constantly spawning in the game world in order to become a vampire lord, they better make it playable when you're not a stage 1 vampire.

Also, like I said before, they are assuming that everyone who is going to move on to the Dawnguard content has already completed the MQ or at least interested in starting the MQ in order to trigger the dragons, so it makes sense that you will NOT be able to access any part of Dawnguards MQ until you have dragons spawning in the game world and you can use shouts.

That is my (and I assume the OP's) point.
I'd still like to take some of my characters that haven't triggered dragons through the DG questline(s).

Traveling the world a bit can mean walking around. I mean you can pick up the shouts in the base game without even doing the main game why would it be different for Dawnguard.

It is advised you start the main quest, as Dawnguard is intended for higher leveled playlers. the enemies in dawnguard will destroy anyone who tries right out the gate. You even have fight a lengendary dragon, which is said be harder than an ancient dragon.

But that means you've now triggered Skyrim's answer to Oblivion gates. If you just kill the first one, then attacks are reasonably rare, but those random attacks will happen. I purposely don't progress that far for nearly all my games, just to avoid those stupid attacks, , and it's annoying how many quest series require at least some of the MQ to be done, even where there's no real reason for it. The fact that it's intended for experienced characters is standard (it's true of all Beth DLCs), but they don't usually force you to do the MQ.

Yeah, I personally do not like playing as a vampire when there are dragons about, since they pretty much one-shoot you if you're not at stage one. Yes, it is possible to acquire shouts in vanilla without starting the MQ, but there is a possibility that they may block access to the Dawnguard questline if you haven't at least started the MQ and have dragons start appearing as regular enemies. There is a possibility though that the dragons in Dawnguard will be there regardless of whether you start DG's MQ, however.With the exception of the aforementioned KOTN for Oblivion. But the DLC usually doesn't make much sense for people who haven't done the MQ, with the worst offender being Tribunal for Morrowind.

Yes, blocking the quest is a possibility but ifs also a possibility it does not.
I don't think the dragons would be active in Dawnguard of they have not came in Dragon Rising.
I guess we just have to wait and see, anyways if they do block off the quest line if you do not want the dragons to appear I hope that you can explore the two new landmasses.