With 200 hours already logged via two different characters, I decided to create a third character just for Dawnguard, and not repeat any major quests. So after the opening scene in Helgen, there's nary a dragon to be seen, since I've eschewed the shout questline. So no shouts, no dragons for this Dunmer sneakthief/archer.

And I find I miss the buggers. I miss hearing their distant roars, seeing them circling in the distance like buzzards. I guess I almost miss the ambiance they add, more than the actual fighting of them. But now I'm tempted to trudge through Bleak Falls Barrow for a third time (ugh) and proceed just far enough to unlock their appearance.

So in short, by their absence I have come to better appreciate dragons, and all the work Bethesda did to make them cool.

Dragons are ok when you're playing a warrior or battle mage.
But my thief and assassin characters are never going to touch the main quest. I don't want to deal with dragons with a stealth character

These dragons obviously make Skyrim.

[Bleak Falls Barrow] Third time is bad? I must have gone through it twelve times (not exaggerating) and now I have the darn thing memorized.

Dragons are the new cliff racers, just easier to kill.

I can hear the lead singer from Cinderella screeching, "Don't know what ya got, til it's goooone". What I like about repeating Bleak Falls Barrow is killing that dude stuck in the spider webs in different ways every time.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i28UEoLXVFQ

I don't even play the MQ on my current character for the sole reason of not having dragons in the game. I'm tired of being the dovahkiin, and it's such a burden.

Besides, roleplaying someone who is not the dovahkiin (or isn't aware of it) is a nice change of pace.

Dont worry, in dawnguard there adding legendary dragons

Mmm, I've done two re-rolls without them. Actually found I liked the game better this way, though there's a few handy shouts I wish I could have. (Whirlwind sprint especially!) This go round I'm not fast traveling at all, and their random appearances are far less frequent, which is great!

Wow. Yeah I'm not saying BFB is a bad dungeon or anything, it's just that repeating dungeons is not really my thing. In fact repeating games isn't really my thing usually. Skyrim is the exception.

I will say though that even without dragons, this may be my favorite play through yet, simply because of the character. Never played a sneaky archer before. But now I think I would really do well against dragons, given my bow proficiency. I wish you could make them appear without activating the MQ.

Hardly. They'd need to be 10 times more numerous to even come close - not that I minded the cliffracer swarms over the Ashlands or Red Mountain - I'd never maxed out marksman without them.