The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dawnguard Review

From previous post ( WEREWOLF : NOT ENOUGH TO AVOID VAMPIRISM ), here are some cons about that problem explained below : 

1  - If you are traveling on a horse or walking from place to place, you may be suddenly attacked by vampires and they will spell on you so you will get vampirism.

2  - If you want to avoid the above fact, you need to fast travel from place to place, nevertheless, when you show up at your new destination, you may be attacked by vampires and if so, they will spell on you and you will get vampirism. This happened to me twice while fast traveling to two different houses.

3  - If you are either fast traveling or not, I do recommend : save your game before doing it, sneak before you fast travel so when you show up in your new location, and vampires are waiting for you, they will probably won't see you and will give you time to prepare for combat and avoid being hit by their spells. If you do not have a very good sneak perk or an enchanted item that allow you to sneak properly, you are dammed. 

4  - You are practically not free anymore to travel as you did before so penalty of being infected with vampirism. You must be watching your back all the time and this is not right. If a dragon attack you, you won't get killed instantly, you will have time to react but if you are attacked by a vampire spell, you a simply stuck to vampirism even if you are a werewolf while in human form. Not good ! 

5  - You need to save a lot and probably reload your game again if you get hit by the vampire spell while traveling. This is time consuming and probably your system will freeze as it did happened to me twice already.

6  - You can not have Serana with you anymore because you might get hit by her vampire spell and get vampirism anyway. I got vampirism from her several times so I had to reload and start all over again.

7  - Instead you being looking for vampires to kill them, they can show up unexpectedly and spell on you so you will get vampirism. 

8  - Once infected, there is not cure unless you reload your game and start all over again. If you don't do that, you will become a vampire even though you are a werewolf. How so ? Try it and you will see. 

9  - If you travel as a beast ( werewolf ), you may be attacked by anyone on sight and you are not powerful enough to deal with several enemies at the same time especially if they are vampires and necromancers. Also, as a werewolf you do not have the capability to stay on beast form during 24 hours, and even if you could, that will negate your real nature of being primarily a dragonborn not a werewolf.

As you can see, this is a problem I believe Bethesda should fix ASAP, otherwise, you are playing defensively all the time and unprotected even if you are a werewolf. I have not idea why they overlooked this. It does seems like they do not have a quality team to test the game and all its details so they could be fixed before giving us the choice to play it. Now the only option for them is either to patch it or leave it as it is. If they patch it, when will that happen ? If not, we are stuck to the above facts. Not good ! 

WEREWOLF :  NOT ENOUGH TO AVOID VAMPIRISM ! 

It is very disappointed to contract vampirism while you are a werewolf already. In my previous posts, I mentioned the fact that if Serana hit you with her vampire spell ( by mistake ) while you are in combat, you will get vampirism. That is a fact either if you are or are not a werewolf. Before I talked to Aela to turn me again into a werewolf, I got vampirism by being hit by Serana's vampire spell, so I reloaded my game and decided to talk to Aela to turn me into a werewold, expecting that by getting that power again, I will be protected from getting vampirism but I was wrong. 

The only way for you to avoid vampirism, is that you activate the Beast Form Power to transform yourself into a werewolf and if you are hit by a vampire spell while you are a werewolf ( playing not as a human but a werewolf ), then you WILL NOT get vampirism, you will be completely immune. Now, here is the problem, if you have the Beast Form Werewolf Power and even if your Werewolf Perk Tree is full, but you are fighting as a human ( dragonborn ), then you WILL GET vampirism if you are hit by any vampire spell and I find this very, VERY RIDICULOUS !! 

Last night this happened to me because I was hit by Serana's vampire spell. I thought that as soon as I transform myself again into a werewolf ( you have go wait 24 hours to do so from the previous transformation ), the Active Effect of vampirism will disappear and be cured, but that WAS NOT true. It did not go away, so I had to reload my game and I decided for once, to get rid of Serana, so she is not following me anymore. 

It does not makes sense that if you are a werewolf you still may get vampirism. Your blood is a werewolf blood so you should not get infected by vampirism at all, even if you are or not transformed into a beast. Your werewolf's blood does not let you rest while you are sleeping, obviously because you are a WEREWOLF even if you are not transformed into a beast so why, WHY Bethesda did not look into this that I find very ridiculous ? On the contrary, a vampire in human form does not get infected by lycanthropy if he or she is being hit by a werewolf, do they ? So why if you are a werewolf, you are contracting vampirism when you are in human form ? This does not make sense at all, it is very disappointed and very ridiculous in my opinion. 

Now, I changed my whole game tactic. I am already a werewolf and my perk tree is full except for the totem of ice wolf, totem of the moon and totem of the predator. I will not turn myself into a vampire so to avoid myself getting vampirism even though I am a werewolf, I decided to tell Serana to part away from me, so I do not have her by my side again. Also, at this point when I am going to fight a vampire, I have some choices : either to use my sneak ability and kill the vampire, use my bow or crossbow to kill the vampire from a distance while sneaking or use my unrelenting force shout on the vampire and kill him / her while they knocked down on the floor. The other way will be to turn myself into a werewolf and kill the vampire as a beast, which I have not try it yet. I don't know if a werewolf with a full perk tree available is powerful enough to face a vampire surrounded by necromancers that will also attack you and hit you with spells that may kill you easily like the frost or ice spells which are very effective on werewolf, so to avoid this possibility, I decided to fight alone and kill while I am sneaking either at close range or from a distance with my bow / crossbow. 

I do believe that Bethesda should patch this problem. You should not get vampirism as far as you are a werewolf, regardless if you are or not using the Beast Form when fighting vampires. You should be completely immune to vampirism so the game will let you make the choice if you want to face a vampire as a human or werewolf. The fact that you WILL GET vampirism if you are not using your beast form is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS and should be fixed because simply, it does makes sense at all. 

I am reporting that definitely there is a bug with Serana. Two days ago I wrote ( read my post in which I talk going back to Soul Cairn ) that when you ask Serana to "wait here", she will and when you interact again with her, the "come with me" option will show up in the conversation menu. This was true till that point when I wrote that post, but after that, I have showed the opposite. If you ask her "wait here", the "come with me" option will not be available anymore and of course, this is very annoying and I do hope Bethesda patch it up so we could use Serana as we need her. The game should be setup in a way that is the same with other followers, so when you ask them to leave, they go back to your house and they are still able to follow you when they are asked again. 

Perhaps Serana was not setup like that since she is not one of your servant but still I guess, she should be able to go back to Fort Dawnguard and be able to follow you again when you ask her to do so. Otherwise, you are stuck to her company for ever if you want her on your side as a follower. I don't know if this bug is happening now that I FINISHED all of the quest and you probably does not need her anymore to kill random vampires or if it is related to the fact that  you can use that option "wait here" and "come with me", ONLY for a few times in the game. 

Before Dawnguard was available for PS3, I checked the net for several reviews about this game. All of them were talking about the options you have in the game, either to become a vampire or werewolf. None of them pointed out that if you don't choose none of them and you are hit by a vampire spell in combat, you WILL contract vampirism. I did not know that ! For my surprise, last night I started to show the effects of being infected with vampirism. I tried to re-do the quest Rising at Dawn to cure myself from vampirism by talking to Falion in Morthal, but I visited 3 different inns and none of them gave me the choice to talk to Falion as I did way back when I started to play Skyrim long ago. I visited Falion and that kind of option is not available in the conversation menu with him as well. So, I had to make a decision : either to reload my game to the point where I was not showing any sign of vampirism and be more careful from that moment on when killing vampires so I don't get infected .. or talk to Aela and ask her to make me a werewolf again. 

As I pointed before, I am very careful when fighting vampires. I am sneaking and killing them from distance with my crossbow or I use my unrelenting force and kill them while knocked down on the floor. I know that I have not been hit by any vampire spell ... unless that Serana hit me with that spell while we are fighting together which I do believe may be another possibility but I am not sure about that; so anyway, if I decided not to become a werewolf, I might get infected somehow in the future. I think that the game push you to the point that you get infected by vampirism cause probably is setup that way and Bethesda want you to play this game as a vampire and / or werewolf. I am not sure about this but the thing is that to avoid being infected, I decided to become a werewolf again. 

I tried twice to avoid to become a werewolf and continue killing vampires but I was infected on both occasion. How ? I don't know as I said before but one thing I do know, that I have been very careful when fighting vampires but still got infected. So that is why I decided to visit Aela and she finally turned me into a beast. By being a werewolf, you WILL NOT get infected by vampirism at all. This is the only way while playing Dawnguard to avoid being a vampire and be completely immune to vampirism. There is not other way. You will get vampirism anytime during the game if you want to stay in the middle ( not to be a vampire not a werewolf ). One more thing, when I started to show the effects of vampirism, I drank my cure disease potions and also I used the shrine of Talos but none of them worked, so I was disappointed at that moment because I did not want to become either a vampire or werewolf but I was wrong. 

Now I am a werewolf, completely immune to vampirism and I guess I will continue being like that. I don't want to use the Beast Form to fight vampires at all and I hope the game does not push me somehow to start using that power at all but having it available just to be immune to vampirism and be able to kill vampires not from a distance ( because obviously that tactic did not work at all ) but face to face and I will so happy to do so. 

Players have been reported some bugs in Dawnguard; the majority of them said they were unable to enter Soul Cairn again unless they become a Vampire Lord : well, I was able to enter it as a dragonborn and it was not necessary to turn myself into a vampire lord. I came back with Serana to collect the 3 spell books : conjure mistman, conjure boneman and conjure wrathman; also I did the quest to collect Arvak skull so I also have the spell to conjure Arvak anytime I want. On the top of all this, I found Valerica ( Serana's mother ) working in her alchemy table in the same building where she was the first time ( not inside but to the left of the door ) and I spoke to her about that I killed her former husband Harkon, so she thanked me and told me that now she could go back to the Vampire Castle. After I finish all that and I exited Soul Cairn, Valerica got out and told me that it would take decades probably to re-build the castle. So I found not bugs by going back to Soul Cairn for the second and final time. 

Players have been reported that if you ask Serana to "wait here", she will disappear. I have been with her everywhere and I have been making her "wait here" for me several times and she never disappear; on the contrary, she said to me : "I've knew you miss me" ... right in front of my wife in Solitude so my wife was jealous or Serana was jealous ( she is falling for me as I am for her ... lol ) ... Now, I am not going to ask her to "part ways" cause it has been reported that if you say that to her, she will never follow you again and I am not taking the risk to loose her. This bug has been reported and everybody is expecting Bethesda to patch it so this does not happen, so we need to wait I guess for them to fix this problem. 

Even though the main quests are short, the game has not end. If you talk to Gumnar and other folks in Dawnguard Castle, they will ask you to kill master vampires at a random location and those task are for ever and they can be repeated as long as you offer yourself to help. This makes sense because vampires are not extinct completely. Killing their leader does not means the end of their race and they will continue to recruit more people and attacking the Dragonborn and try to take over Tamriel, so my Auriel's bow is finally put to work. As far as Serana, I will not get rid of her, on the contrary, I enchanted a necklace and a ring for her to fortify her magic, magic resistance, destruction and health regeneration. I also gave her an enchanted vampire boots to increase one-handed and an enchanted dagger. The reason I did that was because in some battles she has been knocked down and very close to death and I do not want her to die but being with me as long as I continue playing. I do like her personality, her voice and the way she fights. I would love to have more interaction with her when you open the conversation menu, but unfortunately, it is very limited. 

I don't know if she feels grateful with me because back in the game I told her that I trusted her completely, I assured her mom that I will protect her, I only asked her once if she wanted to be cured and anytime I travel with her, I try to protect her from the sunlight. Even though she is wearing a hood that protect her from sunlight, she asks you that it is too bright if she feels it is for her, and ask you to get into a cave or inside to avoid light. So I am trying to be nice with her and I always looking not to expose her to the sunlight not more than it is necessary. 

I made a mistake back in the game when I tried to convince her about being cured. I should have waited to finish the main quests to ask her "are you all right ?" which is the kind of question you should ask her to try to convince her and probably you will succeed. That question is not longer available in my conversation menu with her so for sure, she will continue being a vampire, but if you ask her again if she wants to be cured, she will get mad and will try to leave you and don't follow you again. So if you want her on your side and kind of happy with you, avoid asking her that question. She wants respect and she feels that being a vampire is a gift for her and something very private, so if you cross the line, she will not be happy at all. 

Perhaps, because I am respecting all the time who she is and protecting her from sunlight and in battle, is the reason why she waits for me anytime I ask her and she shows obedience by saying : "if you say so" ... perhaps not, but I guess that depending on the kind of conversation you have with people, will determine the kind of loyalty toward you. I don't know if this a fact in Skyrim or not, but one thing is true, that if you want your follower to watch your back and be loyal to you, then be nice and protective. Anyway, you are more powerful than them. 

Well, it is done ! I played Dawnguard ... but it was too short. I did not have the need to become a werewolf so that perk tree is not an option for me. It does not makes sense because you are a dragonborn, half dragon and half human so why should you become a werewolf to kill vampires ? But again, I played as dragonborn only and never contracted vampirism and killed Harkov with my dragonbone dagger ( enchanted to absorb health and chaos ). For the previous quests before the end, I also used the crossbow enchanted to absorb health and chaos as well ( excellent weapon ). I have been playing Skyrim for long time and l love it to the heart but I never wanted to use a bow cause my style is to fight my enemies face to face but this time, I started to enjoy my sneaking ability to use my crossbow from the distance with 100% effectiveness. It was fun not to be seen and be able to kill from a distance, especially when fighting falmers on top of bridges.

 I did not have the need to use the excellent Auriel's bow because there was not time to do so. The last fight against this Vampire Lord was faster than I expected ( max 3 strikes to kill him after I used my Dragon Aspect shout to enhance my power ) with my dagger. I thought the last fight would be harder, more intense and deep into the castle, but for my surprise, it was not. The game is very good but does not give you the chance to use your bow. I don't know why you have to use your best weapon and armor when there is nobody else to kill but a few. I am not planning to play it again as a vampire. I always play on the light side not the dark one but that is my style. 

The game is too short and leave you with a bad taste at the end. Fighting falmers, necromancers and some vampires randomly has been more difficult to even kill Miraak, the Ebony Warrior ( I cut his head off in one single strike ), Alduin and now Harkov. All of them were easy in compare to other foes. Now I guess I need to sit down and wait for the next addition or the next Elder Scroll game. Skyrim itself was excellent, a long game and I liked it like that. Dragonborn was very good but I did not like the way I killed Miraak ( with my fist only - not good for a dragonborn like him to die like that and not good for me as a dragonborn, to kill someboy so powerful like him, with my fists ); Hearthfire is silly and I don't know why you have to have 3 more houses on the top of the 6 you already have. It would have been better to only have one, a big palace and with more layouts to customize it much better than it was created. For what reason you wanted to have a library and storage room and a greenhouse ? Skyrim is not in the business of reading books unless they are spell books and they disappear after you read them, so why you should have a library when you have 5 - 8 bookshelves already capable to store more than 200 books ?

Why you should have a storage room when you have a cellar, chest, safes, dressers, etc to keep everything you really need ? Why you should have a greenhouse when you have a garden where you can harvest whatever you need ? Hearthfire was not the best addition but the worse of all. The designers of that addition do not have imagination at all. Dragonborn and Dawnguard too short; Skyrim very long and Hearthfire a bad joke.

Got a question before start playing Dawnguard : let' assume that I do not want to become a werewolf again but I do want to join the Dawnguard faction to fight off vampires. Is it possible that I can contract vampirism by being attacked by them ? If so, how an enchanted item with fortify immune disease will help ? Will I still contract vampirism if I am wearing that item ? 

Now, if I do become a werewolf again by talking to Aela, then I will not contract vampirism of course but the question is, do I have to be transformed into a werewolf to avoid being infected by vampirism or not ? Please help !! 

Since I do have a PS3, I will start playing this game today as soon as it is released by Sony. One thing in fact I do know in advance is, that I will not play as vampire and I don't know if I could join the Dawnguard faction without the need to become a werewolf. Let's face it ! You are a Dovakkin, a dragonborn, practically you are a half dragon already so why you should become a werewolf ? Neither the vampire lord nor the werewolf are more powerful than the dragonborn. I don't like the idea to become a vampire, an enemy of the people after you have been their savior by killing Alduin, Miraak and all the vampires in Skyrim, so why after you are practically a heroe should you become a vampire by turning to the dark side ? Yes, I will join Dawnguard faction to kill them all without mercy and they will not stand a chance. I am too powerful for them to even touch me and I will not have the need to turn to a werewolf to enhance my power against vampires. I am at level 81, finished all quests in Skyrim ( except the Brotherhood because I killed them all ), Dragonborn and Hearthfire; I do have an enhanced set of armors and weapons that are more powerful than anything else. I do have the Dragon Aspect shout that I can use anytime, spells and the ability ( if I need to ) to sneak and kill without being seen from a distance with my special bow. In my opinion, it would have been much better to get a shout, spell or a tree perk that allow you to fly as a dragon so if you choose to join the werewolf faction, you could kill vampires while flying. That would have been more interested unless you decided to betray your own nature of being dragonborn already and become a vampire. 

Dawnguard is a great addition to skyrim. I did the vampire story line and had lots of fun playing as the lord vampire. If you don't mind having to feed once a day I strongly recommend that story line. If you are a werewolf you can always go back to being the werewolf after you are done feeding on the humans. :P

Meh.  We waited for this "Twilight" expansion pack for 7 months and it was neither as "meaty" as Bethesda promised but just more of the same shyte.  I'm done with Skyrim.

PC gamers laugh at all you console people. The community has modded all of the bugs out of the base game and we'll do the same with dawnguard. ^_^

I'll wait for it to lose that absurd new DLC price tag.

Just to say one thing! This game was and is meant to be for PC Not for Consoles! Consoles ruin all RPG's So  If you people want to play RPG buy a good pc! Simple

Hm, I want to buy this. But surely there will be more DLC. And don't you guys think there will be a GOTY type thing with all the DLC's on it for much cheaper? I felt like a chump for getting Lonely Road for FO:NV when they popped out FO:NV Ultimate Edition less than a year later. And for only 40 dollars. The DLC's themselves cost about 70 dollars themselves, not to mention the core game. Good things come to those who wait. Or to gamers with low budgets.

A 7?  Really?

I think that the overall dificulty in skyrim needs to be increased this game pose no challange even on master if you played your cards right 

Overall I still think this is a good add on and I hope there will be more in the future.

That's funny Kevin gives this a 7.  At Gamestop, they sell this as an Early Access Beta to the DLC, you know, so they can find and patch most of the bugs before it's offical release.  Giving this DLC a 7 based on BUGS? NICE!

will it release on PC in the future? with bug fixes i assume?

7 Seems about right to me,the only reason everyone is hating on the score is because its Vampires,everyone thinks Vampires are so cool it must be great it has Vampires blah blah.

Seems just a bit harsh to me to knock it all the way down to a seven just because of a few bugs and the Vampire Lord system. I haven't seen any new bugs when I purchased Dawnguard, and I don't see that many bugs period playing Skyrim, but that's just me.

the reviewer is being objective, the bugs detract from the game's overall enjoyment. TES fanboys would give it a 10 regardless of any issues :D

I don't think I ran into any bugs in this add-on.

It's funny that the reviewer is bothered enough by the bugs to knock the score down. Yet a game like Diablo 3 got a pass with issues that completely left people unable to play for days.

your review itself gives a better score than 7.0 don't you think?

personally, I don't think I'll ever have time to get through the original content let alone the new stuff.. however, one dlc I would buy instantly would be if they actually made coop available for the original skyrim. I don't like how people are worried that adding coop to a game like this would somehow mess with the story. If you'd prefer playing it singleplayer, nothing would stop you from doing so. However, if you're like me, whenever I have time to play games, I'd prefer to enjoy them with friends. Being able to block attacks while my buddy shot arrows over my head, or being able to cause a distraction while an assassin buddy sneaked up from the rear, etc. would add a much desired range of options strategically when it comes to the combat.

Skyrim alone left me with countless hours of immersion, I dont really need a DLC to keep me busy, skyrim is sufficient in doing so! 

Skyrim deserves a 6 at best.

Lol consoles.