In the wake of this renewed Mass Effect fervor, not a lot of word-of-mouth has leaked out regarding Dawnguard. As someone who has yet to buy it, I'd like to hear how people are enjoying it. Are the crossbows awesome? Are the Vampire Lords crazy? Swimming Dragons?

Haven't played that much of it, but it seems cool so far. It sort of reminds me more of Knights of the Nine, in that it doesn't really add a new full sized land mass, but it's still worthwhile because of the new story content, items, and abilities. I'd have to say that crossbows seem kind of underwhelming. Maybe they get better though, because I just have the basic one and it just won't cut it for my level 57 character.

@FreakAche: Do Crossbows have their own skill tree or are they leveled underneath the Archery skill?

@HistoryInRust: From what I hear they just use the Archery skill tree, which is a bit lame.

@FreakAche: Hmm you might have just confirmed that this isn't for me. I've been feeling that A) I don't really care about vampires or werewolves, and B) I really loved Shivering Isles cause it was huge and added a new land that was so different. Knights of the Nine I didn't even finish because eh. That's really disappointing to me as when they said they were going for much larger "expansion" style DLC, and then release this I'm really disappointed.

Fingers crossed for the Shivering Isles-esque one soon!

@HistoryInRust: It's just part of archery unfortunately. I was hoping they'd at the very least add some crossbow specific perks to the archery tree, but they didn't even do that.

@FreakAche: Hey I'm stuck on the PC and I'll have to wait it out.

But what about that werewolf perk tree? Can you be a werebear now?

I wish I was more into Skyrim, but I just don't think it was that fun for the most part. This would have been a fun thing to discuss, but nope.

I play on PC so I haven't had the chance to check out Dawnguard, however my friend tells me the world/setting isn't like the rest of Skyrim. If that's true, I know already I'll love the hell out of this DLC. One of I enjoyed Oblivion more (deal with it, I understand how/why Skyrim is the better game though) was because of the world. Skyrim is nice and all, but it doesn't have warm whether, a big lake and a sunset. The artwork was just better looking in my opinion and in an open world RPG, the setting means a lot to me.

seems cool so far and I like the crossbow (but I wish it had a separate talent tree).

@Doctorchimp: Sorry, I've been playing through with my main character (good guy) so I probably won't be werewolfing or vampiring it up any time soon, so I can't really say much about the new perk trees.

Soul Cairn is the biggest piece of shit to navigate ever. I'm not even joking, what the fuck were they thinking?

Also, they're only two kinds of crossbow. The fuck.

Nothing seems worth 20 dollars so far. Characters on vampire side are pretty good, though.

@FreakAche: When you say that it doesnt add a new full sized land mass do you mean to say the expansion takes place in Skyrim, or it takes place in a new location, but it just isnt very big.

@david3cm said:

@FreakAche: When you say that it doesnt add a new full sized land mass do you mean to say the expansion takes place in Skyrim, or it takes place in a new location, but it just isnt very big.

It takes place in Skyrim. A bit takes place in a plain of Oblivion but it's nothing like Shivering Isles or Blood Moon.

@david3cm: It adds two little new areas a fort and castle but that's it. The rest of it takes place within Skyrim.

EDIT: I'm a lying sack of shit. There's more than 2 new place and one of them is fucking HUGE. I was going on word of mouth and my own experience (terrible idea) I was only like 3 hours in but there are a couple more places that are pretty big.

Vampire Lord is. fucking. awesome.

Still waiting til' July since I play on the PC. Can't wait, i've heard so much good about it.

@ChadMasterFlash said:

@david3cm: It adds two little new areas a fort and castle but that's it. The rest of it takes place within Skyrim.

Wow, that's... disappointing.

My first impression was that the map marker to get to Fort Dawnguard is straight up wrong. It's wrong on the world map at least, if you go to a local map it will convey the correct information. A laughably pathetic mistake to make...makes me wonder if this was play tested at all.

I do like the fact that werewolf was buffed, and the content seems cool so far. But man that first impression just ripped me right out of the fiction. If the player has to put down the controller and search the internet to find out how to access the content, you have utterly failed as a game developer.

@Tesla: That didnt happen to me sounds like a random bug not specific to the DLC

@maxB: That wouldn't surprise me. But during my internet search I did find one other reference to someone having the same problem as I did.

Again it's a pretty minor issue, but it put a bad taste in my mouth having to fumble around to access the content I just paid for. But yeah, now that I'm in there I'm having fun.

At least they're finally extending the vampires, they didn't do much before except get murdered by randomers in towns ( at stage 4 anyway,)

@Tesla: I heard from others that the marker was off for the initial quest but, I didn't have that issue.

As for my overall thoughts...

I finished the main vampire quest line today. It was pretty good. The main quest is comparable to other faction quests in the original game (ie. dark brotherhood, etc).

The Vampire Lord form is cool too. I have yet to try the dawnguard content but from what little Ive seen on the net, it looks pretty cool as well.

For 20 bucks the DLC is worth it.

@Bazzy115 said:

At least they're finally extending the vampires, they didn't do much before except get murdered by randomers in towns ( at stage 4 anyway,)

Yeah, I never really cared much about vampires in Elder Scrolls before. Even in Morrowind when there were all the crazy vampire clans you could join, I just didn't care that much. I'm glad that with Dawnguard they've finally made vampires cool.

I'm really liking it so far. I chose the vampire quests and it's been super awesome and interesting to play. I like the new characters and it's really cool how they actually have things to say and a character arc. Even at level 81 with the best armor I got destroyed by a couple of dragons during a quest, that was something :)

Can't wait to see how everything plays out.

@ChadMasterFlash said:

@david3cm: It adds two little new areas a fort and castle but that's it. The rest of it takes place within Skyrim.

thats misleading and inaccurate as FUCK.

im only like 2 hours into the storyline and ive seen TONS of new places.

Yeah, some of the new areas are pretty massive.

Kinda got burnt out on Skyrim. If it goes on Steam sale over summer I may pick it up for mods and not-awful load times.

Really disappointed that they went for vampires and werewolves in this DLC. The two have been done to hell over the past few years and were already included in the main game.

@Clonedzero said:

@ChadMasterFlash said:

@david3cm: It adds two little new areas a fort and castle but that's it. The rest of it takes place within Skyrim.

thats misleading and inaccurate as FUCK.

im only like 2 hours into the storyline and ive seen TONS of new places.

Yeah I should've edited. I was like 3 hours in (fucking around going slow) and had only seen those 2 places and from the stuff my friend told me that was it (what a cunt) I didn't get to the the HUGE new part until last night.

Can't wait for the PC version.

I would love it if the patch Oblivion in to the game.

@Tesla said:

My first impression was that the map marker to get to Fort Dawnguard is straight up wrong. It's wrong on the world map at least, if you go to a local map it will convey the correct information. A laughably pathetic mistake to make...makes me wonder if this was play tested at all.

I do like the fact that werewolf was buffed, and the content seems cool so far. But man that first impression just ripped me right out of the fiction. If the player has to put down the controller and search the internet to find out how to access the content, you have utterly failed as a game developer.

HAHAHA Bethesda play testing????

That aside... I really like that being a vampire is actually pretty cool as being a vampire in the other games was a hindrance. Haven't got that far, but having fun.