From Pete Hines' Twitter:
Holy crap! I feel pretty lucky right now.

Good game but it killed my 360 (not that it takes that much to kill them). Just not worth the cost of repair and I won't be buying another... not with the next gen console due next year. Guess I made the wrong choice.

Cool, I was looking for a reason to get back into playing this.

I think the claims of issues on the PS3 are overblown. I have 250+ hours in this game and I have never seen any of the bugs mentioned. I had it freeze a couple of times but it seems everyonce in a while alot of games have that happen to them.

Sorry to hear that.

I haven't played it on PS3, so I don't know for sure. Just going based on what I've read on Bethesda's forums since the game was released.

With the DLC out today, is there any info as to it's length - I especially want to know if there are new areas and locations. If it's just new story/missions in the same places, I'll be a lot less compelled to get it.

There are several new locations. At least 2 of them are quite large.

Length depends on what all you do, of course. The expansion adds a lot of things to the base game, in addition to the new storyline. I'd estimate about 20 hours of content, but time estimates are difficult with this game as you probably know.

Also, there are two separate paths through the new story, so that's something to consider. It requires reloading an earlier save or using a different character to fully experience both, though.

Really? I kinda' hate that shit. I mean, a lot of people (including me) were pissed that finishing one storyline (Civil War) before another (main quest) meant that you'd miss out on one of the better missions. I didn't think they'd do that with DLC, since a lot of people will have progressed quite a bit, if not completely finished.

I have no experience with Xbox DLC so this may be a dumb question: but how is the DLC downloaded? For example, I have two profiles with diferent characters and my son and daughter each have one. Will the DLC be downloaded across all profiles onto the hard drive or just for one particular profile?

DLC is profile specific, I believe.

Well, the story is about the Dawnguard (vampire hunters) vs. the vampires. So it wouldn't make sense to be both on one character or save.

As long as you're all playing on the same Xbox that's originally used to download the content, you'll all be able to play it. It's only profile-specific if you try to play it on a separate console.

Are you sure about that? Noonan's answer above was the oposite.

I'm positive. I played Dawnguard on a separate profile throughout the entire beta period, and today I've been playing it on my main profile.

MoviePage is correct. Everyone on the console will have access to it.

From what I've read it sounds like Dawnguard is more akin to Knights of the Nine than Shivering Isles. If so that's a disappointment I was hoping for a nice big DLC rather than a more scaled back one. Anyone who has it can you speak to that? I've got a PS3 so I've got a while to wait so just curious.

There's way more content than Knights of the Nine offered. I think the actual area of Shivering Isles was bigger, but then again I mostly hated that expansion and rushed through the story as quickly as possible.

I'd say it's somewhere in between the two. The main story can be sped through fairly quickly, but there are also new optional areas and quests, with several really great rewards to be found. It adds a lot to the base game too. I suppose it just depends on what you're looking to get out of it.

I've re-started Skyrim on my 360 after trading in my buggy copy from the PS3 - I'm level 13 and just downloaded Dawnguard and already I see some differences (vampires everywhere it seems), but I'm not tackling the quests just yet.

I so want to get this add on. I bought 3/4 of the Oblivion content and enjoyed all of it. I'm just not sure I have the time to start a second character so I can try being a vampire and a werewolf.

You don't have to. You can do both on one character, but you may be thinking that (minor spoiler, maybe)

To play as both Dawnguard and vampires you would need two characters at level 10 minimum, or you could just revert to the same save and play through twice with one.

Also, for anyone going for all achievements/trophies, work on levelling via training your unused skills. The Legendary dragons are normal encounters just like all the other dragons that appear randomly or at dragon markers, but they don't show up at all until very high levels. The official word from Bethesda was level 70, but I don't know anyone who's seen them that early. The earliest confirmed encounter that I've seen reported anywhere is at level 78.

And level 81 is the absolute level cap if all your skills are at 100.

Not sure if it's the patch or just bad luck but I've had at least a half dozen freezing issues while doing the Dark Brotherhood quest line. It's really starting to get annoying.



Make that seven times.

I'm more than 12 hours into Dawnguard (360, installed, latest patch) and I haven't had a single hiccup much less a freeze. Which is actually a record for me. Last time I played the game this regularly, it'd freeze at least once a day.

Must've been all those beta testers doing such a fantastic job with the Dawnguard content.

I wasn't playing Dawnguard. I mean it's installed, but I never started the quest lines.

I had freezes before, a couple during the loading screen and maybe one or two after a marathon (well as marathon as a Dad can get when the kid and wife are away) session of 4-5 hours or so.

But yeah, as soon as I started the Dark Brotherhood, it was freeze city.

It just froze on me again, during another Dark Brotherhood quest.

Okay it froze again this time on a different quest line for the College. I give up.

I only have four saves and two are auto so I know it's not that. Will turning off auto saves help? I just started getting into the game again but the freezing is unbearable.