Poll: Skyrim - Best DLC

[thejboy88]

Those of you who have played the latest Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, will know that there are currently three sets od downloadable contecn, or DLC, available for it right now.

Dawnguard, which allows the player to take part in a rising conflict between the vampire lords and the order who seek to wipe them out. Hearthfire, which gives the player the option to build their own home, as well as to adopt a child. And more recently, we have Dragonborn, where the player can yourney to Solstheim, an island featured in the earlier ES game, Morrowind, to battle the first Dragonborn before he takes over the world.

Having played all three I can honestly say that I have no problems with any of them, but I'd like to get a feel for what the Escapist community thinks of them, specifically, which DLC is the most popular.

It would help if you were to give a reason for your choice.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Having played all three I can honestly say that I have no problems with any of them, but I'd like to get a feel for what the Escapist community thinks of them, specifically, which DLC is the most popular.

It would help if you were to give a reason for your choice.

I voted for Hearthfire, because I'm the kind of dick who likes to skew poll results. Ha, can you imagine if anyone actually was going to vote for that, saw the results and thought "Oh my god I'm not alone, there were other people who preferred crafting tables over slaughtering vampires!"?

In reality, I'd say Dawnguard, because it's the only one I've actually played yet. I'm just up to the bit where you step into the whirly purple portal o'doom, but I haven't been bothered to go back yet. If you choose the anti-vampire path, frankly nothing in the game feels very new; I haven't gained any mad crazy new vampire powers or anything, I've just got a crossbow. It's a nice crossbow, granted, and with the enchantments I put on it I can pretty much one-hit-kill vampires with it, but given that I'm still playing with the same character I beat the main game with it all feels very much like more of the same so far.

EDIT: Oh, and it's pretty much dungeons so far. I WANT MORE TOWNS. My main source of enjoyment in Skyrim is being a filthy thieving little prick, and all these abandoned castles or cave lairs just don't do it for me. I want new houses to burgle, new shops to break into, and more shit to jack. I don't even need the money, I'm just a kleptomaniac.

 

[Schadrach]

Having played all three I can honestly say that I have no problems with any of them, but I'd like to get a feel for what the Escapist community thinks of them, specifically, which DLC is the most popular.

It would help if you were to give a reason for your choice.

I voted for Hearthfire, because I'm the kind of dick who likes to skew poll results. Ha, can you imagine if anyone actually was going to vote for that, saw the results and thought "Oh my god I'm not alone, there were other people who preferred crafting tables over slaughtering vampires!"?

In reality, I'd say Dawnguard, because it's the only one I've actually played yet. I'm just up to the bit where you step into the whirly purple portal o'doom, but I haven't been bothered to go back yet. If you choose the anti-vampire path, frankly nothing in the game feels very new; I haven't gained any mad crazy new vampire powers or anything, I've just got a crossbow. It's a nice crossbow, granted, and with the enchantments I put on it I can pretty much one-hit-kill vampires with it, but given that I'm still playing with the same character I beat the main game with it all feels very much like more of the same so far.

EDIT: Oh, and it's pretty much dungeons so far. I WANT MORE TOWNS. My main source of enjoyment in Skyrim is being a filthy thieving little prick, and all these abandoned castles or cave lairs just don't do it for me. I want new houses to burgle, new shops to break into, and more shit to jack. I don't even need the money, I'm just a kleptomaniac.

Dragonborn has a couple of smallish towns, some dungeons, a new crafting material, several new spells and shouts that are significantly different than existing ones, and a plot that centers around the first Dragonborn and Hermaeus Mora (my favorite Daedra prince, ahead of Clavicus Vile [who has the shittiest artifact for having the second best portfolio]).

 

[SonicWaffle]

Dragonborn has a couple of smallish towns, some dungeons, a new crafting material, several new spells and shouts that are significantly different than existing ones, and a plot that centers around the first Dragonborn and Hermaeus Mora (my favorite Daedra prince, ahead of Clavicus Vile [who has the shittiest artifact for having the second best portfolio]).

Hmm. Perhaps when I've got time I'll have to give it a crack then. Can you still acces your fences and such, or do you get stuck in the new area like you did with all the Fallout DLC and have to make a decision about which loot to take back with you?

 

[xefaros]

They all are equally bad.All they did is glue some mods around without even bug fixing and threw them to the wall at 20$ and claimed they were closer to expansions than DLC.Shivering Isle was 30 hours.All DLCs are finished within a day seriously WITH the side quest and cost 20$ while SI originally priced at 30$

 

[TheLycanKing144]

Dragonborn is the best DLC by far. Dawnguard is good too but Hearthfire is forgettable.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Hearthfire I really liked the idea of, but because of bugs I can only build 1 house, so this can't count.
Dragonborn was fine until I realised that Solstheim felt really underpopulated. I feel they could have done more with it, however I got it for half price on PSN so I won't complain. Some of the characters were interesting however.
Dawnguard is quite fun, haven't finished it but it's substantial. Soul Cairn is underwhelming, but this wasn't as popular as Dragonborn anyway which I don't think it deserves.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Hmm. Perhaps when I've got time I'll have to give it a crack then. Can you still acces your fences and such, or do you get stuck in the new area like you did with all the Fallout DLC and have to make a decision about which loot to take back with you?

You can pretty much go back and forward. You can also take equipment there in the first place, a concept New Vegas struggled with.

 

[Schadrach]

Dragonborn has a couple of smallish towns, some dungeons, a new crafting material, several new spells and shouts that are significantly different than existing ones, and a plot that centers around the first Dragonborn and Hermaeus Mora (my favorite Daedra prince, ahead of Clavicus Vile [who has the shittiest artifact for having the second best portfolio]).

Hmm. Perhaps when I've got time I'll have to give it a crack then. Can you still acces your fences and such, or do you get stuck in the new area like you did with all the Fallout DLC and have to make a decision about which loot to take back with you?

Back and forth pretty much at will (there's a fast travel point for the mainland on the Solstheim world map). Gear can go back and forth, and there's even a player house in Raven Rock as a quest reward. Also, a summon that takes a material component but has no duration and has a semi-fixed location (it's tethered to a rune on the ground, you can summon it without the component but it's uncontrolled).

There's also a camp with stuff for werewolf characters.

 

[Schadrach]

Hearthfire I really liked the idea of, but because of bugs I can only build 1 house, so this can't count.
Dragonborn was fine until I realised that Solstheim felt really underpopulated. I feel they could have done more with it, however I got it for half price on PSN so I won't complain. Some of the characters were interesting however.
Dawnguard is quite fun, haven't finished it but it's substantial. Soul Cairn is underwhelming, but this wasn't as popular as Dragonborn anyway which I don't think it deserves.

I can give you that, the population of Solstheim is pretty thin. Then again, it's an island off the coast of Morrowind, so that might be intentional given the whole eruption of Red Mountain thing.

 

[putowtin]

Dragonborn,

Sure more vampire powers were good, but I don't like floating around as that butt ugly statue
And on the Xbox, it's kinda cool to have a bigger home with everything I ever needed in one place
But Dragonborn adds a cool story to the Elder Scrolls series, the location is vastly different from Nordic Skyrim
and the armours are alright too!

 

[SonicWaffle]

Hmm. Perhaps when I've got time I'll have to give it a crack then. Can you still acces your fences and such, or do you get stuck in the new area like you did with all the Fallout DLC and have to make a decision about which loot to take back with you?

You can pretty much go back and forward. You can also take equipment there in the first place, a concept New Vegas struggled with.

I suppose they would have placed more weight on it in Skyrim where equipment is both more important and more personal. In New Vegas the height of personalisation for me was whacking a couple of mods onto my favourite guns, whereas in Skyrim my character spent enough time grinding smithing and enchanting that she has a full set of Daedric plate armour with enchantments up the wazzoo and weaponry that deals damage like a goddamn mortar shell. After all the time grinding on iron daggers, grinding enchanting on those iron daggers, collecting Daedra hearts and all the other gubbins required to create my kit, disenchanting loot to get the right spells, and finally crafting the whole set I would be pretty fucking pissed if the game told me to leave it behind and wander into a new zone entirely naked

There's also a camp with stuff for werewolf characters.

What kind of "stuff"? My main alt is a werewolf, when she remembers - it's generally quite an underpowered state when compared to her normal badass tank self, so it usually slips my mind that I can even use it.

 

[Sargonas42]

I haven't yet played Dragonborn, but I really loved Dawnguard. From what I've read Dragonborn looks like it's going to be even awesomer, but I'm going to withhold judgement until I actually play it to be fair.

What I'm more curious is how many people picked one faction over the other in Dawnguard? I'm kinda wondering what the overall breakdown is amongst gamers at large.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I haven't yet played Dragonborn, but I really loved Dawnguard. From what I've read Dragonborn looks like it's going to be even awesomer, but I'm going to withhold judgement until I actually play it to be fair.

What I'm more curious is how many people picked one faction over the other in Dawnguard? I'm kinda wondering what the overall breakdown is amongst gamers at large.

I personally prefer the Dawnguard. My main is a Nordic werewolf and proud of that fact, and after curing himself (roleplaying reasons) he is proud to not have any supernatural assistance in his asskicking.
Another reason is that Harkon's plan is not sustainable and vampires are still crippled. The Lord form was kind of cool but overall I didn't think it was worth the negatives of being a vampire.

OT: Dragonborn for me. Sure I enjoyed having my lycanthropy seriously buffed with its perk tree and I love my character made home but Solstheim is just beautiful. Half of the island produces numerous nostalgia-gasms thanks to the Netches, ash, Redoran style buildings, bonemold and chitin armors etc. And the other half is beautiful snowy landscape that enthralled me more than Skyrim's snowy areas. Then we have the main quest dealing with the nicely voice acted first Dragonborn and the always wonderful Hermaues Mora. His realm, Apocrypha, was also a very nice and interesting addition to the expansion. Some cool new weapons and armor (Bloodskaal Blade and Stahlrim anyone?) and a few nice callbacks to Morrowind and the Bloodmoon expansion.

 

[Schadrach]

Hmm. Perhaps when I've got time I'll have to give it a crack then. Can you still acces your fences and such, or do you get stuck in the new area like you did with all the Fallout DLC and have to make a decision about which loot to take back with you?

You can pretty much go back and forward. You can also take equipment there in the first place, a concept New Vegas struggled with.

I suppose they would have placed more weight on it in Skyrim where equipment is both more important and more personal. In New Vegas the height of personalisation for me was whacking a couple of mods onto my favourite guns, whereas in Skyrim my character spent enough time grinding smithing and enchanting that she has a full set of Daedric plate armour with enchantments up the wazzoo and weaponry that deals damage like a goddamn mortar shell. After all the time grinding on iron daggers, grinding enchanting on those iron daggers, collecting Daedra hearts and all the other gubbins required to create my kit, disenchanting loot to get the right spells, and finally crafting the whole set I would be pretty fucking pissed if the game told me to leave it behind and wander into a new zone entirely naked

If you aren't using named stuff, there's actually a moderate chance you'll actually replace one or more pieces of your gear in Dragonborn -- there's a new material called Stalhrim, at least one new enchant called "chaos damage" (50% chance each of each elemental damage type) a couple of named weapons and at least two named sets of armor that come from quests with nice and very unique bonuses (stuff that's not "better", but that just doesn't exist on other items, and has set bonuses).

There's also a camp with stuff for werewolf characters.

What kind of "stuff"? My main alt is a werewolf, when she remembers - it's generally quite an underpowered state when compared to her normal badass tank self, so it usually slips my mind that I can even use it.

Not exactly sure, just doing the Companions line on one of my characters so I can wolf it up to find out.