Skyrim Patched Anew, But Whither Dawnguard PC?

It's odd to look back to the many frustrations of Skyrim's launch, all those PC-specific oversights and technical flaws that drove us spare, and how so many (but not all, I know - modding the UI is still all but vital, for instance) of them have since been addressed. New textures, 2GB RAM cap lifted, sound quality bug sorted, mounted combat added... What seemed to be a fairly perfunctory PC version has been nurtured to fuller health in the days since launch, and that continues with patch 1.7, now in beta on Steam. There isn't much in the way of big revelations, but "General memory and stability optimizations" is the kind of thing that's always good to hear. I wish someone would optimise my stability.

Also in the patch are assorted crash fixes regarding water and dragons. The big question remains unaddressed, sadly - when do we get to see the Dawnguard expansion, which has been out on Xbox 360 for almost a month? Microsoft's 30-day exclusivity period winds up this week, so hopefully it won't be long before we can all be flying vampire lords. I've not played any Skyrim for months, but I suspect Dawnguard will lure me back to its mountains.

To install the beta update, you'll need to opt in from Steam's settings. Full instructions here.