Do dragons randomly spawn?

[ZirMc]

I seem to remember back when the game was first released, dragons could randomly spawn everywhere. For example, every so often when I visited the college in Winterhold, there would be a dragon in the court yard, outside Riften there some times would be a dragon, walking the wasteland could spawn a dragon etc etc.

Now I have clocked 40+ hrs in the game, yet not encountered a single randomly spawned dragon, except dragon locations and story spawned dragons. Usually I wouldn't mind a stroll in the woods, but the random dragon spawns was kinda making the game more epic. Also, I am at a shortage of dragon souls, which is also annoying.

[22b3]

Sure you started the main quest? Like going to the watchtower and stuff? Sometimes i forget to do this. Also, get a mod that increases random encounters because quite frankly, their to low for my liking.

[rresuggan]

i clocked 50 hrs in game and have killed 3 dragons in darkwater they seem to spawn every time i go there

[Cat]

Yea not doing the main quest or getting a bug in it can cause that. Also they spawn randomly kind of, but there are very set locations where such a random spawn can occur. I noticed that theres quite obviously a % chance of getting one in town when you enter one, but also in the wilds where you've killed a dragon before, they will most likely be there again in a while.

If say you've walked across the whole of Whiterun plains and didn't see any, it's most likely bugged, coz there are multiple locations at which they spawn there.

[ZirMc]

Started the main quest, just did the dungeon after you first see the greybeards. I might just look in to getting a mod that ups the spawn rate. Did some Googling on the subject and several are experiencing similar issues, some blame mods (I only have UI + the dependency installed), so I doubt it is that for me. Or maybe I am just that unlucky and haven't encountered a single randomly spawned dragon at all.

[Cat]

Well doing that quest and killing the first dragon specifically is what triggers the spawn. It's very fragile as one event not triggering has a massive effect on the game, so look into that.

[ZirMc]

They start spawning after you killed the first one, and I think the spawn rate change a bit as you progress the story. It is definitely bugged for me though, cause just now I went through all the dragon spawns, and killed 2 blood dragons and they did not give me a soul, but one frost dragon did.

Even one of the dragon walls I had already learned was giving me the sound effects, though no shout to be learned there. Think this one is also describing a possible solution, but it seems a bit too random for me to have any influence: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/971351-no-random-dragons-spawning/#entry8025373