Pillars of Eternity's First Expansion, The White March, Released

[PatrickJS]

Pillars of Eternity's First Expansion, The White March, Released

Pillars of Eternity gets expanded this week with The White March, Part One, the old-school RPG's first downloadable content.

I feel like I'm watching someone grow up: Pillars of Eternity began as a Kickstarter success story, then was released to due for a board game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/13681-Pillars-of-Eternity-Review] - and this week, it's welcoming its very first expansion.


The White March certainly feels more like a classic expansion than DLC, a term people often think of as piecemeal, or overpriced [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108564-Bethesda-Says-People-Are-Still-Buying-Horse-Armor]. TWM adds an enormous amount of content to the base game: two new companions, one entirely new area, new enemies, new dungeons, new quests - all of it adding up to more than a dozen hours of bonus content (or more if you need to read every. Single. Piece. Of. Lore)

The following gallery shows off some of the new visuals and encounters, and the usual Pillars beauty is on full display here:

[gallery=4581]

Along with the expansion's content, owners of the base game also get a free "2.0" patch to bring them up to speed [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0GvsA6exuY]. New features in the patch include improved stealth - now you can have individual party members become stealthy, and the enemy noticing one will not necessarily break stealth on everyone else. Another fun feature: AI behaviors that you can set ahead of time, freeing up some thinking space.

Both the patch and expansion are available today; my download is moving dangerously slow. Has anyone here delved into it yet? Great? Good? Excellent?

Source: GOG.com [https://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_the_white_march_part_1]











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[Sight Unseen]

Looking forward to playing it more. I got it free because I backed this game for way too much money (no regrets though!)

I'm only about an hour or so into it but I've noticed that the new AI doesn't seem to work. I set custom AI patterns for all of my party members and made sure that the AI was set to ON, but as soon as their target dies, they all just stand there like idiots waiting for my command. Is anyone else having this issue?

The new environments look awesome so far, and I can't wait to see what this expansion has in store!

 

[PatrickJS]

I set custom AI patterns for all of my party members and made sure that the AI was set to ON, but as soon as their target dies, they all just stand there like idiots waiting for my command.

That's too bad. I'll definitely test it once I get the game fired up.

 

[loa]

Urgh.. touting "increased level cap" as a "feature"...
Not a good way to start that trailer off.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

I enjoyed PoE. Though I sort of never finished it after I got about 50 hours in, don't know why. Guess I really need to go back for that last stretch, but so little time between all these releases argghh.

AI was indeed shit, I personally enjoy micromanaging all the actions though, so it wasn't a problem.

Another disappointing element was how little of the drops and rewards were actually useful. I threw away 90% of everything I got in the game. Plus, several item slots like gloves, boots and helments either having no model or such a limited amount of models that you could never fit them to your armor set, I hate that.

 

[Demagogue]

Dammit... I literally uninstalled this last night... *goes and starts up Steam remote install*

 

[Sight Unseen]

AI was indeed shit, I personally enjoy micromanaging all the actions though, so it wasn't a problem.

Just wanted to make the point that AI mechanics are a new addition to the expansion. They added a whole new layer where you can customize AI behaviour for each class and have them automatically do things while you weren't directly micromanaging them. It just didn't work for me last night when I tried it. Not sure if it's a problem with the game or just a weird issue I was having, though.

 

[loa]

So I'm looking at the gog description and 5 out of the 8 bulletpoints are either patchnotes (no obsidian, you fixing your bug-ridden mess does not double as a non-exclusive "feature" of an expansion), untrue ("multi class talents" are a thing already. They are called "talents" you dolts) or kind of insulting (gtfo with that "level cap + 2" nonsense, what are you, gearbox? Is this borderlands? And "respec" is a questionable feature that may ruin this kind of game for some people by its sheer existence too).

Why is obsidian trying to sell this by desperately clawing at features to list at best and being deceptive at worst?
Is there really so little to this almost 30$ expansion once you boil it down to the actual things it adds?