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According to one reviewer "what we have in The White March Part One is a low-stakes, low-reward dungeon crawl padded with some filler quests."

Ouch.

Here is the link to the full review. Taking that with a grain of salt until we hear some more. Don't expect anyone on this forum to finish White March Part One just now, but please chime in with your first impressions or full review once you have it.

Edit:

And a positive review, linked by Avalan.

A 'just more pillars' review at RPS, linked by Fenixp.
Post edited August 28, 2015 by darkness58ec
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I don't base my purchases on reviews; they're always skewed. I won't, however, pay that kind of price for a "part 1" of a regionally priced DLC. I will wait.
I'm torn on picking up Part One myself, just because it's not endgame content. It seems like it's best played as part of the base game, which makes adding only half of it kind of silly. To get the most out of it, I need to play through the game again (which is fine), but I don't really feel like turning around and starting yet another new playthrough whenever Part Two comes out.

I'm sure it'll be worth it when both parts are completed and come together, though.
All right, I have played it a bit over three hours right now, so while I can't provide any massive insight into the expansion, I can sure as heck share some first impressions.

So I started off by visiting a new location added to Dyrwood, which is obviously intended for high level characters as my lvl 12 party was struggling with it so much that I decided to level up in the expansion and come back. What immediately struck me, tho, was the fact that enemies seemed to be more varied, using abilities which I have never seen in the previous encounters from the original, quite obviously intended to stop players from using the same tried tactics over and over again. I'll see how well did it work, nonetheless I can't really tell until I get a few more levels under my belt (two more to be more precise)

After getting my butt kicked in there, I headed over to the new overworld map added by White March. It seems to add four new overworld locations with me only seeing the town so far. As far as the town goes, it's just more of the same of what you've seen in Pillars, with quality content a bit more condensed this time around. Graphics are still gorgeous, music is still amazing and writing is still spot-on. Then again I'm a bit of a local Pillars fanboy so I'm not sure whether I can be trusted.

I like the premise which has been presented to me in the new storyline, I love the new enemy designs (ogres carrying big fortress canons as ranged weapons, fairly badass if you ask me) and generally I was having trouble tearing myself away from the game now that I need to get some more work done. I have only met a single companion, but he's intriquing straight away - then again, I also really liked companions in the original. Obsidian claims the expansion is about 30 hours long, which would mean I should finish it in about 20-25 - if the content quality holds up, I won't regret the money I spent. (Not that I would anyway, heh)

Aside from that, the 2.0 changes are quite fantastic.
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UncleJeet: I'm torn on picking up Part One myself, just because it's not endgame content. It seems like it's best played as part of the base game, which makes adding only half of it kind of silly. To get the most out of it, I need to play through the game again (which is fine), but I don't really feel like turning around and starting yet another new playthrough whenever Part Two comes out.
Aside from high level location I have already mentioned, upon entering the expansion with a high level party, the game asks you whether you'd like its contents scaled to the level you are entering the expansion with.
Post edited August 25, 2015 by Fenixp
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Fenixp: ...
Obsidian claims the expansion is about 30 hours long, which would mean I should finish it in about 20-25 - if the content quality holds up, I won't regret the money I spent. (Not that I would anyway, heh)
...
OoOoo. That article said it was about 10 hours, which sent up a big warning flag for me. I hope its more like 30. Couldn't find a quote from Obsidian either way after a quick google search.
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Fenixp: Aside from high level location I have already mentioned, upon entering the expansion with a high level party, the game asks you whether you'd like its contents scaled to the level you are entering the expansion with.
Yeah, I saw that somewhere and it's a nice nod for high level characters, but it just seems like the whole thing would have more meat (for lack of a better word) when integrated into a full playthrough. I'll probably break down and get it regardless of my hesitations, though. I deeply love PoE.

But I still have to think that waiting until Part Two is out to do any of it would be the best choice. I don't know why they're doing a two-part DLC for something that isn't really a full expansion in the first place. I'm sure I'm missing something though, but it just feels off to me.

I just feel like the soulbound weapons would really be more of a draw in a full playthrough, for example. And I'd really like to see what the new party members have to contribute to the base game, sort of thing. If Part Two is going to actually be endgame content, then going ahead and picking up Part One and doing another playthrough now makes sense. But if it's just going to go back and add even more cool stuff to the base game that I'd miss out on the full experience of by not starting yet another playthrough, I should wait.

But I hate waiting.
Post edited August 26, 2015 by UncleJeet
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UncleJeet: I don't know why they're doing a two-part DLC for something that isn't really a full expansion in the first place. I'm sure I'm missing something though, but it just feels off to me.
I'm quite a fan of splitting expansions into smaller bits ever since seeing Arkane doing so with Dishonored and its two part Daud storyline, and hell, Bioshock Infinite and two part Burial at Sea. It allows developers to better react to mistakes they've made previously and adjust their games accordingly. I've only ever seen this approach being extremely beneficial to the end product and since we have digital delivery, there's very little reason not to do so. Anyway, I belive Obsidian said something along the lines of doing this so their fan base gets new content more regularily as to not lose interest in the game.
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UncleJeet: But I hate waiting.
Look, generally speaking, if you have any doubts, wait. The game won't go anywhere. I bought it straight away because Pillars is one of the best games I have played in quite a while and first day sales are generally very important to companies, and I really want to support Obsidian (besides, I find the pricing extremely reasonable). And since I've done that, I might as well play it straight away. Nonetheless, waiting is the safest bet to get the most polished experience, and cheaper to boot.
Post edited August 26, 2015 by Fenixp
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darkness58ec: According to one reviewer "what we have in The White March Part One is a low-stakes, low-reward dungeon crawl padded with some filler quests."

Ouch.

Here is the link to the full review. Taking that with a grain of salt until we hear some more. Don't expect anyone on this forum to finish White March Part One just now, but please chime in with your first impressions or full review once you have it.
You may have already seen it, but another review. This one much more positive:

http://www.gamingnexus.com/Article/4905/Pillars-of-Eternity-The-White-March---Part-1
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UncleJeet: I don't know why they're doing a two-part DLC for something that isn't really a full expansion in the first place. I'm sure I'm missing something though, but it just feels off to me.
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Fenixp: I'm quite a fan of splitting expansions into smaller bits ever since seeing Arkane doing so with Dishonored and its two part Daud storyline, and hell, Bioshock Infinite and two part Burial at Sea. It allows developers to better react to mistakes they've made previously and adjust their games accordingly. I've only ever seen this approach being extremely beneficial to the end product and since we have digital delivery, there's very little reason not to do so. Anyway, I belive Obsidian said something along the lines of doing this so their fan base gets new content more regularily as to not lose interest in the game.
Yes, but the difference with the DLCs you mention is that they're stand-alone, endgame content. Splitting something more self-contained into two parts makes more sense (to me) while splitting a bit of content that's more or less part of the base game makes a little less. Again, to me.

I'll probably just wait. I have nothing for love for Pillars, so I'm not naysaying Obsidian or the game. But with all the great releases hitting GOG recently, I've more than enough to keep me busy for a while. If more information comes out about Part Two of The White March, and it's revealed that it's more stand-alone than it is a further addition to the base game, then I'll probably pick up Part One sooner and do another playthrough to be ready.
Post edited August 26, 2015 by UncleJeet
After playing for a few hours, I was happy about a few things but disappointed in others. The new NPC AI controls seem to be a nice move, though I haven't played enough yet to fully feel comfortable in letting it do its thing without micromanaging as a matter of habit. I also like the idea of better, personalized weapons and the ability to level up some more. I haven't yet met any of the two new recruit NPC so I won't comment on them yet.

Now for the disappointments.

As soon as I walked out of my quarters in the keep, I was immediately attacked by my hired guards. So whatever it is, they didn't get rid of that bug.

I went to see if there were any more bounties available and of course, no, there weren't.

I walked around two of the fields and other areas and found them to be still sterilized, devoid of any life since I had killed everything there way back when I was only level 4 or 5 or so. I guess these screens are nothing more than placeholders now. If that's the case, I wish there was a way to eliminate or shut off tactically "inactive" maps so that know I don't have to try to travel back there anymore thinking that something "may" show up there.

Play balance? Wow. After kicking everyone's behind for the last several levels, I got my butt handed back to me on a plate, and my team was slaughtered by moves I've never seen before. And it seems this is twofold. The tactics used by the enemy is much more advanced, and the game's inherent engagement structure has been altered. Firstly, The enemy tactics (weapons, attack methods) are so improved that to compare this with the vanilla game would be like comparing the Boy Scouts to the US Navy Seals. This latest version also seems to have its rules of engagement restructured. It doesn't allow you to segregate enemies to divide and conquer; that is, drawing off a single opponent for you to gang up on, eliminate and then rinse repeat with the rest of his crew. If you attack one, now they ALL respond even from half a screen away, with two or three spell casters and several tanks in front. Additionally, they also seem to spawn duplicates of those melee heavyweights, making an initially "impossible" situation immediately hopeless. I was like, sh*t... I need a danger close fire mission and medivac NOW!!!

Traps? How come the game only seems to allow me to lay one trap at a time?

Two levels? We can only level up two levels? <facepalm>
Post edited August 26, 2015 by ralphrepo
All right, a bit over 6 hours in and I have still not even touched the main storyline. The new content is on par with high quality tier content from the original Pillars, toying around with fantasy tropes and trying to do the unexpected. Not always succeeding, but eh. Sadly, when I praised the new Dyrwood location for having enemies utilizing entirely new tactics, it doesn't quite apply to White March - while there are some tough encounters, your usual tactics will suffice for the most part. A bit of a shame really.

All of the locations seem to be very concentrated, with a lot of content crammed into them. And that content is actually good, funnily enough.

Aparrently, when you tell the game that you want White March to be high level, experience rewards increase also - I'm almost at lvl 13 with my group. I do hope to find some new talents, aside from the pseudo-multiclass ones (yes, there are multiclass talents in the game now. They're ... Peculiar.)

The expansion introduced a bunch more scripted interactions, and they are generally a lot better executed than those in the original - as in, all of them are actually interactive now, giving you options, and having failure states other than a broken arm. Nice.

Soulbound weapons are a fantastic idea - they're weapons which grow not with experience, but with introducing little optional quests which will allow the weapons to grow if you complete them. They also have pretty neat effects. Actually, generally speaking, White March has some fairly neat equipment effects.

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ralphrepo: ...
You know, Obsidian never even wanted to address most of the things you mentioned in the first expansion, why would you be disappointed by something which was never promised puzzles me a bit. They were pretty clear on only wanting to add new locations and content associated with them. Anyway:
a) Aggroing one member of a group always aggroed the entire group, in whole Pillars of Eternity
b) You could always only place one trap. Yes, it does suck.
c) The bit where you got your ass kicked? The mage tower, right? It's a high level area which is designed to force you to change your tactics to boot. The multiplying warriors you have so much trouble with - remember that they are monks, and the more you damage them, the more powerful they become. There's a lot of stuff like that which is designed to make you change your spells and use different abilities than what you got used to troughout the rest of the game.
d) There are bounty quests to be found in White March
Post edited August 27, 2015 by Fenixp
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darkness58ec: According to one reviewer "what we have in The White March Part One is a low-stakes, low-reward dungeon crawl padded with some filler quests."

Ouch.

Here is the link to the full review. Taking that with a grain of salt until we hear some more. Don't expect anyone on this forum to finish White March Part One just now, but please chime in with your first impressions or full review once you have it.

Edit:

And a positive review, linked by Avalan.
Funny, but when one reads both reviews (at those links above) one the first seems like an honest appraisal, while the second reads like literary fluff. Even the comments after the article says as much.

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Fenixp: All right, a bit over 6 hours in and I have still not even touched the main storyline. The new content is on par with high quality tier content from the original Pillars, toying around with fantasy tropes and trying to do the unexpected. Not always succeeding, but eh. Sadly, when I praised the new Dyrwood location for having enemies utilizing entirely new tactics, it doesn't quite apply to White March - while there are some tough encounters, your usual tactics will suffice for the most part. A bit of a shame really.

All of the locations seem to be very concentrated, with a lot of content crammed into them. And that content is actually good, funnily enough.

Aparrently, when you tell the game that you want White March to be high level, experience rewards increase also - I'm almost at lvl 13 with my group. I do hope to find some new talents, aside from the pseudo-multiclass ones (yes, there are multiclass talents in the game now. They're ... Peculiar.)

The expansion introduced a bunch more scripted interactions, and they are generally a lot better executed than those in the original - as in, all of them are actually interactive now, giving you options, and having failure states other than a broken arm. Nice.

Soulbound weapons are a fantastic idea - they're weapons which grow not with experience, but with introducing little optional quests which will allow the weapons to grow if you complete them. They also have pretty neat effects. Actually, generally speaking, White March has some fairly neat equipment effects.

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ralphrepo: ...
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Fenixp: You know, Obsidian never even wanted to address most of the things you mentioned in the first expansion, why would you be disappointed by something which was never promised puzzles me a bit. They were pretty clear on only wanting to add new locations and content associated with them. Anyway:
a) Aggroing one member of a group always aggroed the entire group, in whole Pillars of Eternity
b) You could always only place one trap. Yes, it does suck.
c) The bit where you got your ass kicked? The mage tower, right? It's a high level area which is designed to force you to change your tactics to boot. The multiplying warriors you have so much trouble with - remember that they are monks, and the more you damage them, the more powerful they become. There's a lot of stuff like that which is designed to make you change your spells and use different abilities than what you got used to troughout the rest of the game.
d) There are bounty quests to be found in White March
Yeah you're right, but one can still hope. Like the girl friend who you love that cheats on you, you're still disappointed when she does it a second time, right? I disagree with your first comment; I seem to recall being much more able to sucker out one or two enemy at a time, and not induce entire squads of mages and heavy hitters (yes this was at the tower). As for traps, unless my memory is failing, I remember actually setting two traps once down in the endless paths. Yes, that Mage Tower was a bloody hoot. Even those groveling gremlin things (I forget their names) were powerful, taking on my entire party and I had to beat on him almost several rounds before he went down. Having to change tactics is a definite yes, and then some. As for bounties, I was hoping there would be more back around the keep.
Post edited August 27, 2015 by ralphrepo
I've had trouble getting much info about multiclass skills so far. From what I can tell, all they did was add some skills that are class-restricted but available to more than one class. Which is sort of a bummer, but I realize that multiclass builds tend to be either gods or garbage whenever available.

10 hours would be sort of meh if all they brought to the table was a postgame mini-campaign, but if they overhauled AI, level caps, skills, and so on across the board on top of that while expanding and adding side quests across all game stages, then that's another story. By comparison, all the tiers of the base game above basic made me go "lol no" just looking at them. I guess I shouldn't judge, since I'm seriously considering the $125 Divinity:OS2 tier strictly for the beer mug...
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mothwentbad: ...
I guess I shouldn't judge, since I'm seriously considering the $125 Divinity:OS2 tier strictly for the beer mug...
Dude, save your money and get some company online to make you a custom beer mug (stein).
I have been playing only 3 hours due tight working schedule, yet as I'm in the archmage's tower, I'm getting the feeling that his is equivalent to the expansion of the BG1: Not driven story, but a lot of encounters and dangerous areas to test your battle's skills.

And, being honest. is a big jump of strategy, with the changes made by the 2.0 and the amount of enemies on this area, the game is very different (They even put a timer in the summons !). I'm not going to say its impossible, but once my PC are with less than 50 of health the next hit is a killing blow, when before was not that dangerous (Erh, I rest only when its truly necessary). However, as they are only new 2 levels to reach, should not be impossible, even a thief with 12 in mechanic plus the bonus from the stronghold could disarm all the traps in the tower before reaching the level cap (Or at least that is my bet). Until this point the high level encounters are handled by strategy, even if the mercenaries are level 12 or 14 (But if Obsidian removes the boots with increase speed movement I quit!)

As this is a two part expansion, the history driven could be better than the were-wolf quest in the BG1. But there is something I didn't like, I understand that was supposed to happens after your fight with Theos, and nope... I was forced to load the pre-end game slot for beginning it

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Fenixp: b) You could always only place one trap. Yes, it does suck.
Actually, at the beginning you was able to put a trap and a cleric's seal, but was removed in the second or third patch :/

By the way, just to be sured, the monks have a ability which let do not be targeted and still be able to attack? I had this issue with the dwarf monk sleeping the basement, suddenly I was unable to target spells or attacks against him, not special icon/timer was in his status and I was forced to reload. I'm very sure this was a bug, but had never played with a monk.
Post edited August 27, 2015 by Belsirk