Someone said in this thread that it was due to Paradox's own experience or something, and they told Obsidian it's better to release within 6 months after release otherwise people forget about the game. Couldn't find a source, though.
Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part One review: Just another chapter in a long tale
The White March is to Pillars of Eternity what Tales of the Sword Coast was to Baldur's Gate.
Into the mountains
There’s an easy way to talk about The White March Part One, and that’s raw numbers. One new region (The White March) with four main areas (the village of Stalwart, the wilds of Russetwood and Longwatch Falls, and the mysterious dwarven fortress of Durgan’s Battery), two new companions (the rogue Devil of Caroc and the monk Zahua), one lengthy dungeon, and one shorter dungeon, all adding up to about ten hours of content.
All of it is decent. Some of it is good. None of it is essential.
In a perfect world, The White March would be the Tales of the Sword Coast to Pillars of Eternity. You would organically (seamlessly) stumble upon the expansion content while playing through the campaign, once your character hit level 5. Those who’ve already completed Pillars of Eternity though will (like myself) load up their pre-endgame save and mainline everything The White March has to offer.
It’s not ideal. To me it’s a bit like reading a book to completion, and then a few months later the author comes back and says, “I added a new chapter—now there’s a 12A and a 12B before it goes on to Chapter 13.” Except you’re never going to read Chapters 1-11 or 13 again. And taken on its own, The White March Part One isn’t incredibly compelling.
Now, I should be clear in case you didn’t ascertain this from the title, but Obsidian’s only released the first half of The White March so far. Events in the second half may retroactively make Part One a lot more interesting. But if that’s the case, I wish Obsidian would’ve released it as one package instead of two separate halves, because what we have in The White March Part One is a low-stakes, low-reward dungeon crawl padded with some filler quests.
The White March centers around Durgan’s Battery, a fortress formerly home to a band of dwarves renowned for their skill as blacksmiths. The Battery produced weapons made of Durgan steel, stronger and lighter than any normal armaments. Durgan’s Battery has lain dormant for two-hundred years though, and the decrepit mining town of Stalwart calls on you to figure out what happened—and whether there’s any help to be found within.
But for those who’d invested in the story of Pillars of Eternity, in roleplaying The Watcher, the expansion isn’t going to hit the same highs. Honestly, scope is a big part of the problem with The White March Part One. By confining the player to four main areas, it makes the expansion feel less lively. The village of Stalwart is small, with only a half-dozen interesting NPCs and a dozen or so quests to offer—four of which are story-less “go-here-kill-this” bounty missions.
Even in story-heavy missions, pieces slot together in a very “video game” fashion, everything in its right place. Take the new companion, the Devil of Caroc. Her background is interesting, as she’s tied more closely to animancy than perhaps any otherPillars of Eternity character. But you can meet the Devil of Caroc and wrap up her entire character quest within half an hour, without leaving the small playpen of The White March.
Contrast that with “The Trials of Durance,” for instance. Durance is one of the earliest characters you’re liable to meet in Pillars of Eternity, but only by continually resting with him and talking to him over the course of the game will you untangle his background and motivations—and even then, you can’t finish his personal story until near the very end, after the Council of Stars.
It’s an effective comparison because it illuminates much of how I generally feel about The White March after playing Part One. There’s a lot of potential, but it’s for the most part so small in scope and self-contained and worried about disrupting the main storyline that there’s no real oomph to it. Playing The White March Part One won’t cast Pillars of Eternity into a new light, or illuminate some truth about the main story you hadn’t thought of before. It’s an interesting, entertaining side venture that’s (I imagine) markedly better if taken as just another in a long list of sidequests than played on its own as an expansion.
All that being said, I do want to commend Obsidian on some of the mechanical tweaks, some of which were rolled back into the base game in the recent 2.0 patch. Most important of all is the fact you can now see spell ranges, so you can tell whether a character needs to move into harm’s way to attack.
Soulbound weapons are also an interesting addition to your arsenal. These weapons are “bound” to a single character, and are then unusable by all others in your party. The upgrade path then relies on performing specific feats instead of generic enchantments—for instance, requiring you do 200 damage to beetles for the weapon damage to increase. Again, this seems more useful if you haven’t finished the game, as you’d have more opportunities to complete these challenges.
And finally there’s the level cap, which has been raised from 12 to 14. The biggest effect? Wizards, druids, and priests can now cast Level 3 spells as “Per Encounter” instead of “Per Rest,” meaning your wizard can throw seven fireballs per battle. It seems to make casters a bit unbalanced and overpowered, but I like it.
Bottom line
I meant what I said at the top of the article: One day, The White March will be to Pillars of Eternity what Tales of the Sword Coast is to Baldur’s Gate. Every newcomer will play the base game and expansion at the same time. There’s no real reason not to, and few will even realize what belongs to the expansion and what doesn’t.
And that’s great! But that’s not me. Nor, maybe, you. The fact is, The White March Part One is good fodder for those coming in fresh and a fine addition for those looking to replay, but isn’t compelling enough on its own for you to come back to Pillars of Eternity if you’ve already finished the game.
Again, that might change with the release of Part Two. The ending of Part One hints at greater repercussions for your actions in Durgan’s Battery, and I’m curious to see whether the second half leans a bit harder towards tying the expansion to the main story—or at least ups the stakes. But for that, we’ll have to wait to find out.
Pillars of Eternity, as you might remember from our original review, is an excellent CRPG that hearkens back to the days of Black Isle’s best games. With staff from said revered studio and with Obsidian being veteran of the RPG genre, it only makes sense that PoE was so widely anticipated and adored. But can the studio continue the magic with its first major expansion, The White March?
The simple answer is yes. If you’re wanting more of the same awesome Infinity Engine-like gameplay of the games from the 90s you hold dear, The White March is bound to deliver. The longer answer is that while the expansion offers some truly memorable story moments and fantastic new core game features, it’s not a runaway bit of perfection. But then, what game is? The simple truth is that The White March Part One is a really good expansion to an already excellent RPG.
With a second part due out in just a few more months, I won’t spoil too much of the story for you. But, just in case you’ve not finished the main game, don’t fret. You can experience most of TWM’s content by just getting to the 2nd act or so. A little bit after you unlock Cad Nua (your stronghold) in the main campaign, you’ll get a notice to return to the keep and then you’ll be given missions to head north to The White March. One area, Cragholdt Bluffs is another part of the expansion altogether, and is meant for the higher level players. Luckily the Steward of Cad Nua warns you pretty well of this, but if you’re keen to die with lower level saves, feel free to go there.
The main bulk of the story takes place in The White March itself, a frozen northern area (as the name implies) rife with ogres, fish-like people, ice trolls, and loads more new monsters to take on. While Obsidian insists that the content scales down to meet you if you try the White March content early, I will let you know that it’s actually been excruciatingly hard with my own lower level save. I’ve had to enable god mode on more than a few occasions just to progress. It’s not unlike the fight players grumbled over when first taking Cad Nua for themselves. But then Pillars of Eternity has never been about being an easy RPG. Its combat takes planning, positioning, and loads of planning… these are things I gave up on in interest of progressing the story, but the more hardcore will likely have more patience than I do.
Speaking of difficulty, Pillars now sports a snazzy new per-character AI system that allows you to have your party behave and fight on their own accord, but sadly it doesn’t seem to work as well as it should. Not only is it somewhat hidden in the character sheets, but the options don’t seem to work as they’re intended. I set up Durance to play support, so I don’t have to constantly have him casting endurance spells, but he never once seemed to cast them on his own. Even after I’d turned to cheating to get past a few fights, when I turned all characters on aggressive and damage settings, they still needed my nudging to start fighting and continue fighting when their targets fell. In short, don’t get too excited for the party AI. It’s not quite working yet.
The rest of the game’s new features are stellar though. The new companions, especially the Devil of Caroc, are excellent additions. The monk Zahua is fantastic too, especially because of his drug-addled personality, but the Devil of Caroc seems to be more useful, at least in my experience. Zahua’s skills are more impressive to watch, but the rogue has more utility for my tastes.
Another new feature is the addition of Soulbound Weapons. You’ll find pieces of these throughout the expansion content, and a spirit that once wielded the weapon will guide you towards finding the other parts and completing its reconstruction. Or you may get lucky and just find one completely whole. Either way, they add huge bonuses to the character that wields them based on their class. They even level up as you use them, getting more beneficial affects the more you fight with them. With the increased level cap from 12 to 14, this is a welcome reason to do a lot of the content you might have not finished in the main game as well, since all of the items in TWM can be taken back to the main game.
Overall, The White March adds a lot of new awesome to an already excellent CRPG experience. Original Kickstarter backers get The White March part one (and eventually part two) for free, while it’s only $15 on Steam for non-backers. For the 20 or so hours you’ll get at that price, if you liked Pillars to begin with, this purchase is a no-brainer. Even if just for the excellent story of Durgan’s Battery alone, it’s worth every penny. Just be ready to fight, because this content isn’t a stroll in the park and I don’t think Obsidian would want it any other way.
Same case here.I hate unfinished stories, so I will wait for part II before diving into this.
Playing it patched will be an additional bonus.
I do not have time to play games anyway these days.
