PoE Expansion announced at E3

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As the title says Obsidian/Paradox have announced the Expansion at E3. Here is a link to the trailer.


Here is a link to a Twitch E3 interview with Josh Sawyer.

http://www.twitch.tv/twitch/v/6281592?t=5h30m30s

 

Looks cool, if a bit bare bones - reminds me a bit of the first skyrim trailer, no gameplay in sight at all
Looks like it's set in a completely new area, i wonder if it's possible to do the expansion content during the main story or if we're going to need to import our PC.

 

According to Josh Sawyer the setting is based on the Icewind Dale setting which was the first game he worked on. You can do the expansion during the game. I gather it is triggered by what you do at Caed Nua. Party AI has been added so we will be able to set chosen party members to behave a certain way in combat while we micromanage others.

We also will be able to level up enemies in the expansion if we want to so that if we enter the area at a high level there will be challenging fights. It all sounds quite exciting.

 

Good thing they're finally adding party AI, having to micromanage your entire party all the time gets tedious fast.
Goodto hear they'll be interweaving the main campaign with the expansion, should give the main campaign a longer shelf life as well

 

From what Josh said it does sound as if they have done their best to respond to player criticism. Better targeting circles. Also two new companions have been reported as possible. one is a construct (robot?) rogue. Could be very interesting given PoE's soul theme and the other a male monk.

My guess on release is that they will try and get Part 1 out by September if all goes well. Just a guess though.

 

DURRgan's steel. It makes enemies feebleminded.

 

Nice, that would mean the only class not supplied by companions is the barbarian, which is my favorite class to play anyway
the whole construct rogue iea takes me back to PS:T, where you had nordom, one of the funnier companions to take along, who was also a construct, and though a fighter was more of a rogue-like character with his crossbows.
With the monk companion, they might be restoring Forton, who was an intended companion monk for the main campaign, but didn't meet the final cut.

 

I hope it'll be a full campaign and not just DLC that makes us pay for little bugfixes/improvements that should have been delivered as patches.

 

I'm guessing something in the scope of TotSC or HoW.

 

From what Josh says it should be on the scope of TotSC. At least the two parts together.

 

Here is a link to a report on the Expansion.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/90...tundra-of-pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march

 

It's nice that they're adding party AI, but monster AI was always more of a problem than the party AI (or lack thereof).

 

The one party "AI" (sorta) thing that I've felt was missing was the lack of a "hold position" button/action. That was perhaps the single most used party action I used in the old IE games, because it was great for ordering a tank or 2 to hold a position in a doorway chokepoint, and KNOW that he or they wouldn't go running off. It's annoying as all heII in PoE to try to hold a good solid party formation in battle, only to have your moron party members go running off every which way, if you have auto-attack turned on, or conversely, have them stand there and do nothing if you have auto-attack turned off. IMHO, a "hold position" action button might be the single most useful thing the devs could add to enhance the ability to control your party in combat. I honestly don't give a bleep about party AI scripts! Just give me a hold position action button, and I'll be overjoyed.

 

That might be a valid suggestion to submit to the development team on the official forums.

 

Here is a link to more official information regarding the Expansion and update.
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80445-update-99-announcing-the-expansion-and-update-20/

 

it's nice that they finally added the devil of caroc. i remember a thread on the obsidian forums where someone had dug into the game files and found that the devil of caroc was an intended companion for the original campaign that was cut. Also, automaton companions are cool.

Edit : turns out the monk Zahua is also a cut companion, whom was going to be named Forton in the main campaign. i guess that meast the only cut companion we're not going to see is Cadegund (human female priest of magran) since she was replaced by durance.

I like the fact that stealth can now be activated/used on an individual basis too, I've always thought it didn't make much sense for my entire party to drop into stealth mode when i was only sending one of them to scout ahead, especially since that was the only character with actual points put into stealth in the first place.

 

I have heard rumours of a third companion but have no details. Possibly to be included in Part 2. We are still missing the barbarian class.

I too am excited about the stealth change. I will probably spend hours just trying to see what I can do with that.

The update is now 2.0 and will be available to everyone whether or not they get the expansion.

My personal opinion of PoE is that it is already better than BG I and with the update and expansion it may be competitive with BG II.

 

It seems there will be a retraining option in the 2.x patch however it will cost in-game money and has been reported as rather tedious to do. I have no idea if that is fact or rumour.

 

BAdler posted the following in the announcement thread today.

 

This was released on gameshell.com
http://www.gamershell.com/companies/paradox_interactive/1462933.html

We will see they have been having problems with the patch update so I would imagine that needs to be fixed.