E3 Update: SWTOR Announces New Expansion; Players Thrilled to Hear Game Still Exists

This week at E3, BioWare announced a new expansion for its acclaimed MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. This will be the fifth digital expansion for the game which was released in 2011 and will feature a raised level cap to 65, new storyline missions, and new companions to fight alongside with.

GCD News was able to get the reactions of gamers on the expo floor just after the news broke:

"When I heard SWOTR was releasing a big expansion, I was like 'Awesome! That game is still running. Good for them.'"

"I can't wait to get home and see if I still have it installed!"

"My husband and I were worried that all those devs were unemployed. We're relieved to say the least."

"Ah man, I used to play it so much in college, so hearing about it brings me back. I had a lazer light sword sabre and was all like 'zzzzrrooom, zzzzrrooom' and then I was like 'the dark side is your father, noooooooo! Die Darth Ewok!'...Oh man I smoked too much weed back then. Also, right now as well."

"Are you SURE they were talking about SWTOR? I was thinking during the annoucement they meant Battlefront but for whatever reason kept saying 'Old Republic'."

"Meh, call me when you can play as a Wookie."

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Knights of the Fallen Empire is due out sometime this fall.

E3: New 'Living the Steam' Tickets Now Available

We have all been there, hammering F5 trying to refresh our browser the exact moment E3 tickets come on sale. Inevitably, thousands of gamers, fans, and 'others' are left empty handed, forced to sit at home and wait for information to trickle out onto blogs. Good news, gamers, this may all be a thing of the past.

The Entertainment Software Association, the company that brings us E3, announced this week they launching a new initiative that will allow a record number of people to experience the expo the way it was meant to be.

Dubbed "Living the Stream", these new tickets pair up those who missed out on tickets to the event with a ticket-holding volunteer equipped with the latest in video streaming technology, giving the opportunity for thousands of fans to be there in spirit. "We wanted to take advantage of the ever-growing popularity of live streams. But, we know that one of the biggest draws of watching the stream is the personality of the streamer," explains the event's lead director. "Anyone who purchases a "Living the Stream" will be able to choose their own personal streamer based on their interests."

Sponsored by Twitch, this new program seeks to tap into the mind-bottlingly massive revenue potential of people who seem to enjoy choosing to give money to people who they are watching play computer games. Some features of the "Living the Stream" tickets include:

• Watch every keynote address through the eyes of an audience member who fell asleep in the hotel room but managed to catch the last 8 minutes
• Be riveted as your personal streamer spends nearly a half an our haggling the price of a WoW plushie from $20 to $18
• Experience the 45 minute wait to get that guy who played Dale in "The Walking Dead"'s autograph
• Catch all the updates from your favorite upcoming MMO as your personal streamer refuses to leave the developer's booth for nearly three hours, making awkward small talk and jumping in to answer questions from other patron's before the Devs have a chance to do so
• Appreciate the irony of the over abundance of "hipster version" cos-players
• Be "that guy" who picks up all the swag left behind or dropped by other expo-goers
• Love Chiplotle? Good, because there's one across the street from the venue and chances are your personal streamer will be eating there 2-5 times a day

To purchase "Living the Stream" tickets, please visit: 'www.e3.com/faketickets/livingthestream' and enter promo code: "GCDNEWS".

X Marx the Spot - ArcheAge Announces Expansion Focused on Housing

Every MMO goes through its own growing (or shrinking) pains, so it is no surprise to see that five months following its release, talk of server merges in Trion's MMO ArcheAge have dominated the forums. While many players feel that consolidating servers would breathe new life into the game, there are many questions that need to be answered due to the way the game goes about many of its core mechanics, namely player housing.

The biggest worry for most players is how server merges will affect the housing system since it currently operates under a  "first come, first served" policy. For those who are forced to move to a new server, all of the prime housing locations would already be claimed making it impossible for new arrivals to experience one of the game's biggest draws. Thus, Trion has recently announced an upcoming housing-focused expansion that will address these concerns.

Dubbed the "Social-IST (Social Intervention for Server Transfers) Expansion", Trion will be utilizing a portion of Patron Pass income to fund the creation of developer-subsidized housing in Erenor. These shelters will be free to all players who are homeless upon arriving on a new server in order to attempt to level the playing field with those who have been on the server since launch. "Since we can't provide equity of opportunity," stated one developer who worked on the expansion, "we felt it was our responsibility to try to provide equity in other ways. Creating developer-subsidized housing seemed like the ethical choice."

Not all players are pleased with the news. Karl McEwin took the the forums and wrote, "My older brother gave me my plot when he quit playing last month. He stayed up all night one night to make sure he was there when the servers first opened to get it. Many a Mtn Dews were drank and Hot Pockets consumed that night and I can only assume he took at least a few days off his life to lay claim to our gorgeous beachfront property. Why should I be punished despite all the hard work my brother put in? Anyone new to the server needs a lesson in hard work. If they just try harder, they will get what they want!"

Another controversial feature of the Social-IST expansion will be a new 10% tax on all transactions that include gold, including loot drops and quest rewards, that will be distributed to all players who have been on the server one month or less. "We know what's best for our players," said the Trion dev. "Sure, there are a few players who own premium housing locations and have made stacks on stacks of gold, but they've never lived a day in a server transfer's shoes." In order to be eligible to receive this benefit, all a player has to do it login and "/w ObamaDev: goldz pls".

The Social-IST Expansion is slated for late summer 2015.

Ex-Dev to Blizzard: You're Full of S#!T

Blizzard developers recently revealed that there are no future plans to allow flying on the new continent of Draenor because they feel that it makes the world a smaller place. There are very few in Azeroth who believe this weaksauce reason. Thus, GCD News went behind the scenes and did some dumpster diving outside the Blizzard offices to find the truth and you won’t believe what we discovered (other than the shockingly large quantity of gas station burritos consumed by Blizzard employees)!

The real reason why Blizzard does not want you flying on Draenor is...POOP!

Yes, you read that correctly.

The real reason why Blizzard won't let you fly over Draenor is due to the fact that cleaning the massive amount of digipoop created by flying mounts is a massive drain on company resources. Imagine thousands upon thousands of brown sky-nuggets falling to the ground from dragons, gryphons, wyverns, drakes, rays, cloud serpents, hippogryphs, druids in shape shift, mages on carpets and every other shit filled flying thing in the world that is Warcraft.

For us gamers, the world is always clean and the air is always fresh as we don't see what goes on behind the scenes during server downtimes. We've been able to locate an ex-developer who worked at Blizzard who has shed some light on this situation:

Ex-developer: "I worked as the VP of DPC (DigiPoop Collection) at Blizzard. My team and I were responsible for cleaning digital poop in World of Warcraft."

GCD Pants: "How come we have never heard of this problem before? Why is it such a big secret?"

Ex-developer: "The reason no one has heard of it is two-fold. When flying mounts were first programmed, the code created its own residual code whenever a flying mount was used. If the mount didn’t expel this extra code, it would crash the server. The demand for flying mounts was so great, Blizzard just decided to deal with the digipoop instead of having to start from scratch to fix it.

The second reason is because because of the money Blizzard spends on it. Do you know how many servers we needed for just maintaining this shit? There are entire server farms dedicated to storing the poop before it is ‘flushed’. More than half of the extended downtimes in World of Warcraft's history were due to someone on our team flushing the poop well before they were done causing a server tank refill delay."

GCD Pants: "So not allowing flight in Draenor will reduce the server load?"

Ex-developer: "Indeed! They have cut down the shit quantity in Draenor by 60%. No doubt some employees are going to take home a big fat check for cutting down the poop into smaller manageable chunks."

There you have it, straight from the poop cleaners mouth! Now the true reason for not allowing flying mounts in Draenor known, now it's up to the players if they want to keep putting up with Blizzard's shit.