Originally Posted by Warmark 
Because it's a standalone expansion does that mean no more online DRM required, as per their announcement for all new games awhile back?
If so that would be excellent news.
No the gold version they talk about is already available minus the one coming out and it still uses uplay. This has been talked about before many times. You can play offline but you will miss some game content related items and other stuff. That's not going to change.
Also this would make the second release of the same gold version. Whats next platinum game of the year?