also today we had again ca_staging in the new DLC
Oh that is just a summery of the updates in the update history.
After checking the updates prior to release/reveals, there isn’t any specific one that indicates anything. I think we are just going to have to wait, and can’t glean anything from the updates other than if it’s still being updated or not.
While we wait, another reminder of the evidence so far:
- Filthydelphia’s Chinese level not included with V&V and an identical Japanese level created from scratch instead. Even though there is space on the map for a Chinese level.
- Temujin level has changed lines regarding the Xi Xia and Jin, when no other such changes have happened in any other V&V level.
- Traditional Chinese language is updated first for the DLC, despite normally it being languages in alphabetical order for every other update. Hindi language was also updated first before Dynasties of India.
There is nothing hinting towards the Americas, Africa, Europe or other parts of Asia, meaning we can consider all them unlikely. I would also add that adding civs from Europe, especially those with Eastern European and/or Mediterranean architecture seems even less likely, given peoples frustration with the sheer volume of them lately. There is still the chance of it being a different kind of DLC, but they have never done non-civ DLCs twice in a row before.
Since this is also the year of the 25th and 5th anniversaries respectively, I feel that this might be when we finally see such much-requested changes like regional monks and/or unique castles.
I would hope that if a civ like Tibetans gets added, that regional monks do as well. So we can see them using more appropriate-looking models for the unit.
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ROR I think? That was a side note at the 25th Anniversary stream
I meant after/end of RBW.
We had some “final testing” a few days ago.
Hard to know exactly what this means without understanding their naming conventions. Maybe this is each campaign/civ getting it’s final testing. Maybe last week they really thought it was final testing, then some issues popped up and they had to do another round of investigating, fixing, and testing.
Regardless tho, “final_test” does seem to be a good sign that DLC 5 is getting close to being done.
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So i dug into this a bit more.
I think something closer to the first explanation is correct.
So I went back thru months of the changelog.
Let’s start with the July 16th “microsoft_build_final_test”. That preceded the July 19th map balance update, and the effected depots were 813781 and 813784. Which seems to be associated with the base game, whose app id is 813780.
Looking through the depot numbers, they seem to close to the app id #s. Looking at the app id #s they’re all multiples of 10 (with exception of the enhanced graphics pack), which makes sense. You have an id for the app then give 10 id spots for depots for updates to said app. seems quite plausible to me.
Also I found this, which shows a bunch of depots created for DLC 5. It is consistent with the depot / appid correlation theory. I suppose it’s not proof the same was done from previous dlcs, but it’s all consistent with that being the case.
the next “microsoft_build_final_test” occurs on August 14th, affects depots related to the base game, another unknown app with the description of “(Phoenix - Full Game)”, the DLC 5 app, and slightly surprising to me, RoR.
Then there are frequent “microsoft_build_final_test”, from then on. I doubt they thought the dlc was nearly done, found issues, rinse and repeat for two months. so it’s probably closer to a certain civ/campaign/something is in final testing with each one of these final testing builds.
Breaking down affected DLCs
- LotW has a microsoft_staging on august 14th. nothing newer, no final tests.
- DotD has a tantalus_staging_2 on august 9th. nothing newer, no final tests.
- DoI has a tantalus_staging_4 on september 18th. nothing newer, no final tests
- RoR has a microsoft_build_final_test 3 hours ago, and much more recent activity than the other released dlcs.
- TMR has a ca_staging_3 on august 30th. nothing newer, no final tests.
- V&V has a tantalus_staging_3 from yesterday, tho I can’t find any final tests. it has some recent activity, tho not as much as RoR.
tho the base game and dlc 5 have FAR more updates to their depots than any of the previous dlcs, which would be expected.
Now, if someone has better information please do correct me, but I’m guessing the dlcs only contain the campaigns, and unlock the civ which is in the base game. Firstly prithviraj campaign is playable to anyone who one DE even if you don’t own DoI. Secondly if you’re playing multiplayer, and your opponent is playing a civ from a dlc you haven’t bought, you wouldn’t want that civs uu assets in the dlc. your machine wouldn’t have a file to reference to draw that unit.
But that’s probably not true with RoR. While the romans civ is probably in the base game, all the aoe1 content is in RoR.
Now there hasn’t been any significant changes to RoR since last december. maybe it’s just a few balance changes, maybe it’s the last few campaigns finally being ported over, maybe it’s just bug fixes, or maybe they have a solution for cross play. impossible to say.
Doesn’t look like there’s any significant changes, perhaps no changes, coming for any of the other DLC campaigns (excluding V&V and it’s scenarios). Which while it isn’t proof dlc 5 is focused on china, it’s not incongruent with the china theory. according to the wiki all of the chinese campaign and scenario appearances are either in the base game, or V&V.
In summary, I think final testing refers to a given aspect of the game, not an indicator the dlc is necessarily close to completion (tho this late in the year I hope it’s close to completion), and it doesn’t seem like dlc 5 will affect the campaigns of Lotw, DotD, DoI, or TMR, tho it may affect some V&V scenarios.
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Nice to have someone else do the digging for a change haha!
Good work!
Although I couldn’t help another dig. They just did four “staging” in a row! I have never seen this before.
“Staging” means “ready” in some way, in coding terms, and doing it multiple times in a row might be them giving each new campaign and civ a “tick” that they are complete…one last wave of checks.
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So 4 staging in a row. How many staging were there in total?
The 4 in a row could be 2 new civs and 2 new campaigns.
actually looking at the branches, each company has multiple stagings. MS, FE, Capture Age (I think, pretty sure that’s CA stands for) and Tantalus.
It doesn’t make sense for the updated company branches to indicate they’re close to done. You wouldn’t have multiple “main” branches. Seems to me you have various branches for each company and changes are pushed back into the parent branch.
ms also has a nightly build, a final test, and a final.
So probably it’s more like everyone works on the various staging branches, those changes get pushed into the nightly branch at the end of every day, then when you have some new features that are ready to test you push the changes from nightly to final test, and when testing is done, those completed and tested features from final test are pushed into final.
There’s also a pup branch and a ms_playtest branch. Both of those were last changed before the public branch.
Unlikely to be that exact.
Also there was just a 5th one.
Bingo. It’s more just a nightly thing to make their job easier when they get back to it.
tho looking at update history, final builds seem to precede final tests. so many i’ts that final is pre testing, and after test, it’s final_test to mean it has been tested.
Normally there is some schedule to these. This looks kinda crazy.
Now iirc, TMR was leaked a few days before it was intended to be announced, and then some content creators released their videos a few hours early, and they were taken down and put back up.
Regardless, October 16th was the (intended) announcement day and the start of the creator preview.
The pup_staging branch was updated on October 9th, and oct_pup branch was updated on October 12th.
So if TMR is anything to go off of, I think our best bet is to wait for an update to pup_staging branch. Once that happens my guess is an announcement will follow shortly there after, within about a week.
Thing is…there was a PUP at the time. So that throws it off a bit.
What makes you think we won’t have a PUP for the next update?
More that we don’t know. And honestly, I don’t remember PUPs happening around other DLCs.
At least TMR and V&V had PUPs. IDK about RoR
It still has PUP iykwim.
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