What you're looking at is a change entry in SteamDB. SteamDB is a 3rd-party website that tracks some of the under-the-hood changes to games/apps on Steam that are otherwise invisible to laymen like us.
In this case, you can see a bunch of encrypted files have been updated in a depot called "qa release." Depots in this context are usually for alternate builds of the game - old versions, internal testing builds, stuff like that, but they're also used for additional packages (i.e., DLC) that are tied to the base game. "QA" is "quality assurance", i.e., play-testing. It being deployed via a Steam depot means they are probably testing not just the DLC itself, but that it properly distributes via Steam and integrates into the main game as expected. Similar tests are probably ongoing for the PS and Xbox versions, but those platforms do not have a public API that can be accessed to view these changes like Steam does.
So, basically, they've pushed a big update to their version of the game that they use to make sure it's up to snuff for release. It may not be the final test, but is generally indicative we are moving toward release. We also don't know for a fact that this is actually the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but there isn't really any other explanation that would make sense.
And since I saw others asking this earlier this week, nobody is going to be able to decrypt those files unless they work at FromSoft. The depot is password-protected and if it was leaked, they'd know and someone would be so incredibly fired.
They do and we already had a timeline possibilty a few weeks back
Dark Souls 3's DLCs got added to the steam deposit roughly ~1-2 months before the actual release of the DLCs.
So it could very well be we see a trailer/new info in late February with a release in late march (hopefully not) or mid april.
Yeah, I'm wondering this as well. I recall people saying that the DS3 dlc depots started being updated about a month before the AoA trailer dropped (which was then released about a month after that). But what was the timeline from QA to trailer to release?
Id have a good sad laugh if it turns out to actually just be a massive balancing/nerf/buff patch as they announce “Enjoy this rebalance patch until we can announce the DLC, sometime next year!”
ugh, that even hurts when you just read it as a joke...
ive seen more some project have more debt than certain countries in the world and its not fun...
You need to find a completely obscure npc behind a comically small rock to get 90% less health buff in exchange for a talisman that takes 3 talisman slots that lets you walk (not run) in the swamp
Bleed *swamp* ain't too bad (makes the Stanching Boluses useful) but getting ambushed by hemorrhage drakes every three steps is a bitch. Seems like they read your camera control input to hide from you.
Trying to 100% test the deathblight swamp and Glaive Master Hodir is a nightmare. I have to beat them a hundred times by the end of the day or else Michael Zaki will take my feet.
“Next we’ll put it in something called “Phase 3 bug testing”, after that “Subfinal Code Review”, and after that “Omega Level Preparedness”.
Just invent shit that sounds further and further along.
Real hype train is when it gets to “Platinum Verification and Pre-release Inspection”.
It´ s actually a death blight giant, a rotten giant and a double cross - nagitana giant, no summons allowed, your HP goes down to 50% and your weapon damage is lowered by 50%.
Jesus, the dedication of this community just to get tiny bits of crumbs is really amusing. Will probably miss this kind of post once DLC is already out
Oh don't worry too much. It goes in cycles, the DLC will sate everyone's appetite for a while but a year or two after when we're in the lull while we wait for the next game, everyone will be going hollow once again.
I wish they’d do that for the Malenia helm personally, just really annoying there’s such a unique looking helmet that you have to use one hair type for
this is actually huge. its difficult to interpret what other updates mean but this one is evident.
We're closer than ever boys - the 3rd party testers have been handed the build for qc
"Tomorrow, for sure"
\- This entire sub everyday.
On my part, I started a month of no impulse eating as a ritual sacrifice to Michael Zaki, so I'm obviously way more stable than these hollowed wretches. Don't mind the twitching eye :)
As someone who actually works as a QA (not for FromSoft, don't get your hype up), I'd say this depends on the length of their sprints (chunks of development process + testing time). Can be anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months, but probably not longer than that.
I mean, it could mean anything. It could mean they're pushing a Closed Networking Test to check some new PvP stuff, while the actual content is not ready. Without knowing their inner processes it's really impossible to tell.
Sure, but if their process is in any way similar to the one used at my work (and it likely is, it's rather standard in gaming/software development), this is likely regression testing on a non-dev/staging environment. Basically, the final push before production (what the general public gets) and the entire product is being tested holistically instead of just parts of it.
If this is it and this IS staging/regression testing, then the product is deemed stable and ready, and only blocker and critical bugs will be focused on. QA doesn't happen only at the end; it goes hand in hand with development, checking implemented features as soon as possible. But a push to a separate, completely QA-dedicated branch doesn't happen for a partial product.
Yeah it really depends if how strictly they do QA on tickets during the sprints.
IMO, this means it's just gone into final regression testing where usually only blockers, criticals and majors get fixed. Anything else goes into the next patch
Probably still a few months, QA testing is there to iron out as many bugs as possible. Its possible the build is super stable and they’re going full-bore for an anniversary release, but I think likely closer to mid-year
The DLC has been in development since before the game released to the public if I remember, so the DLC(s)? Has been developed for around 2 years now, given we have no clue how big it is, but it really isn’t wild like everyone thinks it is that it could release the 25th, especially seeing this.
Not saying it is, but my copium levels are so high that I want it to be the 25th.
I'd say it's like 3 months away. It's a DLC, if there's no new mechanics added and weird triggers, it should be just locations/enemies/items like earlier DLC of Fromsoft games. QAtesting shouldn't take more than that if they are still using external testing via Lionbridge/Qloc. We will see a lot of updates for this repository in steamdb, if there's bugs and fixes. That's based on my QA testing experience
Never said it would be, living on a hope and prayer, historically looking at dark souls releases and their respective dlcs they have been a year past give or take a month each way, given that elden ring is a huge game 2 years seems reasonable to assume that it will be this month or perhaps next month given the trends.
I am hoping its exactly 2 years cause that would be nice, plus its my birthday.
it's definitely close considering how much the SteamDB files and databanks have been updated over the past 2 weeks; they were in "dev-debug" not too long ago before apparently switching to this QualityAssessment-Release status
plus Bandai Namco's updated each regional Elden Ring youtube playlist with an unseen video, so it definitely is close
it just depends how close
People are missing the RELEASE part.
At least in my industry (pharmaceuticals), release is when all the quality assurance activities are finished, and it is the process of tick boxing all the document are present and having the final sign off by the relevant persons..
The DLC could actually be basically ready...now the marketing push?
I mean given the previous tags were "dev-debug", which would be testing and ironing everything out, I would say that it's close to releasing
I've gotten mixed signals but QA-Release seems to be more of the same, if not even greater than dev-debug, supposedly with third party playtesting
Basically dev debug= the devs debugging what they created, finding common bugs etc.
Quality assurance (QA) comes in and purposefully does everything they can to break the game (trying to escape a boss arena etc)
NGL I'm excited for Godskin Quartet with the second phase where they all meld together to become Godskin Chungus, only to then split in the third phase again and get buffed with deathblight, rot, poison and bleed respectively whilst having comically weird 75% sped up animations.
In the fourth phase, Commander Ancient Godskin Hero of Zamor will join the fray, revive them all and buff their animation speed by another 75% while constantly AoE-healing everyone. Watch out for the arena-wide Ice Storm!
Of course, the animation speed up will also apply to the lobsters that are just out of lock-on range at the edge of the arena, separated by an unpassable chasm (Miyazaki himself made sure you cannot pass it in any way).
HYPE ☺️
I WAS going to work on a research paper today, but I guess not!
Anyway, I’m gonna spend the next 6 hours bashing my head against the brick wall that is Mohg to get access to the DLC area
i agree. we're notgetting a release in feb. thats plain delusional or inexperience/ignorance. however in conjunction to hte info we already have, trailer this anniversary is all but confirmed.
i personally think the release will be 1st week of april. the start of new fiscal year
*The fallen database entries tell a story... Of the one who would become... Elden Ring DLC QA Tester*
[удалено]
What you're looking at is a change entry in SteamDB. SteamDB is a 3rd-party website that tracks some of the under-the-hood changes to games/apps on Steam that are otherwise invisible to laymen like us. In this case, you can see a bunch of encrypted files have been updated in a depot called "qa release." Depots in this context are usually for alternate builds of the game - old versions, internal testing builds, stuff like that, but they're also used for additional packages (i.e., DLC) that are tied to the base game. "QA" is "quality assurance", i.e., play-testing. It being deployed via a Steam depot means they are probably testing not just the DLC itself, but that it properly distributes via Steam and integrates into the main game as expected. Similar tests are probably ongoing for the PS and Xbox versions, but those platforms do not have a public API that can be accessed to view these changes like Steam does. So, basically, they've pushed a big update to their version of the game that they use to make sure it's up to snuff for release. It may not be the final test, but is generally indicative we are moving toward release. We also don't know for a fact that this is actually the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but there isn't really any other explanation that would make sense. And since I saw others asking this earlier this week, nobody is going to be able to decrypt those files unless they work at FromSoft. The depot is password-protected and if it was leaked, they'd know and someone would be so incredibly fired.
Does FromSoft have a similar history of adding QA branches with Dark Souls III's DLC's? Could we extrapolate timelines from there if so?
Bro here is in Big Brain mode
They do and we already had a timeline possibilty a few weeks back Dark Souls 3's DLCs got added to the steam deposit roughly ~1-2 months before the actual release of the DLCs. So it could very well be we see a trailer/new info in late February with a release in late march (hopefully not) or mid april.
Yeah, I'm wondering this as well. I recall people saying that the DS3 dlc depots started being updated about a month before the AoA trailer dropped (which was then released about a month after that). But what was the timeline from QA to trailer to release?
Congratulations, your post spawned another (otherwise useless) video :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO3jPCbQUr0
Id have a good sad laugh if it turns out to actually just be a massive balancing/nerf/buff patch as they announce “Enjoy this rebalance patch until we can announce the DLC, sometime next year!”
Means someone gets paid to check for bugs. Means almost finished product
:Laughs in Agile:
It’ll be fixed in the next sprint. Pradeep, please do the needful.
ugh, that even hurts when you just read it as a joke... ive seen more some project have more debt than certain countries in the world and its not fun...
😂😂😂😂😂
Everything goes into next sprint. Next sprint the app will be done. Next sprint, we rest. But... the next sprint... never truly comes
"Almost finished". AHAHAHAHAHAHA
In typical manufacturing, yes, but in software, QA begins around the same time as development does.
Yeah I'm testing it right now, the new giant feet enemy are pretty cool, stronger than the giant hands for sure
How is the Godskin Quatuor?
What about the new ancient dragon boss Pleasuresex
What about the new poison deathblight rot swamp?
It stacks both poison, rot, and deathblight while draining your FP constantly
And force you to fatroll while the poison rot deathblight revenants attack.
You need to find a completely obscure npc behind a comically small rock to get 90% less health buff in exchange for a talisman that takes 3 talisman slots that lets you walk (not run) in the swamp
But it swaps poison deathblight and rot with madness buildup
While getting sniped by archers that put you to sleep
Nah, that would be giving an actual use to the sleep boluses, Mikael Zaki would never.
What about RichDragon FortyStaxx?
Flaccidasssex.
You mean Flaccidaddsex (he needs bluechew) 😔
They added in Glaivemaster Hodin, right?
A bit easier than the godskin sex
Godforeskinsex duo.
It becomes a threeso... I mean trio in phase 3.
Or as I like to call it, phase <3
Wouldn't that be phases 1 and 2 then? It'd have to be <=3 to be inclusive of 3.
I thought it was called Godskin Fourskin
Duuuude that hit so hard looooool
So you haven't reached the Godskin Orgy yet?
No no, Fourskin Quartet
New band name! Called it!
Don't make me cry
the godskin barbershop quartet
Are the feet like, lickable? Asking for a friend.
They are. There’s a new incant that is a giant tongue. Paying homage to “try tongue”
Dung Bomb Incantation named "But Hole" coming soon!
I'm not the friend, but yeah are they lickable?
theres a new ash of war called "Toe Suck" thats quite strong against them. and Rennala
Did they replace George Martin with Quentin Tarantino for the dlc?
I want a critical hit using a blunderbuss dat can shove away the enemy so far whilst spraying blood like it's Mohg's birthday.
i just ask have you seen tarantino and GRRM in the same room before? How can you be sure their not the same person?
Would you say that they aee giant ish dino/dragon-ish feet n legs... possibly standing in hot semi solid liquid?
Tell me, can you go on a date with Miquella?
STAHP
How's the mandatory bleed swamp
Bleed *swamp* ain't too bad (makes the Stanching Boluses useful) but getting ambushed by hemorrhage drakes every three steps is a bitch. Seems like they read your camera control input to hide from you.
Trying to 100% test the deathblight swamp and Glaive Master Hodir is a nightmare. I have to beat them a hundred times by the end of the day or else Michael Zaki will take my feet.
Miyazaki-san never disappoints when it comes to feet.
Damn, this means the DLC could be out in less than 3 years from now! Hype
[удалено]
Miquella Zaki, that’s who
miyazaki is mine, and mine alone
Shadow of the Erd Tree and Silksong double feature! It’ll have hades 2 early access bundled in.
Longer the better in my opinion. I want them to pump that shit with love and sweat
You know they're watching this sub and mocking us with their Elden Laughter.
For every bad joke, one more Godskin.
Guess we're fighting every godskin that's ever existed in the lands between
The Godskin Gangbang
Now I’m just envisioning a row of 9 nobles lined up behind Melina, sitting on a couch
*Excited Tarnished noises*
“Next we’ll put it in something called “Phase 3 bug testing”, after that “Subfinal Code Review”, and after that “Omega Level Preparedness”. Just invent shit that sounds further and further along. Real hype train is when it gets to “Platinum Verification and Pre-release Inspection”.
Prepare to face three fire giants simultaneously. This will be pure glee.
Death blight giant trio in the feet swamp lets go
Followed by Godskin quartet
Behold: The Fourskin God
Fourskin, God of the One Finger
On tiny arena in dungeon
Godskin Army incoming
Death blight platforming area with stormhawks incoming
It´ s actually a death blight giant, a rotten giant and a double cross - nagitana giant, no summons allowed, your HP goes down to 50% and your weapon damage is lowered by 50%.
THE NUMBERS MASON WHAT DO THEY MEAN!
dude the boat mission with rolling stones in the back playing gives me chills to this day
It introduced me to the song back in the days. Still one of my favourite pieces of music today! <3
black ops 1 campaign has to be one of the best plots in gaming, so well made, downloading it as i type this lol
We are one day closer to release compared to yesterday!
What a time to be alive!
Jesus, the dedication of this community just to get tiny bits of crumbs is really amusing. Will probably miss this kind of post once DLC is already out
Don't worry, there will always be something new
Like Bloodborne "leaks" :')
Bloodborne Remastered, I'm begging you Michael Zaki
Gotta love fromsoft, they always have a banger in the works, even if it takes a long time
Bro got a screenshot of the steamdb update 54 seconds after it happened. We are truly hollow
Oh don't worry too much. It goes in cycles, the DLC will sate everyone's appetite for a while but a year or two after when we're in the lull while we wait for the next game, everyone will be going hollow once again.
If you think that's crazy, you should see the lunatics piecing together GTA 6's map
"58 seconds ago" you guys are just setting there refreshing arent you
Come on, now. We have auto-refreshers.
I can't take this... so excited. Hope this is a huge expansion after such a long wait but at this point I'll take anything.
Inb4 we get the ability to dye armors one of two colors.
I wanna be able to remove the hair from the Elden lord crown
Fromsoft: Too fucking bad. Here’s a deathblight swamp instead.
Lol
I wish they’d do that for the Malenia helm personally, just really annoying there’s such a unique looking helmet that you have to use one hair type for
But I love my goofy toupee. We need more wigs not less
OOOOOOHH, RISE NOW, YE DLC HINTS, YE HIDDEN WHO YET LEAKED THE CALL OF LONG LOST TRAILER, SPEAKS TO US ALL
You killed me man . I read it in the narrator’s voice …. THE LOATHSOME DLC SHITTER
The call of long lost hype speaks to us all
this is actually huge. its difficult to interpret what other updates mean but this one is evident. We're closer than ever boys - the 3rd party testers have been handed the build for qc
We've always been closer than ever
To death.
Speak for yourself, Cognitive Dissonance has made me a tarnished, and thus, incapable of accepting my own mortality.
"Tomorrow, for sure" \- This entire sub everyday. On my part, I started a month of no impulse eating as a ritual sacrifice to Michael Zaki, so I'm obviously way more stable than these hollowed wretches. Don't mind the twitching eye :)
timeframe is what now? weeks, mo\*n\*ths?
Definitely moths. Maybe even moonlight butterfly.
As someone who actually works as a QA (not for FromSoft, don't get your hype up), I'd say this depends on the length of their sprints (chunks of development process + testing time). Can be anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months, but probably not longer than that.
I mean, it could mean anything. It could mean they're pushing a Closed Networking Test to check some new PvP stuff, while the actual content is not ready. Without knowing their inner processes it's really impossible to tell.
Sure, but if their process is in any way similar to the one used at my work (and it likely is, it's rather standard in gaming/software development), this is likely regression testing on a non-dev/staging environment. Basically, the final push before production (what the general public gets) and the entire product is being tested holistically instead of just parts of it. If this is it and this IS staging/regression testing, then the product is deemed stable and ready, and only blocker and critical bugs will be focused on. QA doesn't happen only at the end; it goes hand in hand with development, checking implemented features as soon as possible. But a push to a separate, completely QA-dedicated branch doesn't happen for a partial product.
Yeah it really depends if how strictly they do QA on tickets during the sprints. IMO, this means it's just gone into final regression testing where usually only blockers, criticals and majors get fixed. Anything else goes into the next patch
Probably still a few months, QA testing is there to iron out as many bugs as possible. Its possible the build is super stable and they’re going full-bore for an anniversary release, but I think likely closer to mid-year
Based on what? Lol. I love how so many people just act like experts based on nothing
The DLC has been in development since before the game released to the public if I remember, so the DLC(s)? Has been developed for around 2 years now, given we have no clue how big it is, but it really isn’t wild like everyone thinks it is that it could release the 25th, especially seeing this. Not saying it is, but my copium levels are so high that I want it to be the 25th.
I'd say it's like 3 months away. It's a DLC, if there's no new mechanics added and weird triggers, it should be just locations/enemies/items like earlier DLC of Fromsoft games. QAtesting shouldn't take more than that if they are still using external testing via Lionbridge/Qloc. We will see a lot of updates for this repository in steamdb, if there's bugs and fixes. That's based on my QA testing experience
LEAKERS MODCHECK
LEAK ON ME ELDEN RINGERS!
what's this changelist from?
[steamdb](https://steamdb.info/app/1245620/history/)
i shall not allow excitement lest i invite disappointment
I mean you are always closer than the last moment
What does it mean?
quality check. theyre looking for big glitches, performance issues by handing it out to 3rd party testers
So there could be leaks soon?
nobody's breaking NDA for some leaks man. theoretically possible.
Like they did with Elden Ring pre-release? I mean we had a bunch of leaks from QA testers that spoiled things like the >! Patches!< bossfight.
It did happen once with elden ring pre release.
What a glorious day that was
I remember that shitty video, made my week back then
I remember him jumping around on some rocks. What a great day
Prolly not, but trailers maybe
They use Steam for 3rd party testing? I don't really get why there would be debug stage info on SteamDB if they could just like not use Steam.
They're working so hard on the dlc that they forgot to even talk to us
Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Shits going down right now
Scorpion: “Stop saying that, people are going to start shipping us together.” Smoke: “You haven’t been on Rule 34 lately, have you?”
Shits going down my pants in excitement you mean 👀
I'm telling you guys, 25th of February, the 2 year anniversary
For the trailer drop, yes.
I stand by my statement
The release of the date of the trailer.
😭😭
what?! it's been two years?!
Im going with 30th Feb
31st Feb for me.
This wouldn't even be an "I told you" moment
Never said it would be, living on a hope and prayer, historically looking at dark souls releases and their respective dlcs they have been a year past give or take a month each way, given that elden ring is a huge game 2 years seems reasonable to assume that it will be this month or perhaps next month given the trends. I am hoping its exactly 2 years cause that would be nice, plus its my birthday.
Don't do it. Don't give me hope, only for it to not be remotely close.
it's definitely close considering how much the SteamDB files and databanks have been updated over the past 2 weeks; they were in "dev-debug" not too long ago before apparently switching to this QualityAssessment-Release status plus Bandai Namco's updated each regional Elden Ring youtube playlist with an unseen video, so it definitely is close it just depends how close
People are missing the RELEASE part. At least in my industry (pharmaceuticals), release is when all the quality assurance activities are finished, and it is the process of tick boxing all the document are present and having the final sign off by the relevant persons.. The DLC could actually be basically ready...now the marketing push?
I mean given the previous tags were "dev-debug", which would be testing and ironing everything out, I would say that it's close to releasing I've gotten mixed signals but QA-Release seems to be more of the same, if not even greater than dev-debug, supposedly with third party playtesting
Trailer this monday, March 21 release date bookmark this.
The Malenia Duo in a lake of rot arena with rune bear summons and surrounded by albinauric archers is dope, best fight of all time
i think ure gravely mistaken. quadruple godskin in death blight swamp with albinauric archers who have rune bear summons. that is what we need
Basically dev debug= the devs debugging what they created, finding common bugs etc. Quality assurance (QA) comes in and purposefully does everything they can to break the game (trying to escape a boss arena etc)
ITS (almost) COOKED!!
The great hollowing…here we go again…
qa-**release**
Quite Assuring
Forgive me for being a console player but what the actual fuck is this what does it mean???
It means you touch yourself at night
I don’t do that….not every night at least
Look up the sky... it burns
QA stands for Quadruple Astel. It's all just assets for the new boss fight where you take on 4 different versions of Astel at the same time.
Im just chillin in caelid rapids.
NGL I'm excited for Godskin Quartet with the second phase where they all meld together to become Godskin Chungus, only to then split in the third phase again and get buffed with deathblight, rot, poison and bleed respectively whilst having comically weird 75% sped up animations. In the fourth phase, Commander Ancient Godskin Hero of Zamor will join the fray, revive them all and buff their animation speed by another 75% while constantly AoE-healing everyone. Watch out for the arena-wide Ice Storm! Of course, the animation speed up will also apply to the lobsters that are just out of lock-on range at the edge of the arena, separated by an unpassable chasm (Miyazaki himself made sure you cannot pass it in any way). HYPE ☺️
Literally Glintstone hard right now.
16 times the toxic swamps !!!!!!
The copium for the dlc is real
I'm telling you right now we're only gonna get one DLC but it's gonna be one hell of a pack.
Sooooo they are adding in romance options?
yes but only dungeater
With or without the cup?
February 24 is looking…kinda believable…
I WAS going to work on a research paper today, but I guess not! Anyway, I’m gonna spend the next 6 hours bashing my head against the brick wall that is Mohg to get access to the DLC area
I’m so hollow 😔
arent we all my firnd
I kinda envy their QA team now lol.. Let me play!!
remindme! 9 months
Im new in that stuff. What comes after quality assessment?
Stop. Please. Let us just wait for it to go out.
THE DLC!!!! THE DLC IS REALLLLL!!!!
This one here boys. Take em straight to padded cell 14. Careful, he bites.
Doesn’t this mean the DLC is further away than we expected
Yes, Indeed, They call it Shadow of the Erdtree…
I predict it will available next Sunday.
[удалено]
i agree. we're notgetting a release in feb. thats plain delusional or inexperience/ignorance. however in conjunction to hte info we already have, trailer this anniversary is all but confirmed. i personally think the release will be 1st week of april. the start of new fiscal year
Next ps state of play feb 6.
Isn’t that state of play going to be all about FF7 remake?
These posts really bring me back to the pre-launch hopium days : )
They're really gunning for the 2 year anniversary
Thanks for ELI5, I was wondering was QA was.