pandesal6

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Quality Assurance - QA. Like Vyvyanne says, making games better one bug at a time. You start in this field as a pool tester checking bugs. You get a sheet of paper that lists a million things to check and try. It can be rather tedious. As you gain experience you can move up to be a sr. tester, a QACC (Vyvyanne, Valdermic), and eventually, a lead for a game. Attention to detail, unconventional thinking, and patience are required in ample amounts. See also, overtime.


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I would also like to further add to this. While it may be an entry level position, Quality assurance (Game tester) is still a very very important role in the video game industry.

Every other position in the industry (designer, programmer, artists, etc...) has their specific role and task to take care of. However, we as quality assurance testers have to be sure that everyone's work is bug free. You have to make sure all the art is correct, a specific event is working as designed, the game doesn't crash doing certain things, etc... So while they work on one specific tasks, QA is double checking EVERYONE's work to make sure that their specfic task/work was done correctly. We have to keep pumping out bugs for every specfic department working on the game to keep them busy

In addition, working in QA is not just 'playing video games', its actually alot more then that. I remember when I first got my job as a QA tester, I was thinking "WOW! I get paid XX.XX dollars to play video games!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But its actually a little more in depth then that. You have to do a lot of things that normal people playing a video game wouldn't normally do.

For example, you gotta make sure that all the art/physical bounds for the game is done correctly. Can you imagine spending 8-10 hours a day taking your CoH character into Striga Isle walking around (not playing or fighting, just doing an art check) and making sure you scour every possible inch of that area making sure that there are no holes in the floor that you could fall through? Doing an art check on areas alone could take several weeks just for one area.

The above example was just one example. There are sooooooooooo many other possible things to check:

- Checking in game menus (trying out every single option in the menus to see if they work right. Does the game crash if I turn on language filters, then turn them back on?)

- Checking triggered events (what will happen if I arresst ____, click the glowie, exit the map, re-renter it, and use my temp power on that lieu there?)

- Checking general physics (Hey look, I just jumped off this building and my character keeps bouncing around!)

There are so many aspects of the video game that must be througholy checked that doesn't involve actually playing it. Normal people playing the game wouldn't normally do stuff like this, that is why QA is there to make sure that all the loose ends are tied up.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents :P

Nice guide. From someone working in the industry as well (QA ), I really feel that one aspect of the video game industry that should really be stressed should be crunch time

Crunch time is the last weeks/days before the scheduled release of a game. During Crunch time, you can expect to work long LONG LONG LONG hours. Did I mention that you WILL work LONG hours??? I really can't stress that enough.

At my job when crunch time started, we started doing a lot more overtime. In my experience, I was probably doing an additional extra 20 hours of over time on top of my regular 40 hour a week schedule.

As the days got closer and closer to the shelf date, our overtime hours increased as well. By the time we were down to the wire with 2 or less days left till we have to submit, I was working as much as 20 hours a days (no joke). Paychecks were pretty big since I was on hourly, but so were my headaches and hallucionations :P

But ya, I really just wanted to stress that crunch time/overtime is a really really really big aspect in working in the industry, just be prepared for it.

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At the moment, Scrappers, and to a lesser degree, Tankers, are being analyzed. Once we establish a baseline, then we'll be in a better position to look at Blasters.

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Scrappers had their chance in the light (Criticals, Stacked Armors for DA, Removal of Rooting for unyielding, increased defense percentage for SR, etc...) and Tankers had theirs too (Punchvoke - No longer taunt bots, provoke instead of taunt for tanker secondaries, Increased damage -i think-, etc...)

I just think its the blasters turn (after controllers have been looked at of course) to get some attention

Theres other reason other then distance why people dont want to hunt in the Shadow Shard. Like the minions there.

I don't think its fair that those giant eyeball have like 1000% percent accuracy. I can chomp on several Lucks and still get hit quite a bit by those eyeballs....

Food for thought. If they elimate the -30 penalty in human form and lower hit points down, the lower hp is going to effect our Nova and Dwarf play(since our shapeshifted forms dont have the -30 penalty, but all forms share the hp) in a negative manner, right?