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Trenches comic: Tuesday Sept. 6, 2011
Bogey
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
Sometimes the Good Guys WIn
09/06/2011 - Anonymous
We had been working 80+ hour weeks for over a month on one of the largest videogame franchises in existence. I actually liked the long hours and overtime, and since our division was the multiplayer component of the title, it was fun to work with other people. I had written a bug where a player who had been killed by a specific weapon, after his armor had popped, had his death cam actually become the 1st person vision of the enemy who did the deed.
It didn’t repro if you simply started without shields and didn’t repro in any other instance. We tested every variation of steps possible and determined it was this very specific situation that the bug would occur. Our thoroughness was not only due to doing our job well, but also because the last thing you want is to look stupid by bothering a Dev with a bug that didn’t exist.
I wrote up immaculate, step-by-step instructions with a warning that it doesn’t work if you try to cut corners.
We send it up the flagpole, and the bug comes back the next day as “No repro.” We investigated the bug again, and confirmed its existence and sent it back up. We even waited a few builds to see if they fixed it. Nope. We send the bug back AGAIN with a step-by-step video.
The next morning, the bug comes back as “No Repro. We all know testers are glorified monkeys banging on controllers. Don’t send this back unless it is broken.”
Now, I was a new tester, so I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Some 5+ year testers were LIVID, whereas I was just worried that I fucked up. We had 3-4 people go through steps and even try variances. My repro was perfect. The team told me to send it back.
For the next four days anytime a developer came into our room, they would fling controllers and make monkey sounds. The “hoo hoo haw! eerrraghs!” became pretty frequent, as the meme had spread across the dev studio.
I walk in for my 20th consecutive 12 hour day, and 20 minutes in three people walk into my area. It was my Lead’s boss (the QA manager for the developer), THE NEFARIOUS Art/Tech guy who gave the original “Monkey Taunt,” and his Art/Tech - they approach me as I’m seated and in a quiet voice ask me to “repro the bug… RIGHT NOW.”
[SWEATING BALLS]
I repro it flawlessly.
“Wait? What?” Mr. Monkey taunter says. “That’s not possible… what are you doing?”
“Um? Everything in the repro steps and video. I have my armor go down, and then have this specific weapon kill me.”
“Oh… I thought that was a waste of time, so I started without armor.”
“Well we tested every variation and weapon possible, so the very next line we warn you that you must have armor as per a normal game… right… here.”
What follows is a mandatory two-hour meeting with ALL FULL TIME EMPLOYEES about the importance of reading bugs and COMMON COURTESY.
I’ve since moved on as a developer with another local company… one with a great, warm-hearted culture.. and I still take a deep breath when I find a tester I THINK is dumb.
Bogey on
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EDIT: And, AT LAST, a tale that doesn't make me hurt inside, but instead fills my stomach with happy butterflies. The dick got his comeuppance and the tester got another, better, job.
is changing into a yes
I dunno. For once it had a vaguely happy ending in that when management got involved, the dick dev got called out publically and the tester was exonerated.
Bravo.
Satans..... hints.....
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
For once management did the correct thing by addressing the shitty behavior and saying "not cool". Also, the person doing the shitty behavior ate crow and choked on it. This is actually a very positive news post.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I dunno, halfway through the story he switches from "Shields" to "Armor", so it could be something else.
Or a half-hearted attempt at trying to make it more vague. I'm not super bothered except for gossipy internet reasons, but I'm having trouble thinking of any other game in "one of the largest videogame franchises in existence" that you'd describe as armor being 'popped'.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
My first guess was Call of Duty, but there's no armor in Call of Duty (at least there wasn't any in Modern Warfare).
Unless by "death cam", he means the camera that hangs around your body once you're dead. In which case it's probably Halo. I don't see any FPS with armor or shields with kill cams that I would call "one of the biggest franchises".
I find it amazing how some children don't act like dicks.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
Hmmm, when I read it I assumed it was the testers making the monkey noises. Why would the devs have a controller to throw?
It'll be fine.
The company i worked for (I'm not mentioning names because I could be sued so hard, any potential children I have would still be paying) was the "feeder" company for games testers in my area. They hired anyone and everyone, so there was a mix of the great all the way to people who really really shouldn't have been there. Anyone with an ounce of skill was quietly noted by team leaders and depending on their competence, ear marked to start working for the main games testing company who worked really closely with the developers.
The company I worked for basically got the "we think this is finished, find bugs or we'll start printing test discs" and "we think this is really finished, find bugs or this game goes gold" versions of games. Our contact with developers was minimal.
I'm not saying I don't believe the person that wrote the story, but damn...
I don't work in that industry, however I have had copious amounts of contact with humankind.
I can easily believe someone behaving as this much of an unrepentant asshole. Even with less motivation than is presented in the story.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
yea, I liked this story too.
I've had similar experiences with testing, though not for games. At least their response wasn't "users shouldn't do it this way anyway." The thing wasn't fixed until after it went live and... people did it that way.
And yeah, anywhere I've worked the comment alone would've got the Dev in plenty of trouble, let alone the behavior of the others. I've always had close relationships between QA/Dev though so I would've gone straight to his manager and called him out for his teams behavior... maybe in the gaming culture there's more of a divide.
I have to assume that since game testers are a dime a dozen it's pretty easy for the designers and programmers to regard them as sub-human in the same way tech support professionals look upon anyone who goes to them telling them the network isn't working. Even taking that into account, this particular dude was going above and beyond in his effort to be a huge prick about it without even reading the whole message. I hope his job was put in jeopardy over this instance.
Also; liked this comic and the "off the records" interview. I'd love one of those. I finally feel able to relate with the main character a bit.
I didn't see that during my game testing days, but I did have issues that were obviously bugs come back "as designed." Pretty shitty design if you ask me. I ended up leaving when their end of the line quality control changed to only caring if the game would pass first party certification. Now I'm doing everything I can to avoid testing as my next job.
I love how interested he is in panel three, though.
One day this QA guy sends me a poorly-written bug where he keeps switching between 'shields' and 'armor'. Our latest build referenced 'armor' so I tested it with that. Couldn't get it, so sent it back. He sends it again, I try it, no luck. I send it back and make a monkey joke because we had just gotten an email about a ThinkGeek.com gift drawing for the team. This goes on for awhile, instead of talking to me, just keeps sending it.
Eventually I get my boss to meet with him to see what's up. Turns out he didn't update his nightly build, so was still using 'shields'. Since we were supposed to verify QA got the right version, I got let go two weeks later.
Satans..... hints.....
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Hmm, good point.