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[TRENCHES] Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - Parameters

GethGeth LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
edited January 2013 in The Penny Arcade Hub
Parameters


Parameters
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/parameters

Why am I even here?

Anonymous

I was brought onto an existing QA team to bolster their numbers as they headed towards the forced and planned overtime hours that this particular developer was known for. Despite the dire situation, everybody was fairly relaxed and cavalier about their work, taking extended lunch breaks and playing League of Legends on company time.

One of my jobs was a complete playthrough of the game with a specific set of choices to see if everything played out as expected. Along the way, I encountered numerous audio and video bugs not pertaining to my area, but that seemed pretty critical to the final product given how far along we were in the dev process.

As is the policy, I searched our database for the bugs, and having found nothing, asked the group if anybody had seen them. Our team leader hated duplicate bugs, so he encouraged us to ask each other about big bugs that weren’t entered in case somebody was currently writing one up. When I asked about a particular nasty bug where a critical-path NPC just vanished, nobody answered. I double checked with my senior tester and was told this:

“If you’ve seen it, chances are the better testers have seen it, and the devs probably know about it.”

Even though there were no bugs for all of the late game issues I found, I was told time and time again that somebody had probably seen it, and to just stick to writing up things directly pertaining to my area, even if I came across other larger issues as a result of my testing.

In the end, I had to ask myself: If the devs knew everything wrong with the game, and the more experienced testers had seen but not documented everything I had come across… why am I even here?


Geth on

Posts

  • Options
    theResetButtontheResetButton Registered User regular
    Isn't "why am I even here?" the ultimate question in every job?

    Keep honking: I'm also honking.
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    JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    theResetButton wrote: »
    Isn't "why am I even here?" the ultimate question in every job?

    not if you have a good one

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    MUNIMUNI Registered User regular
    Jasconius wrote: »
    theResetButton wrote: »
    Isn't "why am I even here?" the ultimate question in every job?

    not if you have a good one

    yeah, i guess if your job is being President God

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    Ori KleinOri Klein Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Simple, Billy-Boy-Dear. To inflate the expense bill for the developer/publisher client and pretend as if you're actually employing people who are performing diligent work in QAing their game...which the QA company knows their reports will be at largely disregarded (for major bugs) because this close to release the studio executive management locks down development and doesn't spend a dime until after release and issues a patch if shit hits the fan (because the dumb customer public has been made accustomed to that).

    Harsh, but that's the sad reality.

    Ori Klein on
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    AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    “If you’ve seen it, chances are the better testers have seen it, and the devs probably know about it.”

    If that guy was the Test Lead, he is super shitty at his job.

    Or maybe i've only worked at places where they actually cared about finding bugs. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING was pretty much the #1 rule.

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    marcovalmarcoval Registered User new member
    Aistan wrote: »
    “If you’ve seen it, chances are the better testers have seen it, and the devs probably know about it.”

    If that guy was the Test Lead, he is super shitty at his job.

    Or maybe i've only worked at places where they actually cared about finding bugs. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING was pretty much the #1 rule.

    You beat me to the punch. Although the thing that got me was the lead who hates duplicate bugs. I would WAY rather have a duplicate bug than no bug at all. Do some due diligence on checking for a bug, but never be afraid to enter one.

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    Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    edited January 2013
    Aistan wrote: »
    “If you’ve seen it, chances are the better testers have seen it, and the devs probably know about it.”

    If that guy was the Test Lead, he is super shitty at his job.

    Or maybe i've only worked at places where they actually cared about finding bugs. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING was pretty much the #1 rule.

    Yeah, have to agree with this. But aside from that, the answer to the question is "the more eyes on something the more likely bugs are caught." (especially those hard-to-reproduce bugs that require a weird series of inputs or something)

    Granted stupid ass comments like this one from the story totally defeat that purpose. I can't believe a QA person would ever tell someone to NOT document a bug. That's just dumb.

    Warlock82 on
    Switch: 2143-7130-1359 | 3DS: 4983-4927-6699 | Steam: warlock82 | PSN: Warlock2282
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    TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    Also the phrase "better testers" is pretty dickish.

    steam_sig.png
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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    theResetButton wrote: »
    Isn't "why am I even here?" the ultimate question in life?

    FTFY.

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    GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Guys let's talk about the coot continuum

    Like

    Where does Clint Eastwood fall on it relative to Andy Rooney, etc.

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