HMXQualityControl’s Profile

Yay! Enjoy the site, everyone!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

A bad bug (or bugs) can ruin even
the best game. Just today I was playing a next-gen game with a red haired female
fighter, and found a game-stopping bug within the first ten minutes. I bring
this up because a few weeks ago we asked you to give us the worst bug you ever
found in a game. You responded, and we thought we'd post those responses in
order from bad to worst. (The bug, not your responses. They were
awesome.)





The
Blah:


Sometimes a bug allows you to
exploit a game and in the case of multiplayer, this can be a joy or a nightmare.
Apples used a Day of Defeat spawn bug to allow him to kill newly spawned enemies
at the start of a round. He didn't tell anyone about the bug which helped it not
spread (good for him), but he obviously used the bug for his own gain (boo).
Podruvan had fun with his friends exploiting a bug that allowed them to freeze
in mid-air in Tony Hawk Project 8 whenever they tried to do a bail.
Unfortunately for them, they weren't able to get the bug the next time they
played the game.





On the flip side, Sillypop couldn't
stand the amount of people that used Halo 2's "super jump". This bug allowed you
to target a flying vehicle with a sword, and the lunge move would send you
flying through the air, and across the map at a great speed.









The
Bad:


Dabog666 was playing Oblivion when
at one point he fell through the floor, landed on the roof and then the cycle
continued that way over and over again. No direction home was also playing Tony
Hawk Project 8 and got stuck to the inside of a quarter pipe. He never played
the game again. It's currently crying itself to sleep in his DVD shelf, hoping
someday No direction home will forgive it.










The
Ugly:


borgasm didn't actually experience
this bug, but heard about a disease in WOW that jerks could spread by letting
loose their infected pet in the middle of a crowded town. gh2masterwellalmost
stated that ET in general was the worst bug (you can't really call it a game) he
ever experienced. JB4GDI was playing Twilight Princess and bypassed some mission
objectives, and went straight to kill a boss. All seemed cool until he realized
that doing so made it so he couldn't continue any further. Lastly, is a bug that
I think is close to a lot of our hearts. Apples was playing Dead Rising on
Infinity Mode (which is harder than a body builder), and after investing 9
straight hours his Xbox 360 locked up meaning he lost 9 hours of his life (since
you can't save in Infinity Mode).





That's it for this week! Thanks for
all the great comments the last few weeks. This week we'd like to hear about
what game (other than Rock Band) you're most looking forward to this fall! We
say "other than Rock Band" only because we know it's at the top of your
wishlist. Right?

Friday, September 14, 2007

This week we're going over the bugs
that were submitted from our picture 3 weeks ago. We have Blaze the QA cop to go
over what went right and what went terribly wrong. He'll be laying down the law
and making sure you follow it in the future.






Law 1: Give Expectations


Whenever you write up a bug, it
isn't enough to just list what's wrong. You also have to let people know what
you expect to be happening instead. This allows the person who is assigned the
bug to easily understand why you think this is a bug, and how it could be
changed to meet player expectations. For example; when I turn on a family
sitcom, I expect it to suck. If it's good, it may make me question all that I've
previously believed to be true.

 

Law 2: No dupes!


Many of those that responded
duplicated a bug that was already listed by another individual. Duplicate bugs
are definitely frowned upon in the QA department. They slow down the departments
that need to fix the bugs since they are reading over the same problem more than
once. You'll get no praise for finding a bug if it's a bug that's already been
logged (you will probably get mocked by fellow QA co-workers
though).








Law 3: No Missed Bugs


It's not necessary for one QA member
to find all the bugs, but missed bugs hurt the final product. If a bug is
overlooked, than it can end up in the game and in players' hands without it being
fixed. While most of the bugs were found, some like the short girl with black
hair having stick figure legs and the baby missing fingers on one hand were
missed. These wouldn't be considered game killing bugs, but they still could be
embarrassing if left in the final version. Some may have missed these bugs
because they thought it was a stylistic choice on the part of the creator. While
this could potentially be true, you can never make an assumption like this since
you have no way of knowing for sure. When in doubt, bug it. The last thing you
want is to have an alien that vomits milk in your next sci-fi shooter, because
no one bothered to ask if he was supposed to be drinking it instead.









Much like a relationship between a
grizzly bear and a poodle, we've displayed some tough love up above. But the
reality is that for a bunch of unpaid video game blog readers, you all did an
amazing job. So much so, that we'd like to call out a few of the more notable
responders.








Stinkdog2007 did a great job of
posting early and putting in a ton of bugs. The earlier a problem is found, the
earlier it gets fixed.


ababypenguin refused to dupe any
other posters, but also didn't let us know of any bugs. Well at least he got
half of the equation right.


newwaytoadie was one of the first to
point out that the background artist didn't do his job. Not many gamers would
want to move around a world with no clear
environment.


Xyliac and no_direction_home both
found 30 bugs (if we believe them) and so they get kudos for being observant
testers.










With that out of the way, this week
we'd like you to write in the worst bug you ever found in a game and if it
ruined the title for you. Next week we'll use the worst bugs in our blog
post.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Thanks to
everyone who responded to our QA test last week. We're going to take it to step
two next week, where we show you what we do with that list of found bugs, and
present our second test of QA mastery. This week, we're too busy,finding bugs.
In a certain game. So in place of a blog, here are 19 interesting things about
some members of QA:

1. When Grace (as seen at E3!)
   isn't whaling on everyone with her awesome Expert Guitar Skillz, she also
   astounds us with her phenomenal Metal Casting Skillz making video game
   jewelry.
2. Crash Queen Whitney beats
   things up in her spare time. Seriously.
3. Razlo has published a book.
   
4. Despite meeting him face-to
   face, Maria didn't realize she was standing in front of Brad Pitt. ("Meh,"
   was her subsequent response to her flipping-out friends.)
5. Alex's car has gold wheels and
   big red mudflaps.
6. Bill holds the world record for
   the highest score on Kid Icarus. (1,044,000. On one life, even!)
7. Only 1,800 people every 12
   years share the same combination of western and eastern astrological signs
   as Luke. Yet out of these 1,800, it's only Luke who works here. This makes
   him the Chosen One.
8. Justin P mooned his teacher in
   first grade.
9. Danny is sixteen.
10. Keith (as seen at E3!) has an
    astounding collection of Chinese kung-fu movies and vintage muscle car Hot
    Wheels.
11. Justin S is permanently missing
    a fingernail, which on appearance, is not as gross as it sounds. He's also
    distantly related to Steven Tyler.
12. Daniel K was on the 1995
    National Fencing Team.
13. Adam has cool mustaches.
14. EJ was a Speedo model.
15. Mike can put his foot behind
    his head.
16. Aaron E. can make sounds with
    his ears. (It's really cool!)
17. Nate won an air guitar contest
    while working as a waiter in NY.
18. Matt once appeared on CNN to
    debate the importance of Thomas Jefferson.
19. Tim D likes bunnies.

Friday, August 17, 2007

 



We've
all seen the "Draw Blinky!" or "Sketch Donkers!" art tests for correspondence
art schools-you know, the ones where if you trace the hamster in the baseball
cap (and are willing to fork over a few hundred buckeroos) you get a
certificate that says you can make art and stuff. (I mean, anyone can make art,
but this means you're LICENSED. So you can make official art!) And we've
all seen the commercial for QA where they promise their boss they're just
"tightening up the graphics" on one game before completing ANOTHER game that
afternoon. But did you know that to truly be in QA, you have to master those
tasks-and more? Much, much more?



 



A
career in QA isn't for everyone. You might have beat Devil May Cry 3 on
the 'Dante Must Die!' mode or completed Ninja Gaiden as a Master Ninja,
but it doesn't mean that the doors to the QA pit/cage/cave will be opened, with
the attendant treasures of bottomless bottles of Vitamin Water and all the
fortune cookies you can eat. Oh no, my friends. Not at all.



 



To
be honest, being a quality Quality Assurance Tester means you must have
some form of minor OCD, wherein you have no problem repeating tasks endlessly,
hoping to produce unusual results. You must have patience-the kind of patience
heretofore known only by Buddhist monks and nineteenth-century tapestry
weavers. To quote Grace, "You must have some sort of mental disorder, or you
won't be able to get along with anyone. I mean, you're going to have to be able
to test builds while arguing about the Hulk for nine hours. And the next
morning, you have to start the same conversation all over-but this time, it's
about the Thing."



 



To
top it all off, you must have an eye for detail. Minute, absurdist, crazy
detail. If this still sounds appealing, we present to you the initial test of
any QA initiate.



 








 



Here's
a picture. Think of it as a morning's build. Feel free to identify and list as
many mistakes as you discover. If you find more than ten, you might have a
future career in QA!



 

Friday, August 10, 2007