Working on a QA team is simultaneously one of the more important and least glamorous parts of any game's development. On the one hand, QA has the important job of trying to make sure that everything plays smoothly and correctly; on the other hand, a QA team has best done its job when there's very little that the player notices as missing. Lord of the Rings Online has recently posted a QA team diary, with Amanda "Brynhildr" Cosmos discussing the process involved in testing the recent Volume III update for the game.
Contrary to some popular beliefs, testing generally doesn't consist largely of playing the game -- it's more about finding areas of the game that might be a bit weak and straining them to the breaking point. As the diary points out, it's also about investigating the smaller areas of gameplay that might not be immediately apparent from looking at the big picture. Travel routes, pricing on small-scale consumables, and minor text quibbles aren't easy to spot unless you're looking specifically for places that can be shored up. The full diary is worth reading not just for Lord of the Rings Online players, but anyone interested in seeing what the QA teams are actually responsible for in an MMO's production.
Reader Comments (11)
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 10:08AM JohnD212 said
I give LOTRO credit...it is really a high quality game...I sure hope it stays around for a long time. I go back every few months for my middle earth fix....I'm never disappointed.
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 11:53AM yeppers said
"The full diary is worth reading not just for Lord of the Rings Online players, but anyone interested in seeing what the QA teams are actually responsible for in an MMO's production."
Yeah... I'm thinking this article would be great for many recent publishers who appear to be ignoring their QA teams -- if they even have one at all. You know who you are.
Yeah... I'm thinking this article would be great for many recent publishers who appear to be ignoring their QA teams -- if they even have one at all. You know who you are.
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 11:57AM Averice said
Kind of a short read, a lot shorter than what I was expecting, but an interesting insight nonetheless.
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 12:28PM Verus said
That game has a QA team ?
The game has tons of problems with windows 7 where you will get the occasionally load time from hell. The game will not even star when used with some antivirus such as avast.
The game has tons of problems with windows 7 where you will get the occasionally load time from hell. The game will not even star when used with some antivirus such as avast.
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 1:04PM yeppers said
Have you tried using the defrag tool? I've heard this helps speed things up.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=316502
Also, I'm using Windows 7 (64bit) and have antivirus on my computer (not Avast though) and haven't had any issues. Could be maybe you need to set the game to run as administrator?
Reply
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=316502
Also, I'm using Windows 7 (64bit) and have antivirus on my computer (not Avast though) and haven't had any issues. Could be maybe you need to set the game to run as administrator?
Posted: Mar 7th 2010 5:16PM Verus said
Game will not start with avast 4.8 so in order to start the game you have to disable the antivirus ;)
And the long load times on windows 7 is something people are complaining about all over the lotro forums. And it has nothing to do with the computer. It usually loads every area super fast and then suddenly it takes forever.
And the long load times on windows 7 is something people are complaining about all over the lotro forums. And it has nothing to do with the computer. It usually loads every area super fast and then suddenly it takes forever.
Posted: Mar 8th 2010 5:25AM (Unverified) said
I stopped using Avast over a year ago, as I'd noticed longer load-times on my old system. I don't think it's a LOTRO-specific issue you're experiencing.
Posted: Mar 8th 2010 5:26AM Seffrid said
I don't have any problems with Vista 64 and Avast 4.8 but I can't speak for Windows 7. However, 4.8 isn't the latest free version of Avast so you might want to look into upgrading it and see if that makes any difference.








