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TERA exalts its game testing team

Justin Olivetti — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, TERA, Dev Diaries

"You'll probably never see our names until you read the credits, but we have one of the most important jobs in game publishing," writes Scott James Magner. He heads up the "unsung heroes" of the TERA development team -- the game testers -- and he's written up a few fun insights into the behind-the-scenes process that is helping to refine this MMO as it heads to launch.

According to Magner, the En Masse QA team's been flooded with requests to join the testing and feedback process as they continually poke and prod at all of TERA's systems and content. "At this point," he says, "we've played every class and race multiple times, but no one is tired of coming to work."

The team is currently testing fights against "Big-Ass Monsters" in the Celestial Hills, and Magner says he's still learning new combos and techniques even after a full year of testing. While the testing team usually is far out of the spotlight, he says that its job is crucial to the game's success and that all of the testers are "you" at heart -- passionate gamers who want the best for this title.

[Thanks to Joseph for the tip!]

TERA exalts its game testing team originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE Spotlight: An interview with CCP Zulu

Brendan Drain — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Video, EVE Online, Culture, Events, real-world, Interviews, MMO industry

EVE Spotlight is a new bi-weekly feature in which we interview prominent members of EVE Online's player community or development team. Twice each month, we'll be shining the spotlight on a player or developer who has a significant impact on EVE to highlight the efforts of EVE's most influential people.

It's almost an unwritten rule of game development that someone from quality assurance should never be promoted into a game design role. Game testing and QA are said to be so fundamentally different to design that it's argued the roles require incompatible skillsets. Arnar "CCP Zulu" Gylfason has definitely proven that this isn't the case, successfully migrating from QA to game design and finally being promoted to senior producer on EVE Online. Taking over from CCP T0rfifrans, Arnar has become a very public figure for CCP in the EVE community.

Older players will remember Arnar as CCP Zulupark, that horrible guy who nerfed their carriers back in 2007. Alternatively, you may remember a fantastic forum thread from 2008 in which he personally answered countless player questions on game design and balance issues. Since becoming senior producer on EVE, Arnar has been a strong advocate of this kind of heavy communication with players. Through devblogs, interviews and interactions with the Council of Stellar Management, he's helped to fill the information vacuum players have become accustomed to.

We caught up with EVE senior producer Arnar "CCP Zulu" Gylfason several weeks ago at the EVE Fanfest. In this EVE Spotlight, I ask him about communication with players, the role of live events in future expansions, and other topics.

Continue reading EVE Spotlight: An interview with CCP Zulu

EVE Spotlight: An interview with CCP Zulu originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: What would your MMO dream job be?

Justin Olivetti — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind

I'll be Frank and you'll be Ernest, and we'll both admit that we as players have the tendency to be armchair game designers. No, no, don't deny it; it just makes you look defensive. If there's a single theme that pervades every official MMO forum out there, it's that the players think they know what's best for the game, even more than the devs themselves, and if they were making the calls, Game X would be mopping the floor with World of Warcraft.

So hey, why not indulge in the daydream -- what if tomorrow you could have any job in the MMO industry? If you could make a very real, very direct impact on the games that are being made or are operating in live mode, what would it be? Would you be a writer, finally free to pen the perfect quest? Would you be a project manager, in charge of the direction and goals of the teams at your disposal? Would you be a big-shot CEO, making the major calls and shaping the future of the company? Or would you settle into a creative role as an artist or composer, helping to contribute to the game's frills?

No, wait, I got it. You'd totally want to be a quality assurance tester. Those guys and gals get all the glory, am I right?

The Daily Grind: What would your MMO dream job be? originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Peek inside Lord of the Rings Online's QA team

Eliot Lefebvre — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Bugs, Game mechanics, Patches

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.

Peek inside Lord of the Rings Online's QA team originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anti-Aliased: A Cryptic opinion

Seraphina Brennan — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Super-hero, Culture, MMO industry, Opinion, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Anti-Aliased

So, wow, what a set the last week and a half has been. There seems to be a very strong theme going on in my inbox recently, and that's, without a doubt, Cryptic Studios. I've read unflattering comments about my integrity as a journalist, the usual statements of how this site is Cryptic's lapdog due to all of the Star Trek Online and Champions Online coverage, and, even more oddly, people want to know my opinion of Cryptic's recent actions -- specifically Star Trek Online and Vibora Bay.

Well, I was never one to shirk from the truth. I've been wanting to give my personal opinion on these events since Vibora Bay hit, so I might as well dedicate this column to my evaluation of Cryptic Studios. But, before we get to Cryptic, I have a few ground rules that I want to go over with you guys. Some facts that I'd like to set straight for, oh, I dunno, the fifth time.

Continue reading Anti-Aliased: A Cryptic opinion

Anti-Aliased: A Cryptic opinion originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The many faces of Community Management

Shawn Schuster — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Forums, Game mechanics, MMO industry

Have you ever submitted a bug report, petitioned a GM or posted a message on an official forum? If so, then you've interacted with a game's community team in one way or another. This is probably not news to you, but were you aware of the distinct departments that make up a community team and how they differ?

Believe it or not, being a part of an MMO's community team is more than just reading forums or bug reports all day. In a recent post at SOE's official company blog, Senior Community Relations Manager EM Stock breaks down the four main categories of the community team. There's Quality Assurance, Customer Support, Tech Support/Accounts Billing and Community Relations. Read how SOE handles these main components of online gaming, and how they can effectively serve as the "face" of the company.

The many faces of Community Management originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVE dev blog charts much improved customer support experiences

James Egan — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Patches, News items

Long petition queues, particularly related to expansions, has long been a problem in EVE Online. These long waits may very well be a thing of the past, according to GM Nova, Senior Game Master for EVE Online. GM Nova's latest dev blog, "Such stuff as dreams are made on," deals with the deployment of the Empyrean Age 1.1 patch in early September, as seen from a Customer Support perspective. "We at Customer Support, being at the front lines so to speak, are in a unique position to judge or evaluate whether a patch was successfully deployed and if ther is any fallout or unexpected problems involved, as the potential torrent of problems are directed at us to pass on," he said.

GM Nova points out how that 'torrent of problems' has slowed down to a trickle, using graph data of the Trinity expansion deployment (predictably an insane amount of petitions), the subsequent Empyrean Age 1.0 patch (so smooth they thought their petition system had crashed), and finally Empyrean Age 1.1. The trend evidenced by the graphs is that their patch deployments are becoming less fraught with complications, meaning happier players in the long run. GM Nova goes on to discuss some of the structural changes made to CCP's Customer Support department that improve petition response time, saying,"We are happy to announce that our average petition age is currently two days with most normal requests handled in hours. We hope our efforts shine through in the level of support we are able to offer." Would you agree with GM Nova's assessment, and have your own petitions of late in EVE Online been resolved in a reasonable amount of time?

EVE dev blog charts much improved customer support experiences originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meet Champions Online's Q&A lead

Kyle Horner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: New titles, News items, Champions Online

Say hello to Alan Salmassian. He's the man in charge of ridding Champions Online of those pesky code bugs everyone hates encountering. Sure, it may not be the most glamorous job on the team, but it's definitely got some benefits. We're not sure what those benefits are -- presumably you get to laugh at crazy bugs that make inanimate objects flee in terror -- but we're sure that they're great. Also, it sounds like being a Q&A lead requires you to have tons of management skills, which means we could never do the job.

All right, we're removing our tongue from its resting place in our cheek now. Like all the other people developing Champions Online Alan is equally important. If it wasn't for him and his team we'd all end up playing a game that crashed whenever we tried to open a door in-game or press the 'G' key. Also, we think that Alan's got a killer smile.

Meet Champions Online's Q&A lead originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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