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Sion posted:edit - you people sicken me not knowing the ways of the games industry proletariat. look I don't even want to know your names  (Some of my best friends that are
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Nov 25, 2012 22:28
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Sigma-X posted:look I don't even want to know your names "Can my bugs come to me from a QA account?" 'Most bugs entered into JIRA are from QA accounts.' "No I mean a centralised one. I don't like seeing their names." An actual conversation that actually happened. edit - the outcome of this was a 'no' from me. The artist then did what they were wont to do and went to the SysAdmin about it who created a QA project that only production could move bugs from into the Development Project so they could triage the bugs while shifting them over. Triage was done just fine before this procedure was implemented. 
Sion fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Nov 25, 2012 |
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Nov 25, 2012 23:40
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BizarroAzrael posted:I'm considering a return to QA to get back into the industry, though it would need to be either senior or at a developer (ideally both). I did all that in my last long-term QA gig, but whilst regular QA had high turnover, senior and above didn't go anywhere, so there were 4 or so of us who would be promoted if not for that. Was also a publisher so couldn't help out in other areas. We're hiring experienced QA dudes at Riot, you could check us out (http://www.riotgames.com/careers/qa). We embed our QA into our development teams and actively solicit their feedback on a day to day basis on how things, which I hear is different from a lot of other places. I could help your resume along, if you like. Sion posted:"Can my bugs come to me from a QA account?" What? This makes no sense to me in any context. How do you know who to follow up with if you don't see the names? 
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Nov 26, 2012 00:40
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Brackhar posted:What? This makes no sense to me in any context. How do you know who to follow up with if you don't see the names? It's a game of telephone that can shunt an annoying bug into limbo for a good two or three weeks. Also a huge freaking waste of time that I hated.
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Nov 26, 2012 00:53
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Brackhar posted:We're hiring experienced QA dudes at Riot, you could check us out (http://www.riotgames.com/careers/qa). We embed our QA into our development teams and actively solicit their feedback on a day to day basis on how things, which I hear is different from a lot of other places. I could help your resume along, if you like. If you think it's worth a shot absolutely, though I'm UK-based. If you guys would ship someone over that far I'll give it a go.
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Nov 26, 2012 00:56
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Sion posted:An actual conversation that actually happened. Sounds like you have a special little snowflake on your dev team.
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Nov 26, 2012 00:57
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Sion posted:I should probably qualify this - Management in QA = Hour long lunch. Tester in QA = Half hour lunch. I remember when I worked at SOE, I once went to lunch at Tommy's with two QA Leads (including mine), the QA Supervisor, and the QA Manager. We returned to the office two hours later.
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Nov 26, 2012 00:57
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Brackhar posted:What? This makes no sense to me in any context. How do you know who to follow up with if you don't see the names? Well the reasoning was that we could filter potential questions from third parties (the BBC, Lego and DC Comics were potential clients that never materialized) through this system so it would basically become a 'partners questions', 'QA bugs' and 'suggestion bin' all in one hand, manageable and hilariously worthless project. Turns out if you just fist a lot of important poo poo (business management emails that automatically get converted into bugs for this QA Project) in with a lot of less important poo poo (MZU-8121: 'Login menu doesn't fade out like other menu screens when being closed') you tend to miss a lot of poo poo and the reporting process becomes a hilarious mess. Good times. Pixelboy posted:Sounds like you have a special little snowflake on your dev team. Had. This was a while ago and I am no longer with that company.
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Nov 26, 2012 01:02
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Shalinor posted:You talk to your producer, passive aggressively trying to push the bug off someone else, and then they talk to the lead producer, who talks to the QA producer, who talks to the QA person, who then has no clue what your original problem with the bug was, so they pass that message back, eventually it reaches your producer, and then it's brought up in the next planning meeting. Why would you do that when you could just bounce any bug you couldn't solve in 5 minutes back to QA as "could not reproduce" with a request for a video of the reproduction? Then it dies a natural death on someone else's backlog. (actual process given to me by a designer) (I don't work with him any more)
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Nov 26, 2012 05:52
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BizarroAzrael posted:If you think it's worth a shot absolutely, though I'm UK-based. If you guys would ship someone over that far I'll give it a go. If you'd fit the mold for a senior QA it's probably worth a shot. Check the postings and see if anything fits.
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Nov 26, 2012 08:54
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Sigma-X posted:Why would you do that when you could just bounce any bug you couldn't solve in 5 minutes back to QA as "could not reproduce" with a request for a video of the reproduction? Because assholes like me look at a bug and get a video and then hand it back to the developer. Once upon a time we had a progression breaking bug that would have been a real pain in the dick to fix and only happened one in a thousand times after you'd done some weird sequence breaking stuff. Even though it was a B Class the designer straight up refused to fix it - CNR at first, bumped back by test with 'QA are still able to reproduce this issue in latest cl', request info with video, video was provided, CNR even after the video had been provided and so on until this bug (hilariously) got escalated to the head of the company who wrote the best comment on a bug I've ever seen. "Just loving fix it. Stop loving about and fix it." Backlogging and kicking issues to the long grass really only works when you've got a large company that's developing and iterating very quickly or your QA manager isn't paying enough attention. If you can overload your manager or the testers you'll be able to get away with it but, in my experience, it's easier said than done. Sion fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Nov 26, 2012 |
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Nov 26, 2012 12:07
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Your QA departments file bugs? Sounds cool...
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Nov 26, 2012 15:05
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People only care about the plight of QA when they're in QA. As soon as the golden claw machine reaches into the dungeon and yanks a tester skyward they immediately forget about everything that happened to them. Politics is the same way.
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Nov 26, 2012 16:06
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Imagine four QA on the edge of a cliff
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Nov 26, 2012 16:09
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Oh god, my eyes. Unity 4 doesn't support Retina Macbook Pros. So much sadness and tears. (And headaches, oof.)
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Nov 26, 2012 18:21
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baby puzzle posted:Your QA departments file bugs? Sounds cool... only some of them. I have a tendency to introduce them, although someone told me that breaking the build was a sign I was going to be an Engineer any day now! In any case, QA at Riot owns. I'm not in a traditional QA role (I do this) but for those who are "just" QA/Platform/Gameplay Analyst folks, it's definitely a lot more involved than "enter bugs, verify bugs, repeat".
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Nov 26, 2012 18:28
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Hmm I think I've finally worked-out the problem with finishing (the end of the beginning) my portfolio. Turns out I procrastinate a lot and don't really want to do it. Who knew?
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Nov 26, 2012 21:11
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concerned mom posted:Hmm I think I've finally worked-out the problem with finishing (the end of the beginning) my portfolio. Turns out I procrastinate a lot and don't really want to do it. Who knew? ^^^^^ <<<<< Welcome to the pre-motivation creative journey!
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Nov 26, 2012 23:10
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Damiya posted:only some of them. I have a tendency to introduce them, although someone told me that breaking the build was a sign I was going to be an Engineer any day now! ZOMG a Rioter on SA I don't know! Crazy times.
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Nov 26, 2012 23:59
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Brackhar posted:ZOMG a Rioter on SA I don't know! Crazy times. I applied at Riot once and it was a horrible experience. Whoever is the hiring manager there needs to be fired (maybe he already was). I applied as a programmer, and had to take a test on that horrific site Codality or whatever it was, and then the hiring manager had me take a design test, but I wasn't applying to be a designer and I got critiqued by one of the lead designers there on how I was okay but not great and I'm not what they were looking for at which point I politely informed him I was applying for a programming position. So then I get sent back to the hiring manager and he lost my Codality test and wants me to take another. I basically gave up at that point because I was tired of the incompetence.
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Nov 27, 2012 02:44
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Brackhar posted:What? This makes no sense to me in any context. How do you know who to follow up with if you don't see the names? I did work with a tester once who was notorious for using cheat codes to quickly move through a level even when he was supposed to be doing progression tests. He wrote up bugs that were impossible to repro and he swore up and down that he hadn't used cheats. Eventually he admitted to using teleport codes to hop around the level, screwing up all the triggers and variables. After he wasted two full days of a dev's time on different occasions, he was let go. I felt bad because he was a genuinely nice guy, but no one trusted the bugs he wrote up. rope kid fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Nov 27, 2012 |
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Nov 27, 2012 09:03
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Brackhar posted:ZOMG a Rioter on SA I don't know! Crazy times. ... You got me hired, silly. I changed my name :P
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Nov 27, 2012 09:10
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rope kid posted:Especially with a large pool of testers, you will inevitably get some testers that are just rotten and take quite a while to either get better or get fired.
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Nov 27, 2012 10:33
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Sea Otter posted:Sorry I don't belong to the game industry but this makes me wonder why Obsidian promised they would let some of their Kickstarter pledgers join the beta-testing of PE in the first place. Even barely imaging myself "beta-testing" a game makes me shake my head. I can tell my experiences as a player and ask some noob questions about why things are implemented in a certain ways but "beta-testing"? - Kind of "you must be kidding" area. More eyes means they'll catch more bugs, and if they have a variety of folks with end-user systems, they'll get an idea of how frequent certain issues actually are in the real world. Not to mention with telemetry those testers don't need to write a single bug to be useful. if I were them, I'd get an internal QA guy who's known to write bugs that are clear and concise to filter the wheat from the chafe, and possibly rewrite ones that need it. You'll get a ton more coverage for the cost of one QA guy, AND the folks doing your grunt work will thank you for giving them access to the game. Also I'm willing to bet they'd advocate the game quite a bit if they're involved, feel important, and their feedback is heard. (I've no proof for that though)
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Nov 27, 2012 11:03
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Sea Otter posted:Sorry I don't belong to the game industry but this makes me wonder why Obsidian promised they would let some of their Kickstarter pledgers join the beta-testing of PE in the first place. Even barely imaging myself "beta-testing" a game makes me shake my head. I can tell my experiences as a player and ask some noob questions about why things are implemented in a certain ways but "beta-testing"? - Kind of "you must be kidding" area. Beta tests are glorified demos and have little to do with QA. The majority of useful information they will glean from a beta test will be finding out that poo poo breaks down on a certain video driver or something. And get some usage telemetry if they're set up for that. Nine of the benefit of a beta test requires testers that are any more than eager players with a pulse. E: I should read juc's posts before repeating them.
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Nov 27, 2012 18:28
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xgalaxy posted:I applied at Riot once and it was a horrible experience. I applied for a flash programmer position at GDC 2011, I got a business card from one of their flash guys; then later after sending a follow-up e-mail he told me that they didn't have the stuff I handed over, so I re-sent it. The guy seemed fairly busy in that he would drop out of contact for a few weeks (or months) at a time, but when he did get back to me he let me know not to give up and that he liked that I wasn't giving up. Eventually I had to take a new programming test because the old one I did was outdated by that point. I did it, over labor-day weekend 2011 and sent it back. another guy was supposed to look at it but he never did before he went on vacation in late September (I think) but my original contact apologized and told me he would look at it himself. In late October he sent it back with some critiques that genuinely made me better at programming, and told me I could fix-up my test and take as much time as I like on it then send it back. I finally sent back what I felt was the best version of the test in November (2011) and have yet to hear anything about it. I have gotten maybe 2-3 e-mails from my contact since then but they were mostly just "sorry, I will get back to you on this ASAP" Honestly from the tone of his e-mails he really wanted to help me out but holy crap the entire experience was like pulling teeth (shoutouts to Brackhar for helping me get as far as I did), well hopefully I might get to say hi to him at GDC/PAX-East 2014 (I just moved out for the job I started in September so I am way too low on cash to make the trip this time) 
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Nov 27, 2012 19:39
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My worst experience with HR was being offered a writers job at Bioware and then having it pulled when they realized I wasn't a Canadian citizen. My CV had my address in full with country on it and everything but they must have missed it. I think I still have the email where I replied with 'But I am in the commonwealth. That counts, right?' Sion fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 27, 2012 |
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Nov 27, 2012 22:04
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Damiya posted:... You got me hired, silly. Oh. Why would you do that? So confusing. xgalaxy posted:I applied at Riot once and it was a horrible experience. It sounds like somehow you got slotted to be evaluated as a technical designer. Our engineering hiring pipeline was having some trouble in 2010/2011, but most of that's been cleared up now.
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Nov 27, 2012 22:12
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When I interviewed at Riot it got to salary negotiations and then silence and then "sorry the position is now $8/hr remote contract no benefits part time, let us know if you're still interested" down from a competitive FTE salary with relo.
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Nov 27, 2012 22:39
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Riot confuses me. From all accounts, they're raking in the money and massively successful, but looking at glassdoor and talking to people there, they pay relatively poorly and are weirdly disorganized. You sort of expect the latter with their rapid rise in popularity, but usually fatty salaries go along with that.
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Nov 27, 2012 22:47
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@Juc66 and Sigma-X Thanks for the replies to the noob question. I thought pre-production or brain-storming stage is where special skills are least needed, compared with more concrete or polishing stages but it seems joining (later) beta test may even benefit the project as long as we are not such a habitual liar in the example by ropekid. Guess the matter is how busy I will be at the beta-testing stage.
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Nov 27, 2012 23:42
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Sion posted:My worst experience with HR was being offered a writers job at Bioware and then having it pulled when they realized I wasn't a Canadian citizen. My CV had my address in full with country on it and everything but they must have missed it. Having lived with you the idea of you writing for BioWare is hilarious to me for some reason.
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Nov 27, 2012 23:48
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Sion posted:My worst experience with HR was being offered a writers job at Bioware and then having it pulled when they realized I wasn't a Canadian citizen. My CV had my address in full with country on it and everything but they must have missed it. That's weird, they hire people from abroad quite a bit. Guess it'd have nailed you if there was someone who was a close second for what they wanted and the other person was a citizen, since they need to justify stuff to the canadian government when hiring abroad.
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Nov 28, 2012 00:45
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Juc66 posted:That's weird, they hire people from abroad quite a bit. Yeah it was for a pretty junior position. Had to be a fan of star wars for the job though. Still, I wrote a pretty rad neverwinter nights module for it. Sion fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 28, 2012 |
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Nov 28, 2012 01:10
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Sion posted:Yeah it was for a pretty junior position. Had to be a fan of star wars for the job though. Still, I wrote a pretty rad neverwinter nights module for it. Star Wars eh? You dodged a bullet.
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Nov 28, 2012 03:04
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Anyone in here work in serious games? Hopefully that falls under the purview of this thread...
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Nov 28, 2012 16:01
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Akuma posted:Anyone in here work in serious games? Hopefully that falls under the purview of this thread... I know a guy who does. I almost went down that route but dragons beat forklift sims any way you slice it.
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Nov 28, 2012 16:26
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Akuma posted:Anyone in here work in serious games? Hopefully that falls under the purview of this thread... I did for 6.5 years up until a year ago. EDIT: Whoa, today is literally my 1 year anniversary. Yay!
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Nov 28, 2012 16:49
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Akuma posted:Anyone in here work in serious games? Hopefully that falls under the purview of this thread... I'm pretty hooked into that sphere, though more on the medical side of things for obvious reasons. What's up?
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Nov 28, 2012 17:10
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Me and some college buddies did a game for Android when we were differed for a year (not enough people for the final year, so we had to wait for more people to join up). It was pretty much a Robokill rip-off, but it was still a challenge for us. Despite not being able to finish it, we learnt a lot from the experience and we got to try out a new language and API. Would it be beneficial to add this to my portfolio? I worked on UI and gameplay code and it got me into AI programming along with teaching me a few things about Java. I know the answer to this is pretty obvious, but I want to know what an employer is looking.
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Nov 28, 2012 17:34
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