Should SSG do more QA

[ahpook]

I doubt it will make a difference but just in case SSG is rushing content out because they don't think we can wait, i figure lets find out if that is true or not.

So vote to let SSG if you are happiest when they release to a deadline or when they hold back to ensure things are stable and polished before release.

Also feel free to add other ideas that you think can help our favorite game developer. (unless that developer is Blizzard, then shut your gob ).

To that end I will say, if SSG is contractually obligated to release to a deadline, make sure that nothing that is not in that contract is going into the release.

Look at IoD, they added a reduction of mobs for Black and Blue and Newcomers. I doubt that was in the contract but it was included. Now Black and Blue is broken and closed. So dev/qa resources were used to do something that was (probably) not required and caused a (temporarily) worse product to be released. If you have a contract focus on fulfilling that and pick up optionals when there is time.

PS: sorry, I can't fix the typo in the poll choices. (My eyes don't read black on dk grey so I couldn't proof read either...)

[slarden]

There is no test like production.

[Yamani]

Your poll needs more options.

Dread was delayed. Original launch was like the 8th? Then got pushed back to the 22nd.

[salmag]

Your poll needs more options.

Dread was delayed. Original launch was like the 8th? Then got pushed back to the 22nd.

^^^^ This.

I would at least add

Hire/Get a QA team.

[ahpook]

Your poll needs more options.

Dread was delayed. Original launch was like the 8th? Then got pushed back to the 22nd.

Good point, however, the options cannot be changed (which makes sense).

Since it was not remotely ready back then I hadn't remembered that delay...

[rabidfox]

They're hiring more QA. You should apply. https://twitter.com/DDOUnlimited/sta...89641694248963

[Memnir]

I'm guessing this is one'a them... whatchamacallems.... rhetoricals.

[ahpook]

I'm guessing this is one'a them... whatchamacallems.... rhetoricals.

A rhetoripoll, if you will.

[Tyrande]

I bet there are going to be a lot more of us doing QA if there was a QA form at the quest level. "Report a bug" and then when you fill out all of the form legitimately with reproducible steps; and if the form is a confirmed bug either by a SSG developer or SSG QA you get 1000 DP deposited into your current SSG account of the character using the form.

Non-confirmed or non-reproducible bugs, however, only get 25?

[salmag]

They're hiring more QA. You should apply. https://twitter.com/DDOUnlimited/sta...89641694248963

Key word there is "temporary"

[Eantarus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRkixO7elMo

[Sylvado]

I doubt it will make a difference but just in case SSG is rushing content out because they don't think we can wait, i figure lets find out if that is true or not.

So vote to let SSG if you are happiest when they release to a deadline or when they hold back to ensure things are stable and polished before release.

Also feel free to add other ideas that you think can help our favorite game developer. (unless that developer is Blizzard, then shut your gob ).

To that end I will say, if SSG is contractually obligated to release to a deadline, make sure that nothing that is not in that contract is going into the release.

Look at IoD, they added a reduction of mobs for Black and Blue and Newcomers. I doubt that was in the contract but it was included. Now Black and Blue is broken and closed. So dev/qa resources were used to do something that was (probably) not required and caused a (temporarily) worse product to be released. If you have a contract focus on fulfilling that and pick up optionals when there is time.

PS: sorry, I can't fix the typo in the poll choices. (My eyes don't read black on dk grey so I couldn't proof read either...)

I selected give QA more time. Nothing should be released unless it passes QA. Now you can use Agile instead of Waterfall sort of like what they do when they release an expansion but hold the raid. That becomes a marketing decision. All that said, I execute validation scripts for Pharma IT which means I answer to the FDA and a dozen other national agencies and even go to jail if I don't maintain integrity. Even with that level of testing things still fail, you can never account for everything a user might do differently and at a production scale.

[Arkat]

Should SSG do more QA

Is this a trick question?

I feel like this is a trick question.

[CSQ]

SSG seems to be stuck in a bad place on QA, and I think one of the biggest factors is probably release windows. I'm pretty sure that with their license they have obligated release windows (so, for example, when Isle of Dread was first announced, it was scheduled for June 3rd, with an absolutely promised release date on or before July 3rd- though that could also be regulatory/legal requirements regarding pre-orders). However, I get that QA isn't perfect. Things will *always* slip through, even with the best QA in the world.

That said, it has become increasingly frustrating for things that are pointed out on Lama or seem to be patently easy to stumble across and not just edge case weird interactions are slipping through the net. Janky interactions with a barely represented class/feat/ability are one thing, since those tend to be pretty obscure and impact a small portion of the player base, but when your explorer area causes crashes to desktops and you have to close it the day after launch (and thereby make 83% of the new quests completely inaccessible) it's not quite so easy to overlook. I don't know if that's a QA problem (not enough information gathering and listening to feedback), a development problem (rushed development, insufficient staffing), or a general management issue (unrealistic time tables, overly ambitious plans for content), and from the outside it's going to be basically impossible to say for certain.

[Bjond]

SSG seems to be stuck in a bad place on QA, and I think one of the biggest factors is probably release windows

I don't think it's the release window. I think they fundamentally do not know how to test. This is a VERY common problem and it can be boiled down to a simple mindset/goal:

Testing is not about proving it works. Testing is about making it fail.

It's emotionally difficult for a developer to shift from creation to destruction. You just built a glorious sand castle or house of cards and you want to admire it, not watch it suffer.

This shift is why test teams catch bugs. The good ones thrive on breaking things. When a good tester can't break something, he is not a happy camper.

Management is typically a problem, too. They often want the test team to say "it works, it's OK to release". "Blessing" a release needs to be reserved to management-only so it doesn't mess with tester's heads and confuse them as to their primary role of breaking things.

[AshelV]

They're hiring more QA. You should apply. https://twitter.com/DDOUnlimited/sta...89641694248963

For what it's worth, I went through the phone screener for this role, and was told straight up it was for LotRO only. Mind you, could be that it filled *real* quickly (I was a solid few days late in applying), or could be that I was just being tested since I was telegraphing my interest in DDO fairly hard, but it didn't strike me as such the way some other interviews have.

(It wouldn't have worked out anyway - not because I'm not interested in working on the other side of SSG's house, but because I'm not looking to take another job that goes through a staffing agency after my experiences at Nintendo and Microsoft. C'est la vie. Maybe someday they'll have an analyst/AP/junior designer role pop up - I'll keep my resume polished just in case.)

[Annex]

They obviously cannot afford more testing budget for DDO and, after that budget is used up, rely on players to find stuff.

I have more tolerance for bugs than many of you. If a bug will kill my characters, I want it fixed immediately. Otherwise, I would rather have a quest open and available for experience and saga completion than closed for this or that. Yeah, it sucks when an ability of chest or whatever malfunctions, but I would rather be playing than waiting.

If they can swing more testing, great, but it seems logical that if they could swing more testing, they would have already done it.

I do not, under any circumstances, want dungeon development time reduced to prioritize testing. No way. They need to increase dungeon development hours by a factor of ten. The current rate of new dungeon development is _terrible_. It has been _terrible_ for many years.

[blarhblarhblarh]

Both have quests that:

Map don´t work or can stop work.

Can be unfinishable due to npc bug. The sea elf for example can bug in at least 3 different ways and make the group loose all effort to r10 it, the time, the price they paid on the xp pot, the patient, the trust in the company that sold the mini-expansion with real money and so on.

So to me as a player I rather have a bug free game than more 10 quests that don´t work due to bugs. It's not a hyge bug that make players quit but a small bug over the thousand´t time. Last week I had the ladder bug over 8 times on the same ladder. Couldn´t make the toon climb by any means. Triple completionist, 140 reaper points, can´t climb a ladder.

Don´t need to explain how frustating it is and that SSG will not give back our xp pot timer back when we loose time due to these kind of thing. So I think that the pots should have extra 20 minutes because of:

Load screen times. Load screen freezes. Ladder bugs. Other unrelated bugs.

[Valerianus]

i just know i did a tr back to level 1 some time ago, now i'm 16, i'm slow, specifically with the purpose to stay away from the new content until hotfixed and patched or rather double-patched. i calculated my times right, now i'm far too high for the heroic version and the legendary one is not even in sight.

i tend to always avoid "the new thing", whatever it is, being it a class, a tree, content, whatever. tired of being burned and frustrated and disappointed. still here anyway. you know, like a love story, sometimes you compromise to keep it going....hoping you are doing the right thing.


when they'll do the announced changes to storage in Q4, pretty big stuff, i'll probably not even update the client for a week out of paranoia.