70 réponses à ce sujet

[Shevy]

Puh, a good amount of information, especially with my limited English skills, but totally worth it!
Thanks to Allan and Stan for giving some interesting insight in game QA. It's defnitly something I couldn't handle, being overextended with Jawa programming language back in school.

[Maria Caliban]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

A friend of mine who interviewed for a QA job actually told me that they asked her to QA an orange. What qualities of it are you looking at? What sort of standards would you need to apply to an orange before it goes to market? If you were to write a report about this particular orange, what would you note down? How easy to read is your report?

"Oranges suck. This should be an apple. Make the outside smooth and red, remove the tart taste, and make it crunchy."

[David7204]

I'm curious if there are any positions that would suit a physics major.

[Allan Schumacher]

It'd likely still need some level of technical proficiency if you were looking at leveraging it into creating/improving physics in the engine (i.e. we do have Physics Programmers I believe...). Although I know a fair number of Physicists at the local University that are actually pretty proficient programmers haha.

One of the Tech QA guys happened to have a postgraduate degree in Physics even, although he recently left to head back East for family reasons. As a result his ability to test Physics was pretty specific (he also knew how to program as well though haha. Must be fairly common in the curriculum?)

[David7204]

Well, it's certainly not a step in the wrong direction, I suppose. Thanks.

[hoorayforicecream]

David7204 wrote...

I'm curious if there are any positions that would suit a physics major.

One of my friends was a physics major, and he's now one of the senior programmers who's working on Tomb Raider. But that entirely depends on how much you like physics and how much you like programming. Physics in games isn't about accurate simulation, it's mostly about solving problems when you have discrete time packets and modeling interpolation and integration efficiently in a way that's "close enough" to be believable, but not extremely resource-taxing.

[Palipride47]

This may not be able to answered here, but how do the writers fit in with all of this? Do they have programming degrees, or English and performing arts degrees? I don't think there is exactly a career point for writers to enter video games (at least, not even remotely easily). And do they get to see the process (i.e. maybe picking over a facial expression, or a particular staged bit? I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I make any sense)

[MerAnne]

Allan & Stan, thanks so much for describing the QA process. I've found your posts very interesting. And very standard for software QA.

A few thoughts for those who want to 'get into' the video game industry through QA. If you can't immediately find a job associated with video games, find a job in the more general software industry. Everything that Allan and Stan have described (from a QA standpoint) is done when creating/marketing software. Don't give up the dream/desire to work with video games - I'm NOT saying to give up. After a few years in non-game related software QA, you can go to an interview (with a video game company) and be able to discuss unit testing, black box testing, white box testing, integration testing, system testing, regression testing, SDLC, configuration management, agile development, etc etc etc

So question to those who want to break into the video game industry through game QA: if you were hiring someone to be a member of your QA team, would you rather hire someone who has proven that they can do software QA or someone who wants to work in the video game industry but has little practical experience?

And don't let the absence of the preferred type of degree stop you. My degree is nontraditional for my job. It only took them 3-4 years to figure out that I'm not a statistician and had spent the majority of those 3-4 years writing software. They changed my job title and I continued to write code.

[Allan Schumacher]

This may not be able to answered here, but how do the writers fit in
with all of this? Do they have programming degrees, or English and
performing arts degrees? I don't think there is exactly a career point
for writers to enter video games (at least, not even remotely easily).
And do they get to see the process (i.e. maybe picking over a facial
expression, or a particular staged bit? I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I
make any sense)

Hmmmm, IMO the idea is to create tools in such a way that minimize the "general technical proficiency" so that writers (and heck, even designers) are able to make cool stuff without needing programming degrees or to be experts with many of the technical details.

My impression based on our tools for Eclipse and now Frostbite is that there is no need for programming/technical degrees in order to be a capable writer.

For the details of writing and picking expressions and whatnot Gaider or another writer would be much better equiped than I. I know that scenes are commented with context for what's happening, but I can only assume it's the writers doing it. I don't know if it actually is.

A new thread, or perhaps posting in this thread might solicit a more direct response from writing

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 04 octobre 2012 - 08:13 .

[Allan Schumacher]

And don't let the absence of the preferred type of degree stop you. My degree is nontraditional for my job. It only took them 3-4 years to figure out that I'm not a statistician and had spent the majority of those 3-4 years writing software. They changed my job title and I continued to write code.

There's a universal aspect of having a degree that I really like: someone was able to start something that isn't very easy, and then also finish it. This last point is really telling and I think is a great character trait.

Not that people that don't have degrees may not have better types of commitment to getting tough things done, but rather I can look at an applicant and have a bit more definitive proof that at least one time they have demonstrated this, regardless of what the degree is actually in


In general I agree with your advice though. There's a lot shared between general software development. We have some people in QA that used to QA tax software and they do just fine here

[Sylvius the Mad]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

There's a universal aspect of having a degree that I really like: someone was able to start something that isn't very easy, and then also finish it.

I used to think that.  Then I got a degree. 

If you choose a program that is well suited to your natural way of thinking, I'd say getting a degree in it is a trivial exercise.

Some degrees are hard to get.  I would always ask an interview qusetion about academic difficulties to see if they have a story handy - if they don't, then the degree probably wasn't hard.

But then, I have some unusual ideas about how to hire people (to which my assistant could attest).

[hoorayforicecream]

Palipride47 wrote...

This may not be able to answered here, but how do the writers fit in with all of this? Do they have programming degrees, or English and performing arts degrees? I don't think there is exactly a career point for writers to enter video games (at least, not even remotely easily). And do they get to see the process (i.e. maybe picking over a facial expression, or a particular staged bit? I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I make any sense)

You'd be better off asking Gaider this question, but writing for games is a bit different than writing for other things. Game writers are ultimately game designers first, and writers second. Game development tends to have a lot of constraints, many moreso than a novel, comic book, TV show, or movie. Specifically, you often need to take certain things into consideration, like:

- We have to limit this because we cannot display more than 10 fully animating characters on the screen at once
- We can only display up to 6 maximum choices for any given conversation decision point
- The phrasing must be short enough to fit within the allotted text space in every language we're publishing in (I'm lookin' at YOU, German! )
- This scene may not have every (or any) character in it. Make sure that we cover every possible combination.
- We know that we need a fight here. Come up with a plausible reason for this.
- This section must explain why the player is going from a castle's kitchen to an ice dungeon. Come up with a plausible reason for that.
- This is the tutorial section, so you must provide a reason to showcase each game feature we're teaching for  a believable story reason

For things like facial expression and staged bits, you ask folks like Epler. I'm sure the writers have some input, but those are ultimately handled by the cinematic designers (and their programmer and animator support group).

Modifié par hoorayforicecream, 04 octobre 2012 - 08:34 .

[MerAnne]

I'm definitely not saying that people shouldn't have a degree.  It proves an ability to learn AND to follow through with a course of action to get a degree.

But I wouldn't advise someone to go back to college or get a certification because they don't have the RIGHT degree.  Over 20 years ago, I finished my degrees.  Proving that I could learn and that I would finish what I started.  I had enough math/statistics to qualify for a statistician job and that got my foot in the door so that I got the interview.  And spent the next 15+ years writing software.  My degrees?  Are in Agriculture.  I had a whopping big 2 classes in programming/computer science.  It probably would have taken another 2-3 years to get a degree in Computer Science because so few of the classes would have crossed over to a new major.  Foot in the door, get job, get experience, and then go back to interviewing for jobs associated with video games. 

Anyone who has QA'ed tax software deserves a job QAing video games if only to recover (shudder). 

[Maclimes]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But then, I have some unusual ideas about how to hire people a lot of things.

Fixed that for ya. 

[Maclimes]

Allan, when are you going to get your own avatar? If I had to guess, I'd say you're the most active Bioware employee on the boards (followed by David Gaider) and yet, you are still saddled with the generic "Bioware Employee" avatar. Don't you think it's time for an upgrade?

(And my "upgrade", I mean "moustache")

[Allan Schumacher]

I like my Avatar! It's traditionalist in that sense!

[The dead fish]

edit : Sorry, didn't read posts above XD

Modifié par Sylvianus, 04 octobre 2012 - 10:22 .

[Maclimes]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I like my Avatar! It's traditionalist in that sense!

Very well. It's your avatar, after all. 

[Fast Jimmy]

 I feel like Allen's avatar should be...

webkit-fake-url://E37F81C7-B5DF-4E5A-B7D4-900428551A69/imagegif

Edit: silly phone posting... that look better to everyone?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 05 octobre 2012 - 12:22 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I do fancy myself to be a GUID.

[Fast Jimmy]

^
LOL Taking it all in stride. That's why you're a classy gent, Aplen.