What Would Matt Do

This day, exactly one year ago, I made my first post on this site. I'm not sure why this day, and I definitely wasn't sure how to kick it off. But, lack of content, lack of grammar, and lack of time aside, I'm happy it's still here a year later. I'm sure my three readers are too! Well, I assume they are. Maybe they're laughing at me right now.

I didn't start this site with any big goal. I didn't want to change the world (well, not with this site). I didn't think I would be changing MMORPGs (though I hope I can affect them). I didn't I would change games in general (though I'd love to). I did think I'd have my very own place to whine and share what I thought was interesting. I know I've done the first and I hope at least one out of three of my readers thinks I did the second.

It's been a good year. And I'm happy this site is around. That's good enough for me.

What Would Matt Do: What wouldn't I do, that's the question.

P.S. - today is my wife's birthday. I'm not sure why I first posted on this site on her birthday. But don't tell her, mkay? thx. 

I was reading through Michael Russell's coverage of his interview at Sony. He was applying to be a QA lead/manager. Wow. I mean I knew lots of places cut corners when it comes to QA, but I didn't realize that one of the most important game companies in the world did. It's absolute crazy talk to only have more than two QA guys on projects of those size for the last two weeks. Dear God.

major friction between test and development teams with little to no management backing for test, little to no shared technology, extremely lax "user effect" bug metrics for determining whether or not to fix something, and a variety of other fairly hefty issues, not just from a process standpoint, but a overall culture standpoint. Microsoft is known for giving QA a bit too much say in the products that are developed, but the feeling I got inside Sony was that QA was seen as nothing but a bunch of monkeys with controllers.

The emphasize is mine. If you've worked in the software (games, business or otherwise) industry for any amount of time you'll most assuredly have found places where QA is an after thought, a necessary evil, but definitely unloved by all developers and managers. Of course, if you've worked in the industry long enough, you'll have found that lax QA policies such as that can absolutely sink a project. If you treat your testers as nothing but monkeys with controllers you'll find they give about that level of quality in thoroughness and bug reporting.

To be fair, I've heard of projects that get away with very few QA guys on large projects and somehow manage to do a good job. I think that's because that QA team is damn good AND they are respected as a valuable part of the process. If you're looking at your QA as something to do last minute, you're going to get bit by it sooner or later. Whether that's in a production product that has a lot of bugs or in deadlines that are continually missed, it'll get ya.

I also didn't realize anyone worked like this with their QA team.

I was told that the way that Sony tests their games is that there are one or two test leads on a project starting at about six months out. At T-8 weeks, between 80 and 100 temporary testers are brought on to test the game for those eight weeks. That's it. This was done for financial reasons, and as a QA Manager, I would be expected to run test the same way. Obviously, I didn't feel that was a valid way of handling QA.

That's insane. Not only are you actually then hiring the afore mentioned monkeys with controllers, you're QA process is going to be total hit or miss. Your bug reports are going to be a joke and the level quality you'll be getting will be scary. Michael gives some really good reasons why not do this in another article.

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Here's my little rant on QA:

How should the QA process work, you ask? Well, that depends on the size of the project, of course. But it should go something like this…

Developers/Designers work on project technical documents. When the documents are ready, the QA lead checks it over (you can often fine flow, UI, etc problems in a tech doc) and gives his approval (after any needed fixes, of course). Then the developer starts developing. He releases parts of the projects at a time after, and this is the key point, he/she thoroughly tests the piece/product. Not before. Then the QA team gets it and puts it through black box testing, UI flow testings, tech doc comparison testing, etc, etc (all depending upon the type of project and software, of course). Any bugs found are submitted into a bug tracking system with explicit, detailed information where and how to reproduce the problem, maybe they have suggest priority. Then a project manager type (often more than one) will set the actual priority, assign the bugs to a specific team/person and the process will start over.

And that's a very simplistic version geared towards a smaller company environment. Add resources, people, levels of designers, analysts, etc as needed.

The biggest thing to me in that process? Developers testing their own code before they do anything else with it. Many developers miss this point. MANY. I'm off the opinion all developers should work in QA at some point, learn the methodologies so they can be half way decent (at the least) testers of their own code. So many developers that I've worked with have skipped that point. I've worked with developers 6 years in the industry that don't test their own code. What a fricking nightmare.

What Would Matt Do: Honor QA as something not only necessary, but useful. Treat the QA process with respect, as much respect as the other parts and your product will be that much better because of it.

You remember the US Army, right? If you don't, here's a simple break down. Guys in the field? Don't ask questions, just do as your told and get it done fast and furious. Fair enough, that a bit too stupid for my taste, especially since you can be charged with war crimes if you commit them even under orders. Beside that though, you do need a force that will respond with hell going on around them. So that's what the Army is trained to do. They are direct and to the point.

Now, if you're recruiting guys you want to be able to follow orders without question and get it done even in the most dangerous of circumstances, do you want guys that will think on their feet or guys that love playing with really cool war machines? The army answered said they only care if the people like playing with high tech weaponry.

It's an impressive game, simulating weaponry the military is actually using or building, gamers say. But the gameplay is designed so it's hard to lose: The equipment holds up awfully well and the enemy doesn't learn from experience.

"They didn't ask for hole punchers," says Mark Long, co-CEO of Zombie, where the game was built under contract. "High tech has all kinds of low-tech vulnerabilities and they didn't want the vulnerabilities programmed in."

Now to be fair, hopefully this is something they would teach their guys before they sent them out in the field, but still, it does paint an awfully rosy pictures of how it works. It's pretty far from the real world if your weapons never misfire, jam, completely fail, get taken down by more mundane means or get messed up by the unexpected. Yes, it's just a propaganda tool and for that, it sounds pretty good.

But because this is a computer game, and they made it intentionally dumb, it annoys me. You do what you want with your website, your commercials, etc, but don't give me dumbed down games so you can present a rosier than true picture of warfare. That's insulting to me, the gamer, and to your potential recruit who you will be asking to risk his or her life with similar equipment. Don't send them in blind, for the love of all. 

What Would Matt Do: Make the US Army brass play games with really bad AI until they cried for mommy and promised to only commission realistic games in the future.

Happy Holiday from the team here at WWMD (me). I'm probably not going to be posting much until next week…unless something really pisses me off.

Also, remember, they are your family. Even if you don't like them, they are still yours.                       Sorry about your luck, suckers!

What Would Matt Do: Eat, drink, and be merry of course. I'm a sap for family get togethers and days off from work.

Just too many things to cover them all, but lets give it a shot.

First off, and most important of course, this Wired guy stole my words! From my post

If you're having a good time with whatever MMORPG you're currently playing (just resubbed DAOC myself), don't read the official game forums.

That doesn't even take into account the title of the post: "Having fun with your MMORPG? Then don’t read the official forums." And now from his post:

If you play an online game that you enjoy, there’s one surefire way to spoil the experience: read the forums on the official site.

Bastards! Ok, not really. Because it's too damn easy to come to that conclusion. Go read the article though, it's pretty funny when he gets past stealing my thoughts and gets into defining the different kinds of forum posters.

Next? Sony. Dear god, Sony. Why must you continue to be so smarmy with us?

 I would like my car to fly and make me breakfast, but that's an unrealistic expectation. We've reported problems on only 200 of the 8000 PlayStation 1 and 2 games. I would challenge the average consumer to say that there are significant problems with any of the games in their library.

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Do you have a timeframe for overtaking Xbox 360?

The minute we exceed their production and distribution [capabilities].

Do we not have feelings? Do we not bleed if you prick us? Are we not more than potential money bags to be given to you at every turn? Oh right, nm.  We don't even need to go into the number of PS3s actually shipped compared to the number promised. Or the problems people are having with them. We're your personal cum toys and we, the consumer, apparently like it that way. Continue to spew.

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Speaking of the consumer, the customer, the gamer. What is wrong with you! Why do you put up with this shit! Why do you bow down to Sony and stand in the mother fucking rain/snow/heat for days on days to get a console that is releasing with 11 games. Games that are pretty much the suck and nothing stand out, even for a launch title. You're killing me. Literally, I'm over here slowly dying from your stupidity and lack of patience. Sure, it's fun to be a geek, fun to geek over things, to have the latest and the greatest, etc, but don't you have any pride? When someone tells me I can't have the latest system unless I buy a TV to go with it, I tell them to go hell. You're completely effing insane, you, the 1.4k Walmart bundle purchaser, the 11 game bundle purchaser, the impatient so I don't mind getting bent over consumer. What's next? You stupid human tricks for a chance at a PS3?

Or, conversely, you swear off the PS3 to get a $7500 gaming system. Ugh.

Gamers; we're one fucked up bunch of obsessive compulsive peoples. Damn our eyes!

What Would Matt Do: I would have some self respect and pride already. Just for a change.