Update 2.2: Hire a QA DEPARTMENT

digitalscream

Banned
D
The problem is not QA at all; it's the testing process (specifically the beta). So many issues could've been avoided - including the need for the latest patch - if, instead of rushing ahead with the fish phase, FD had waited a bit to work out whether they had the balance right in terms of materials and the RNG.

That has to be the main lesson learned from the 2.1 release.

Also, a hearty slap on the back for Brett C, because my response to the OP in his position would've been far more...emphatic ;)
 

Marc_Hicks

Marc_Hicks
digitalscream said:
The problem is not QA at all; it's the testing process (specifically the beta). So many issues could've been avoided - including the need for the latest patch - if, instead of rushing ahead with the fish phase, FD had waited a bit to work out whether they had the balance right in terms of materials and the RNG.

That has to be the main lesson learned from the 2.1 release.

Also, a hearty slap on the back for Brett C, because my response to the OP in his position would've been far more...emphatic ;)
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There is some truth to that, especially when you consider that changes to how you rank up with engineers were made mid-beta, but could not be properly tested to see if they led to too fast ranking. I confess I mostly stayed away from Engineers during the beta, because I wanted to make 100% sure that the missions were running as intended (99% definitely were, at least after several betas).
 

digitalscream

Banned
D
digitalscream said:
The problem is not QA at all; it's the testing process (specifically the beta). So many issues could've been avoided - including the need for the latest patch - if, instead of rushing ahead with the fish phase, FD had waited a bit to work out whether they had the balance right in terms of materials and the RNG.

That has to be the main lesson learned from the 2.1 release.

Also, a hearty slap on the back for Brett C, because my response to the OP in his position would've been far more...emphatic ;)
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Actually, to be fair we can't heap the blame on FD for this. Beta testers in this game tend to be more of the "I want to play with new toys" variety than actual testers, so in a sense FD was just giving us what we apparently wanted.
 

Shockbot

Shockbot
Brett C said:
Hi,

If you would like, check out our Cambridge Vacancies page here: https://www.frontier.co.uk/jobs/cambridge_vacancies/ - Feel free to apply for the QA / Testing positions, regardless of it being on the site or not. We'd love to have you join the Quality Assurance team that is quite active and responsive to issues that arise.

QA not only checks the forums, but they also are monitoring for bugs raised by Support, bugs raised by the community team relayed from you guys (social media), internal bug reporting, validation, testing, regression testing, this list goes on and on.

I only see one thread made by you in the bug reports forum - QA has it tagged as investigating. To what i assume is that they're waiting for debug and log files. :)
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It's Saturday! Go to a beach or something else [yesnod]
 

StevieG

StevieG
Marc_Hicks said:
It's pretty safe to ignore the OP, as he is what we like to call an "Armchair General". I really, seriously doubt if he even plays the game that much. To be honest, I think he will be another one I'll be adding to my "ignore" list.

As for me, Brett, I think you and the gang are doing a *fantastic* job, & the game is moving forward very nicely (aside from that one NPC that just let me shoot it ;) ). I just played for about 8 hours-on and off-and it was *fantastic* and loads of *fun*!!!
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I second this, keep up the good work :)
 

Derath

D
MAIN SEQUENCE said:
I think it's very unfair to point blame at the QA department. For all we know they might identify 99% of all bugs and yet someone high up (be that David Braben or Michael Brookes for example) makes the call to release with the knowledge that those bugs are still present. In fact my gut feeling tells me that's exactly what happens. Whether that's the right approach to take or not is another matter.
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This x1000 is exactly what I think happens, a vast majority of bugs get reported quickly anyway but I suspect the QA department test for stability more than anything else, as that is the most important thing to get right. I'm sure FD have a QA department and judging by the games general stability i'm satisfied its a competent one.
 

Bacalao

Bacalao
digitalscream said:
Actually, to be fair we can't heap the blame on FD for this. Beta testers in this game tend to be more of the "I want to play with new toys" variety than actual testers, so in a sense FD was just giving us what we apparently wanted.
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Well you eventually have to choose between what you want to test in the beta or you'll beta forever and no one will be happy about that. At some point you have to release a product. So they had to choose between testing if getting the modules was too time consuming for a long time, or properly testing if the process of getting and the modules themselves was working properly. They chose the latter, probably because it being hard to get a weapon is less frustrating than getting it and it not working (can you imagine the backlash if special effects and mods didn't work after you'd gone to all the trouble to get them?). So they tested it normally for a bit then started selling things for fish, then started putting special effects on everything to make sure it all worked mechanically. There will be some periods of balance, but...there is in every game no matter how many years you sit in alpha or beta. Even after all this time when star citizen releases, the crap is gonna hit the fan.
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Add on to that, that when players heard about 'mayhem' a good chunk of them decided to just wait till then to play with the toys instead of field testing the regular process of getting them and yeah, just like you said, exactly what we wanted.
 

NMS

NMS
Leo Sagan said:
I did not have a single reason to complain about the QA departement since I think 4 or 6 months post initial release (before that, it was a mess) : honestly, cannot take the OP seriously, especially since there are several other things one could blame FD for.
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It really has a lot more things to blame FD for the current game situation. QA is just one of them.
 

Colonel Kenney

Colonel Kenney
Brett C said:
Hi,

If you would like, check out our Cambridge Vacancies page here: https://www.frontier.co.uk/jobs/cambridge_vacancies/ - Feel free to apply for the QA / Testing positions, regardless of it being on the site or not. We'd love to have you join the Quality Assurance team that is quite active and responsive to issues that arise.

QA not only checks the forums, but they also are monitoring for bugs raised by Support, bugs raised by the community team relayed from you guys (social media), internal bug reporting, validation, testing, regression testing, this list goes on and on.

I only see one thread made by you in the bug reports forum - QA has it tagged as investigating. To what i assume is that they're waiting for debug and log files. :)
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QA part of the job is actually playing the game. In fact the majority of it should be that. This "waiting for tickets" part is REACTIVE when there should be playtesters being PROACTIVE. That means playing the game 8 hours a day. Why do you think you have so many posts every single week saying "Do you even play your own game?"

Its summertime - you could literally hire some teenagers to play the game weekly for minimum wage. If I were a teen I'd be in line for weeks for that job.
 
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careBear1

Banned
C
Fascinated that QA is seen as a Department. I would hope it was built into FD's 'software process'. Maybe that is part of the problem. There seems to have been obvious issues with the 2.1 release, including not actually properly testing during beta what was released – using fish to pay for a spin of the engineer's roulette wheel etc. (One poster suggested the QA was better than ps2. Never thought I would defend them, but when I experienced 2.1, it made me think I had been unfair on Daybreak.).
 

Sandmann

Sandmann
Brett C said:
Hi,

If you would like, check out our Cambridge Vacancies page here: https://www.frontier.co.uk/jobs/cambridge_vacancies/ - Feel free to apply for the QA / Testing positions, regardless of it being on the site or not. We'd love to have you join the Quality Assurance team that is quite active and responsive to issues that arise.

QA not only checks the forums, but they also are monitoring for bugs raised by Support, bugs raised by the community team relayed from you guys (social media), internal bug reporting, validation, testing, regression testing, this list goes on and on.

I only see one thread made by you in the bug reports forum - QA has it tagged as investigating. To what i assume is that they're waiting for debug and log files. :)
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boom!
 

Sylow

Sylow
According to my observation, especially during the beta, the QA people are doing their job. It might seem a bit slow, but i think that's an effect of understaffing/too many problems found. And mind you, the too many problems found also is not an issue of the programers, i also think they are doing a good job.
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The root problem for a number of issues, according to my impression, rather is in the timeline. There were plenty of things during beta, where i personally would've said "too many cathegory 2 issues, not ready for release, delay for two weeks". Somebody in this games planing and management sticks firmly to milestones and release dates, even it the qualty of the latest build would still warrant a delay.

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careBear1 said:
Fascinated that QA is seen as a Department. I would hope it was built into FD's 'software process'.
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What? No! If anything the QA being a department already is only good but not the optimal solution. The optimal solution is to have testing done by an external company, so the testers are not boud by "loyality" to programers or anything like that. (That's one of the things you already get hammered in at ISTQB foundation level, a qualification all software testers in my department, me included, acquired a few years ago. )
 

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You
Brett C said:
Hi,

If you would like, check out our Cambridge Vacancies page here: https://www.frontier.co.uk/jobs/cambridge_vacancies/ - Feel free to apply for the QA / Testing positions, regardless of it being on the site or not. We'd love to have you join the Quality Assurance team that is quite active and responsive to issues that arise.

QA not only checks the forums, but they also are monitoring for bugs raised by Support, bugs raised by the community team relayed from you guys (social media), internal bug reporting, validation, testing, regression testing, this list goes on and on.

I only see one thread made by you in the bug reports forum - QA has it tagged as investigating. To what i assume is that they're waiting for debug and log files. :)
Click to expand...

Would I get free hugs on a daily basis as required when the mean humans hurt my feelings for trying to help them?
Is Cambridge nice and do they eat bananas?
 
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