Battlezone Forums

See http://videosift.com/video/Xtranormal-S ... e-Industry .

QA and testing is not all about getting TheWin(tm). The highly competitive players from multiplayer are usually rotten testers, because the good testers will break off from any obsessing over TheWin(tm) or kicking the other side's rear to chase down things that seem funny.

-- GSH

I wish some people here / at facepunch would understand these points. I also wish I understood these exact points when I was picked for the PrivBeta team five years back .

This also fails to understand Minecraft and other such indie games that lucked out and sold more than enough copies to make profit and that Valve is looking for talent to exploi- I mean, incorperate . (See Portal, Left4Dead)

Dammit! Somebody leaked my idea for an MMO that allows you to run time backwards.

Heads will roll!

The highly competitive players from multiplayer are usually rotten testers,

Yes very true. But they can also be useful at certain points in testing (the beta phase usually) if they can control their opinions and accept that they are not game designers!. Game-play is difficult to test in any circumstance, wether its a new game or an old one with a small but fanatical following like bz2.

This is the only game I have ever helped to test, but I have tested more photocopier/printer software than I care to remember, very different from games, but the same basics apply, I would not advise a software engineer on how to program a duplex paper feed sequence for example. I would just show him where its going wrong or preferably prove that it works as intended, very very occasionally you show them that what was intended is actually wrong.
Sometimes you get thanked for your efforts, but most of the time you are treated much like the contract cleaners but without the advantage of being able to prove that you actually do anything. It takes a smart dept head to realise that the best testers do appear to sit there doing nothing quite allot...its called thinking and its essential.

the goal of testing is to break things.

love that vid.

the goal of testing is to break things.

Yes. My days as a software tester ended, when the dept head decided to "test" us, by demanding that we document our processes, as well as the problems...
He wanted "how we went about breaking things" documented, it was impossible and it broke us.
To this day I still wonder if it wasn't just a devious (and very dumb) way to reduce the headcount.

it was probably done so he could ship your jobs to Bangalore

I have an idea for a game. . . that alone should propel me to gamer stardom

But I want to work in the video game industry!

it was probably done so he could ship your jobs to Bangalore

Well actually, in an attempt to survive, they had already bought their Japanese competitor so they did not need to to ship the jobs, just quietly dismantle their uneconomical western based production. Just another move in a long history of unpatriotic, profit at any cost behaviour.

As at least 20% of you know I am trying to create and test a game and I its not as easy as I thought it would be. Because most of the time people who find out want to know what it is. Then more people find out and money offers and annoying people wanting to help even if they don't know what the hell the game is about. So I think that I will eventually sell the game to a company but not sure which one....yet.

Take making a mod, make it 100 times harder, and then add in the fact that if you hope for money it has to be worthy of purchase.

Exactly Nielk1

So you want to not make a game and make money out of it? sounds like a cunning plan indeed.