Guild Chat - Episode 72

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.

The 72nd episode of Guild Chat aired on September 7, 2018. Rubi sits down with members of the ArenaNet QA Team to discuss testing and bugs in Guild Wars 2.

Transcription[edit]

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Guild Chat studio [6:26][edit]

Rubi Bayer: (laughs) Hi guys. Welcome to Guild Chat, and happy Friday. I'm your host Rubi, and today on Guild Chat, we're going to be talking to some of the members of our QA Team. So, let's go ahead and meet them. I'll start with you and have each of you talk about what your name is, what your position is, and what you do here at ArenaNet. Nathan?

Nathan Brown: I'm a QA Embed. I mostly help out other teams when they need more help.

Rubi: Okay. That makes sense. Your first time on Guild Chat, so welcome.

Nathan: Thank you.

Rubi: Thank you for giving us some of your time. Right. Nick?

Nicholas Hernandez: Hi. I'm Nick. I am one of the other Living World QA Embeds, primarily for episodes 3 and 6 of last season, and 3 of this season. And... Yeah, I've done this a few times, so...

Rubi: A few.

Nick: A few. (laugh)

Rubi: Thank you. Again. Travis!

Travis Battig: I'm Travis. Some of you may remember me from the Expac 2 Guild Chat that we had. I mean the Path of Fire launch. And I am the Raids and Fractals Embed.

Rubi: Okay, so... Doing embed, what does that mean exactly? I'm not— it's not a genuine question, I mean, I know, but... it's a new term.

Travis: So we're mostly responsible for the organization and management of QA processes within ArenaNet. We're responsible for like, putting in the test passes that we run, and kind of being the gatekeepers of knowledge to QA. Like, the things that tend to catch teams or catch releases off guard. We try to anticipate those and make sure that we have plans in place to test those.

Nick: On top of that, we're also pseudo in charge of making sure that the team meets specific standards set by our leadership and also, you know, having playtests with the team and holding meetings to make sure that everything is like, well-communicated? You know what I mean?

Rubi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick: Like that kind of stuff, yeah.

Rubi: That kind of liaison between the ???,^{[verification requested]} yeah. Speaking of questions, if any of you guys watching have questions we're gonna try to answer a couple at the end as time allows, so if you have them throw them in chat they will pass a couple along to us and we will see if we can get to those if time allows. I'm finding out how talkative you guys are going to be. Yeah. So you mentioned that you are QA embed for raids. Nathan, you kind of hop around wherever is most needed, right?

Nathan: Yeah, so whoever - I'm generally speaking - a QA Embed's role will ramp up as it gets closer to release so I'm there to kind of help out with some of the extra stress that comes on with that. To alleviate that.

Nick: Yeah that's like- there's like primaries usually for each individual team, like he's the raids and fractals, I'm one of the Living World teams and Nathan's role is like help out every single person and kind of also help keep that communication going in between each one or each different team.

Rubi: Geez, that sounds like a lot!

Nathan: It can be.

Nick: He does a very good job at it to be fair.

Rubi: Yeah it sounds like. So how do you, I mean, I feel like especially you, Nick, will jump around teams like once- Okay! Episode 3 is out! That's off the books. We are ready to move on to the next thing. So you're jumping around between teams quite a lot. How do you maintain a good workflow? I know you've very good at what you do so I feel like communication isn't a problem.

Nick: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Rubi: But how do you keep track of that jumping from one thing to the other? Is there overlap?

Nick: Yes, there's definitely overlap. So one of our other Embeds - her name is Melina - she's actually getting married. So, um-

Rubi: Oh! That's tomorrow!

Travis: It is tomorrow.

Nick: Yeah, that's like pretty soon and because of that like, you know, she has to go take care of all of her wedding stuff so I got made primary for Episode 4. And, you know, like hopping from 3 to 4 like there was a lot of responsibility stuff that they need to get taken care of and on like the ground level basically to answer your question: a lot of sticky notes.

Rubi: So many sticky notes.

Nick: I have- my entire desk is just filled with sticky notes that are like I need to remember every single thing that will happen and that people have asked me to do. And I have like all of them on my desk and then like this subsection that's basically the done pile. And every single day I look at my done pile or like at the end of every week I clean up the done pile and I look at it and I'm just like "this was a really busy week" or "this wasn't a really busy week" and you know like that's just the way I do it. Like Nathan has something similar except for he keeps it all in Outlook because he's a lot cleaner than I am.

Nathan: I have tasks for each different team so that I know exactly- like I can switch gears very quickly and be like what do I need to do for this team right now? Yeah. Um and then swap back and forth between that. You know.

Nick: But like to go back to the Living World as a whole thing each of the Living World Embeds - there's three of us - you know we're our primaries on our own episodes but because each of the episodes are so, so large and such an undertaking because we want to make sure that each of them is the best they can be, we help out each other to also keep that flow of knowledge going and to find areas that, you know, one of us might not have found. Like each of us has their own strengths so we kind of help interplay that within the teams. And like QA is all basically about like trying to make sure that we can get things out as clean and as fun as and as balanced as possible so making sure that multiple eyes are on it is really important.

Rubi: Yeah, so and when you say you're the primary that's not "this is all in your shoulders", I mean you've got people helping you that you can communicate and work with.

Nick: Yeah.

Rubi: Something I'm interested in because you mentioned sticky notes and you mentioned Outlook and that's like- Outlook is like the thing after my own heart. I have so many different folders that I'm like throwing everything into in Outlook so it's very similar for me. How do your processes differ between you guys according to what works best for you? I'm actually super curious about that because it's not like okay everybody is issued sticky notes and that's what you have to do.

Nick: Yeah.

Travis: Oh gosh and I can really only speak for raids and fractals obviously, but we have a very iterative designs style so we're very quickly making changes. So we'll usually just have an email sent out by our producer at the end of a play test which will contain a list of all the things that we've noticed from the play test. So I mentioned earlier that it's kind of our job to write the tests and kind of be the keepers of QA knowledge so how that ends up playing out, at least for raids and fractals, is- I'm not the only one that's testing the raids and the fractals. I test it with the team, so developers can go in and be like "well, I don't really like how that boss is acting" or "I don't really like how this particular hallway leads into it". So what we then do is those kinds of notes get put into an email from our producer that gets sent to us and then we produce those in a- we put them into the bug writing software that we have which is, uh, wow. Total mind blank. Therefore say-

Rubi: It's okay!

Travis: Anyway, we put them into Jira which is one of the software tools that we use and then from those bugs we can triage those bugs out as "this is something that's a high priority fix" as in we need it fixed by tomorrow for the next play test or it can be something that's a little bit later on like do we really want to fix this? What kind of gameplay opportunities does it offer? And then it's... I guess I'd have to say like from as far as- like I'm not entirely sure how it is on Living World, but I feel like raids and fractals is very fluid in how we do things. It's very... in fact when it comes time to regress the bugs which, for those of you who may not know, regressing is when you take a bug someone's made a fix to it and then you go back and run that bug a whole bunch of times over and over again to make sure it doesn't happen again. Our regressions sometimes aren't terribly detailed so they could just say things like "boss stalled during fight" which could mean a lot of things. At the time that we write the bug we know what it means and we know what do we make the fix, but later on if you weren't actually there to see the bug you probably couldn't regress it so I usually have to do and regress all of the bugs that we have.

Rubi: Okay, that makes sense.

Nick: And to kind of go- like to dovetail off of what Travis is talking about, um... I don't know. Having conversations with each of the other Embeds because it's not just us (gesturing to Nathan and Travis) you know, we have a bunch and we aren't- even that bunch isn't the entirety of our QA department because we also like, you know, like test ones and test twos and things like that.

Rubi: Yeah.

Nick: But like having conversations with each of us Embeds it's pretty consistently clear, at least to me, that like a lot of us do things very differently. Like with Travis you know a lot of that progression iteration progress process and scheduling is balanced between him and his producer whereas with Living World, because we're so large, you know, we have to make use of our test ones and test twos a lot more because of the fact that like I couldn't do it by myself.

Rubi: Yeah.

Nick: And like myself and like the other Living World Embeds and even Nathan, we wouldn't be able to do it by ourselves and... On the question of like how do we differ like I said earlier, each of us has different strengths and it's all dependent on like how we do things. What's cool about our internet^{[verification requested]} is like we are allowed to introduce process and kind of pitch process and play to our strengths when it comes to our roles as long as we get the work done and get it done well.

Rubi: Yeah.

Nick: So what I do is like, you know, I go into our engine and I will like review all- like a lot of the scripts. You know, I'll review a lot of the content. I'll actually look at the scripts and create passes based around my interpretation of how those, you know, of how that stuff is built out.

Rubi: Okay.

Nick: Because for me that's how I can find where all the pain- where I have received all the pain points to be. And yeah like what Travis was saying, like you said that like your producer schedules those play tests and kind of creates those triage lists. What me and my producer do is like we split it between team and iterative play tests. With alpha is like I handle that stuff and then like stakeholder reviews are handled by our producer and it's like I'm usually the one that's like writing up and sending out all of those notes.

Rubi: Okay.

Nick: Yeah. So it's iterative and different between each team.

Rubi: Kind of divide and conquer.

Nick: Yeah.

Rubi: So how does that work for - and you can just pick one of the last things you worked on - please pick something that's already released.

(all laughing)

Nick: Never!

Travis: You mean we're not allowed to tell them about-

Nick: Spoiler time!

Rubi: Please! I need this job! How did the process work for one of the recent things that you helped out with?

Nathan: Well, one of the more recent things that I helped out with was the... I would say 3 would be what I worked the most on. And so you have to... What I'm doing is I kind of- I work under the Embed that, you know, the primary Embed.

Rubi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan: So I have to learn their process and I work with them. And so each one's different. Some of them like Nick uses the tester ones a lot more and so we end up like sending them the information and like how to run the tests and so I will like assist with that. But other times it will be like if I'm working on like an art pass for like a weapon or something I will just like- the Embed will be like "hey, could you just check this out?" and I'll just test that myself. Essentially just like- it really depends on like who, you know, who they are.

Rubi: Right.

Nathan: So, yeah.

Rubi: Okay. That makes- An art pass for a weapon seem- What are you looking for?

Nathan: In general, you're looking to make sure that the, I mean, the weapon looks good when people are using it so...

Rubi: It doesn't vanish?

Nathan: Yeah! I mean, or like when someone like turns invisible like what- does it look alright, right? That's something we notice a lot is like there'll be a checkerboard pattern. So...

Rubi: Oh, yeah!

Nathan: Yeah, so you're just you're looking for stuff like that. You're looking to see if the weapon like will stretch something, if the weapon is too long, if you're holding it correctly... Yeah, that's what I do more for like what we'd be releasing when we release ???^{[verification requested]} items.

Rubi: Okay, that makes sense.

Nathan: Yeah but like with like Nick it's much more like a make sure that this content actually, you know, you can run through it and sometimes that can take a long time because you have to, you know, go through it and see if it will, you know, reset correctly and other things. So that's more like a... I ask someone else to do it and then I review what they've got.

Rubi: Okay. Alright, that makes sense. I'm kind of curious about how the process starts. Like our last raid wing came out. So they come to you and are- we're gonna start- we're gonna do this raid wing. What do they need from you? What's the first thing they need from you?

Travis: So one of the things that I'm pretty - I'm fairly certain Living World is involved in this as well - but QA actually sits in with the designers during the very beginning of the design because it allows us to see, for instance, if they want to do something like say... moving platforms - which are a huge QA risk!

Rubi: Oh, man!

Nick: Not as much as they used to be. They're still pretty bad.

Travis: No, we've definitely made some good strides in making that less scary than it used to be.

Nick: Thanks to Ben Arnold mostly.

Nathan: ???^{[verification requested]}

Nick: ???^{[verification requested]} and Arnold.

Rubi: Ben Arnold? Thank you, Ben!

Nick: The wizard.

Rubi: Yes.

Travis: That way early on we can identify "hey, these are gonna be some large QA pain points". We're gonna want to test around a lot. We're gonna test around this a lot so we may not test it specifically but we know that things that interact with it might go badly, so by being there at the earliest of the design phase we're able to identify a little sooner. Sometimes that can, for instance, let them know that maybe they have to look at other alternatives because it's just going to be too much of a QA lift. And then sometimes it allows them to go "Okay, we love it! We like we really want to do this idea!" so we're gonna focus on it and we're actually gonna make it better. So like that, for instance, is where those changes came in from Ben Arnold is like he saw how bad moving platforms were for QA to test and he's like well, I really want to do them so we're just gonna make them better for you to test.

Rubi: Okay. So you're not just in the back of the room going, "What if we didn't?"

Travis: Right. Yeah. It's definitely a collaborative work. We let them know that "hey, this is gonna"- we're kind of like a warning sign.

Rubi: Okay.

Travis: Like "Hey, this could be trouble. We're willing to take it on but just so you know it might take a lot of time away from something else" or it- I mean it also allows us to be able to say something like "Yes, please do that! It's really easy, it's super fast for us to check, and it's super fun for the players so do that!"

Nick: Kind of going off of what Travis is saying like we are usually this like funnel of tribal knowledge that we try our best to document but, you know, there's just so much that we like, through our careers as Embeds, learn and know so like Travis was saying earlier we are included pretty early on in the process. We go to all of the like the scope meetings, the design meetings, the implementation planning meetings because through those things like we can make sure that people avoid specific pitfalls. You know, we don't- we try to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes twice because it's important to make sure that everything is as clean, as efficient, and as balanced as possible so we want to make sure that we don't waste time retreading old issues.

Rubi: Yeah, that makes sense.

Nathan: Yeah. I don't know what I was going to say. Nevermind.

Rubi: And because you guys have worked on so many different bits of content and been involved in so many of those things, all of those pieces come in and you can remember hey this is something that is relevant to what I'm working on now.

Nathan: Yeah there are often times really you'll go up to a designer and be like hey this is something that I'm worried about because this is broken in the past. Could you maybe like, could we look into this, right?

Rubi: Yeah

Nathan: Could we look into maybe, a better way of doing this or you know something that would be less risky?

Rubi: And it enables you to not only, it sounds like it enables you to not only offer a warning sign but, maybe offer potential solutions based on past knowledge.

Nick: Yeah, and also like be able to point them in direction of like who might know the the right answer who the other designer was that ran through these issues already and has have of course more tribal knowledge on how do they solve those issues.

Rubi: Well it sounds like Ben, so yeah.

Nick: For moving platforms, yeah.

Rubi: There's that. Alright so I have a slightly more specific question, what are some of your favorite work stories about things that you guys have found and/or caught before it went live? (many hms) Ok, I love the face you just made. (chatter)^{[verification requested]}

Travis: I can answer each of those.

Rubi: Ok. I will take whatever because I love. I've seen some of like these bizarre completely bonkers QA stories from the trenches that never make it onto live and I want you guys to see these.

Travis: So, one of the things is that I do in addition to being the raids and fractals is also the automation. I mean, kinda.

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from draft text into pretty print like above. https://youtu.be/nhqWpn2fmcI?t=1443

as then we have automation that goes
through and checks the things of code
that you you generally don't want to do
because it takes up a lot of time like
logging into every single map or making
sure that when you do an attack a
particular like things take damage yeah
um so as a result of doing those those
automated testings I ran across a thing
we weren't quite ready to talk about yet
that might have gone to live and so you
know I kept that from going to life
because I mean obviously since we're not
ready to talk about it yet I can't oh
what did you do I just picture you're
running across the bay it was I happened
to actually sit right next to the people
that working that are working on this so
I just kind of turned around and I was
like so this thing failed this usually
fails when this thing happens is that
related to what you're doing yes that
led to the designers a particular going
yeah
we should investigate man what about you
guys oh man aye aye I think so I've been
here for quite a while um but all of his
like blended together into like a
hodgepodge of different bugs um Nick do
you have any I'm still trying to think
I'm thinking of one that you had
mentioned to me in particular about an
NPC where you could turn him hostile or
friendly oh yeah there was so there was
a on the plains of Ashford there was an
event that had been broken for a while
and I was I was scrubbing through some
of the player submitted bugs and yeah
thank you very much um and I found one
that was it was basically saying like
this event they never got they never saw
it again
and I was like that seems strange what's
going on so I looked at the event and it
was working fine for me but apparently
like
people would only ever see in the first
week after patch came out and so I went
and investigated couldn't figure out
what was wrong with this thing
I brought a friend in and they then we
looked it together and it just so
happens that we both interacted with the
same NPC at the same time it both chose
different choices because the way this
event worked you had to choose to pacify
the the char and if you chose the wrong
choice they turned hostile okay
so what happened is I chose to pacify
and my coworker chose to make my hostel
and so they became both pacified and
hostile at the same time but you had to
make those two opposite choices at the
very same instance right um once that
happened the they would they would turn
hostile forever you could kill them the
event wouldn't start up again and it's
one of those things where you're just
you you'd never think really to do this
yes um but once once you figured out it
worked you know we were able to fix it
yeah um and that's the part that I
really liked liked doing is going in and
figuring out like something that it's
like a real large pain point in figuring
out like how can we you know fix that
yeah and that is that's interesting to
me because it seems like a lot of this
testing is what is the absolute weirdest
most unlikely edge case situation we
could create that would cause a bug and
let's think of them all it actually it
actually comes up when you're not
playing game then you're black playing
games at home and you're like I wonder
if and then you break the game you're
like no I got it I got a turn off my QA
brain for a little while but write that
down first right and then we'll go back
to work and we'll test that this is for
like other games yeah yeah and just this
seems weird let's see if we can apply it
to work right exactly how about you Nick
for me I mean honestly it's all relative
like thing is when I started out that
seemed crazy egregious now we're like
okay that's that that'll happen she
would do that
there are so like I can't I can think of
one specific example I'll give that but
before that like there are there's a
slew of issues that we catch that I'm so
thankful that players never receive like
we've run into issues and then I ask you
to talk about them so sorry
no it's like we've ran into things that
would delete your characters you know
we've ran into things that would make
it's that way you can never log in again
you know more specifically there was so
let me go to the fun one before I go to
the all the painful ones the fun one was
that my stomach hurts now episode 2 of
season 3 so that was back during a fire
island like that area when you could
turn into a more SOT you have the
ability to attack other players and yeah
and like stop them so as you can tell
you know while it was fun we didn't want
to make sure I didn't get alive yeah I
have like stressed out thinking about
that and accidentally going live and yes
just wow yeah the grief ability of that
was was crazy yeah like and there are
other ones where it's like you would log
in to your character and it would
immediately crash because of the fact
that our entire player like data is
tracked through like progress bits
basically they get set and unset and if
a progress bit gets if a progress deaf
gets shrunk at any point and you already
have a bit set on the side that got
deleted the game will basically crash
constantly so finding those is both edge
Kacie and really important okay so go
back for non QA people if your progress
if your progress death gets shrunk yes
now uncute that okay if you were to do
something right in an achievement let's
say and then we were to change that
achievement in some fashion like and
push it to live if we weren't attentive
to what things could have been set by
the players what happens is whenever you
log into that character you will
constantly crash because the game is
basically like this doesn't exist
I don't assert I'm dead I'm it just I'm
out no yeah so it's it's like I there is
no like hard key example that I can like
really good for those because there's
it's happened a lot of times it's
basically like yeah we make sure stuff
like that doesn't happen I think
so much so during pacifier we had an
achievement for reading all of the books
in Coors library that used to be a
longer list and ultimately just because
of various time we couldn't make it as
long as long as we wanted to
so we had a short in it and that's
exactly what mixed talking where it used
to have more entries than it did so if
you had already completed one of those
entries like an okay like as I'm
obsessed characters yeah hadn't it would
try and check that when you logged in
because you were still working on the
achievement and but it's checking for
things that doesn't exist and it just
gets confused and knope's out yeah I
thought you were gonna talk about it via
the inventory one that happened oh
that's okay boy am i scared now no
though this this went live I'm Olivia
some of you may remember I think
remember some people may have blocked
this you may remember that a while ago a
couple years ago we did our very first
ever on Guild Wars 2 rollback live
server rollback that was a result of us
on expec 2 we had created code for our
bigger bags mm-hmm so how bags are
stored is in an array and we created a
new code that allowed those arrays to
extend farther what we didn't account
for is that our inventory code
determined soul binding based on its
index within that array so if you
extended an arrays length instead of
making space for it it would just spill
over into the next array so if you're
like if your Guardians code ended at
this point in the array and your
Mesmer's code started in this array it
would get pushed over and anything that
used to have belonged to your guardian
the game would now think belong
- your Mesmer Oh which cost a lot of
issues as you remember that now yes yeah
like like going off of that like you
know these are things like when issues
like that occur it's always like
breaking ground issues that we would
have never been able to catch you know
like like with episode three as an
example that memory issue that we had
where like for the first day everybody
was unable to was unable to go past a
second instance that was some like that
like we would have never been able to
cash before and but we've we've like I
said earlier like we always push to make
sure that we don't make the same
mistakes twice
yeah so we have created process and
developed and or iterated on our current
tools and or made new tools to make sure
that something like that never happens
again
yeah the episode three thing I think it
was a you and I talked to Z about that a
little bit to us and it was fascinating
after the fact I remember talking to you
guys and learning so much I had no idea
the boundaries that we pushed at that
point so that was fascinating and the
processes that we put in place after the
fact to be like hey what if we didn't do
that again yeah cool it's it's always
when you try to break new ground and we
were always trying to push the envelope
in some fashion to make sure that
players get the best experience possible
yeah yeah well yes weirdly wacky fun
things that come out of the bug is it
not yeah account destroying madness so
for instance the very first thing I
worked on when I came to ArenaNet
actually I worked externally for a while
but the very first thing I did when I
came over here was I was part of the
heart of thorns clean up that big patch
way back in April yeah at the time we
happened to be I believe they were
prototyping Mountain stuff on the some
mount code yeah they were gonna come out
with expansion too and they wanted to do
mount so they're playing around with it
what could they do we've seen some mount
weirdness on yes nothing to do with
mounts themselves though oh really what
had happened is they were playing around
with the camera because we knew we'd
have to have
different camera setups for mounts and
players and somehow all of the corpses
got tied to the got tied to that camera
so we were in the middle of doing heart
of thorns clean up and we get a patch
which is always scary for us it's cute
hey because I mean someone put something
new in what happened and what are we
load back in we go through we test
things which of course requires killing
things and as we kill things that we
turn to do something else all of the
dead corpses would turn with us they
would all face the same direction the
character was this pack of dead chalk
around your feet that would follow your
camera as it moved around
another odd happenstance if that was
because I happened to be doing one of
the warrior animations which causes you
to spin when I killed one of them yeah
it actually took it actually took the
corpse and attached it to me no so so I
had a little chopped corpse orbiting me
around as I move through the mouth did
you fraps that or something oh
absolutely I have a gif of it
I can totally share with you see that
because that's amazing oh my gosh
speaking of seeing that Nathan shared a
whole bunch of like QA gifts with me
that we should watch because it's like a
best-of things that didn't make it to
life can we look at those mark and can
we actually see them on the monitor
briefly so we know what we're talking
about we also have a slew more but these
are like yes we'd be here like all
literally all day we love taking so this
one oh okay okay that one yeah okay we
can talk about this one okay you know
more about this one I mean like it's
it's basically it's sideways boat yeah
so if you all remember in episode 2
you have this boat back and path arounds
[Laughter]
okay for this one basically what happens
is the way that these moving platforms
were built out and you know episode 2
was kind of like the point where we were
like alright it seems like we're gonna
be using moving platforms and it's using
4 so we should really push like to get
these things fixed the way that's built
out is basically there's a path variable
what the much points that this thing
moves down but the way that it was built
out and this was built out by Cameron
rich who was a designer on the episode 2
team was fantastic he's awesome
and I watched him do it a few times so
it's it's a little hazy exactly on like
every point but I'll try my best explain
it basically happens is each of the
points has a different like rotation and
what happens is it will do this thing
called interpolation where it takes the
1 point and another point and then kind
of like hands in between each one okay
so what would happen is after it's
circled around a few times something got
messed up with like the interpolation
data or I guess they like each one kind
of like slowly shifts and adds on so it
got to a point where it added on too
much and then it would just get stuck in
a specific like in a specific stance
will continue to move down that path so
that's what you're seeing here and the
cat frantically trying to keep up okay
all boats go sideways this one was about
in episode 3 this is during the four
hours for warned ya and essentially
Kanak would start just throwing bombs at
allies ya figure out why so um so when
so I like so some of these I haven't
actually like seen through okay um so I
don't know what the dissolution
obviously was that he no worker does
that yeah so for him what was actually
happening here is that Kevin Freeman
built this out also a fantastic designer
for my team was axe
happening as Kanak was running mm-hmm he
would be choosing random targets and
then firing off this skill when he was
going to go plant seeds on his own but
what would happen is that never really
ended you know so like something
something happened and that handler
didn't get interrupted or something
along those lines so that's he would
keep on choosing like random spots and
just throwing out these bombs constantly
and that's pretty much how it worked
because he had he had to run while doing
it which is like two different things
that have to be focusing on time so one
was turned off he was he was done
running but the part where he's throwing
ball bombs never got turned off this
also reminds me of something that I
really love when I'm looking at a bug
report sometimes it will have the issue
and then the expected behavior which for
some reason is so funny to me because
it'll be like Kanak is throwing bugs at
Kanak is throwing bombs at allies expect
a behavior Kanak does not throw bombs
which I mean I get that they have to be
filled out I would like him to stop that
very much please don't hurt my friends
there is not a traitor you know it's
like there is an inescapable pit here
and the expected behavior is there are
no inescapable pits
yes stop it okay this is in the exact
same instance exact same area except for
you are the one using the bomb and what
we found out is that we defined what
what team's supposed to affect you know
so so like it could hurt everyone and
not just your enemies but hey it's
finally quiet
seriously the NPC chatter at that
instant is perfect it makes me so happy
yeah so how did you read just like
tossing bombs at everyone see what
happened I mean probably I mean yeah
like that's I think each person kind of
like does their own thing you know
everybody works in a different way
including like everybody like all of our
testers yeah yeah and for this one it's
just like it's a fun job you know like
you get you get to play the game that
you enjoy and you get to try out a bunch
of
dumb stuff that will be to stuff like
this so it's just hey I'm gonna drop
bombs everywhere and see what happens
yeah it's usually an I wonder if moment
yeah okay um we we do we do usually
sound like guided like like this is what
you should look for especially if we
have like a new tester but like
oftentimes these are just things you
learn while you're going through like
generally speaking you know like when
you give me something like this I want
to see if I can use it on my allies
personality type cuz like I have like my
friend mark his name is Mark or skis or
Chester he's fantastic during I think it
was episode 1 or 2 I can't remember
there was a reward he was episode 3
there was a reward where it's a Canada
you can place on the ground 3 that was 3
okay thank you it was there was a reward
that you could place on the ground it
was the cannon but the cannon had
collision so what you could do is you
could put another cannon on top of it
and then no they came on top of that and
then you could jump on top of that and
then you could jump and put another one
top of that so you could basically have
like at but you could only ever have I
think like two so it would just keep on
stacking on top of each other until you
hit the skybox yeah and it's just like
what I'm always amazed by these things
cuz you know like when these things all
come through me and Nathan at least for
my team and then we triage them all out
so I get to see all these things and
sometimes I'm like did you how did you
do that you know cuz it's just it's like
that it's like you have to want to be
Sufi with this stuff you know there's a
there is an issue actually when we did
Fire Island um that it was actually a
live live submitted bug um it was if you
go into the instance with the mursaat
yeah um and you if you went into the
instance you left you came back you
jumped up on a platform he would
teleport up with you become invulnerable
and you couldn't do anything anymore and
if you went back in it was it was also
still broken but it was like this this
thing we're like why why did you do this
why would you do that why would you go
through all this effort yeah - yeah it's
er it broke it but it's like who would
have thought of doing that oh my yeah
that's and that's what we were talking
about earlier like what is the weirdest
most
convoluted bizarre edge case thing you
could think of all right let's try that
sliding so that one so that one's was an
issue with the the Halloween puzzle and
if you fell just at the right time and
then you did the and failed it would
teleport you back to the beginning but
you would get stuck in this animation
stage and sliding around on the floor
the cape flapping is the best for me
it's the animation so good and I
remember we had that for a while like
that was a thing
yeah mm-hmm I mean like well like what's
what's unique about things that could
happen to the player is that this what
looks like the same bug can also be
different bugs like you can also get
your character stuck in the state or you
used to be able to by getting CCD like
at a very specific moment during your
animations and you would this would
happen to you you'd just be like
bouncing off man at while laying down
and that's some of the difficulty that
comes with it is you're like like I
don't know why this is happening and
sometimes you get bugs back it's like
the designers like I don't know how you
got this to reproduce and you're like
I'm not really sure either and you you
have to figure out like what what
specific things all came together to try
to make this bug happen yeah if you
basically it's constant puzzle solving
yeah it's like that's what that's what
being a QA really boils down to is like
creating puzzles and solving puzzles
that are like handed to you so if like
three different things are causing the
same bug you say okay so I was I was
falling this happened and now I'm
sliding around on the ground they say
okay I fixed that thing where it's
falling and they hand it back but it's
still happening so now you have to
figure out what else is causing it yeah
right and you have to like kind of like
you know first make sure it does it
still happen is it happening in the
exact same way what happened changed
like sometimes it's like I have to
change one variable each time being like
alright so it's still happening when I'm
doing it what happens if I try doing it
you know when I'm not map loading or you
know what I mean like yeah and
kind of like trying to tweak it to see
what's actually breaking this is this is
more than one puzzle yeah oh gosh that
sounds super fun
it is stressful okay let's look at the
moonwalking teddy bear I know that's not
at all what's happening but that's what
it looks like to me it does yeah
basically for this one the bear like the
agent got stuck in its swimming
animation so even though it's on land it
thinks it's swimming so like you know
those corgis are like those dogs that
you hold over the water or like when
they just hear the water and then
they're just like doggy paddling he's
just being lowered into a tub okay what
else we got oh yes what happened why
this is actually a this is found by
Brett one of our other embeds yeah um
I'm actually not quite sure what's going
on it has something to do with
dismounting gems are you know great this
is when they were testing mounts right
yeah it was from the the mounting our
testing sorry from when we were testing
dismounting on Mount gosh I'm not sure I
can save it might be a little bit too
much okay behind the curtain yeah I mean
basically what's happening is like as
you know that mystic toilet brand-new
phrase yeah the the mystic forage like
will spit you out so basically here is
like you jump you move your characters
over here but then the thing that the
mystic forage is like nope you're in
still inside of me and I need to kick
you out so what happens is your
characters then pulled back into it
because the game was like wait no you
shouldn't be in there so you like oh no
so much invention and then somewhere
it's like no I want you out then you're
just like BAM back out so that's
basically what's happening with itself
is it's like so morose and and the the
game server are having a debacle like a
dispute about fantastic I'm also just
like watching the characters fly
yeah yeah alright what's next there's a
lot of character flying around stuff
right that's that's my favorite yeah
right this one yeah it's it's it's the
same issue to an external sensor up in a
different manner where it's basically
the client and the server are talking to
each other and like this gadget is like
I should be doing something to the
player agent but it's happening after
like the player is already out of that
area so that's what causes things like
this gotcha yeah cuz with mounts you
know our game was built around no mounts
so when mounts introduced it was like
you can now move way faster and with
everything being built out to go like
things not being built out to go as fast
as players we're doing like it caused
issues like this where we had to now
account for the fact that like hey this
thing can enter and leave this trigger
volume rapidly you know faster than
we've ever been able to do it which as
you can see costs problem yeah this
one's also dismounting causing you to
have infinite jumps I failed to see the
problem good places to be there's some
times where you get a bug and you're
just like no I don't I you're like okay
yes I need to report it but you're like
but it's like I remember I'm for this
one when we were making legendary armor
should I should I talk about the that's
too late now okay yeah whatever
so with all armor sets you know we have
to we have to worry about ESRB concerns
and what was yeah we just can't show
that yeah that was only on you right now
of course so what was happening is that
we test which we die and we do specific
things to make sure that we don't like
go outside of Ras RV so what happened
with this one was that I was dying the
the male heavy armor it's only specific
to him a male heavy armor by the way and
you could die the pants to be nude toned
so it looked like the surah the Norn and
the like human safari men all weren't
wearing
pants so you'd to see you late it's like
crazy heavy armor and then their butt
cheeks fantastic and I felt so sad
riding up that bug because I was like
but can't we just okay that's awful
okay so yeah we can't show okay so what
happened yeah what happened here that's
no you you'd know more about that that's
actually that's pretty simple in this
case what ended up happening is the when
you go onto a mount you've noticed the
camera adjusts to see that's actually
moving into a separate camera at that
point in this case it just didn't attach
it like maybe the camera attaches to
your mount as an agent and this time it
just didn't really care achter after
disc after dismounting so we're done
here yeah I'm done and then but they're
too bad but then once you're dead it
runs a refresh on that camera and
reattached it and like going off what I
said before like you know when we break
new ground it will surface and you
issues mounts where the biggest ground
we've kind of like the biggest
undertaking that we've really done and
as you can see it there come out of
bedroom how terrifying was that it it's
more fun than anything else like I mean
Joel has the best stories more than
likely good Oh Joel always had such good
but yeah like at least when I was
working on the road beetle like so many
of you camera things came into play and
like so many do you like physics things
because it's just like oh this dude goes
egregiously fast now you know and it's
the the game just breaks in so many new
ways when it comes to mounts and I don't
know I love it it's it's great you look
like you've got a new story yes I did um
I don't know if Joel's short yet has he
shown you the rapid fire has he shown
the rapid fire raptor yet I don't think
so so um during design yeah so yeah what
are we working amounts we they're when
we were still working on the mount
dismount button the mounted or when you
created the mount it obviously creates a
existence of the be agent that you hate
well when you were dismount
we hadn't yet set it up to where it
wouldn't be spawn the instance of that
agent
like 40 Raptors yes so just so you could
spam the dismount keen it with launch
Raptors Raptor gun oh and another
version of that when he hadn't quite
gotten to work yet it wouldn't it
wouldn't dismount you but would keep it
in the right place
so you'd some of the nuts some of them
that you try to bream out and it would
some of the next Raptor on top of the
previous one yeah giant stack of 40
Raptors on top of one another but you
are still at the top and controlling
them so the holsters that was my
favorite yeah we showed that on a
previous kill chat and it was just like
this giant stock Raptors lurching around
them in half that was one of my
favorites that was awesome yeah yeah I
don't know how or what the justification
would be but I wish we'd figured out a
way like huge stack of Raptors that was
that was fantastic
okay what's this one oh yeah in this one
it's uh so there was a kill field around
the around the boss when so players
couldn't get in after the boss had
already started um but it just so
happened that it also didn't remove your
gliding so you just down yeah you just
kind of hang in there that's awful okay
we just couldn't bear to see dead Ferren
so that's actually lets me but that's
you yes regards a char um so if Ferren
was Ferren would help you out with
squashing the bugs if you just let him
do his thing he would get to the last
one
never squash it and just turn sideways
and just start jumping up and down oh
you tried I mean it's the most we can
hope for okay so this is something that
we've talked about before where
different types of enemies will also
fight each other Nathan you should
totally talk about yes please um
so this one is a is the this the shark
is a just an event in the in Episode
three tomato corner yeah domain of
corner and uh and essentially you could
just kite him throughout the entire map
and he wasn't the same team as everybody
else so he just fights two for you which
was really convenient like it and I had
to watch it a couple times I was like
are they fighting each day uh I mean
it's what we all hope for right so how
did you how did you fix that you just
put him on a shorter leash or be like
okay now he fights no other enemy um I
mean it would just be too if I
understand correctly to just swap the
team to be on the right the right team
yeah okay so they wouldn't fight each
other I love Detroit like come back no
you get back here comes Bobby slow-mo by
the way just in case you're wondering he
just takes that shot right upside the
head
this guy's like okay that's like this
tiny tiny dude like you get back here Oh
[Laughter]
God and then levitating Choya
is happening it's an issue with our
navmesh um where they just it it thinks
that's where the ground is yeah
basically the way like a little little
peek under the curtains the way that our
engine works is that we have this
blanket and or like look it of paint
basically for lack of better terms that
we dumped over the map I know or lay
over the map that has all non player
agents like NPCs and like also enemies
and things like in many pets yeah all
those things adhere to that like blanket
on where they can and cannot move okay
so what's happening here is basically
that the navmesh didn't get built
correctly in
that area so enemies would be able to
like basically run fly over things and
what happens sometimes is that the
character is will be on one part of
navmesh and then there'll be a breakage
but they can basically like ET fly off
you know then just keep on running
within that specific lake path and
that's that's pretty much what's
happening here
follow your dreams locating Choya
because if you notice like the other
people around him are like sit down like
they're stuck to the navmesh so this is
just he walked off and it's not flying
off into sunset just kept going mm-hmm
okay and and then there's these yeah
it's it's a similar issue um they just
can't figure out how to get around the
walls my favorite part about this is if
you zoom out a little bit there's an
enormous opening about two inches to the
left and there's like how did doors work
so is it just like a pathing thing for
this one i don't specifically know it
could be a pathing issue it could be
like there there could be a point within
that path that's stuck inside the wall
because what happens is like we'll build
out this content at the same time that
the map artists are working on their
stuff so sometimes props will get put on
top of specific points so what could be
happening here is that that prop got
placed on top of one of the points and
they're hitting that point okay and it's
like the next points on the other side
of that wall but they're trying to
follow the exact path they're just like
I don't know how to get past like these
like obstacle that one is just a like
perfect storm kind of thing where it was
just like the NPCs just met up in just
such a funny way and also that camera
angle too right yeah I mean those types
of things can just happen um while
you're you know it's like an NPCs in the
wrong spot or something
yeah oh my god though
I'm pretty sure that was in real time -
that's not slowed down yeah I think the
the character was walking basically okay
and just trying to interact yeah so what
like systemically what's happening is
that the one that's walking has the
other character targeted and then when
that happens your head has the ability
yeah move around to face whatever it is
so as you're walking closer your heads
turning further and further perfect yeah
all right well do you guys want to
answer a couple of questions I think we
have some time it's just about one
o'clock we have we can go a little bit
longer if you guys yeah we have a little
bit of time so I will kind of let you
guys look at those I did see at the
beginning that apparently sunday is
international software testers day so
everybody get a cake Oh something so
alright guys oh I can so the for the how
the expansion stuff is so the question
is from immortality X how is it how is
it to test expansion stuff and then play
it release is it still fun and does it
provide an advantage it definitely does
provide an advantage because you know
exactly like the content that you're
going to be working on like I can go
through a lot of the content with my
eyes closed it probably feels really
smooth - yeah and I mean it does take
away a little bit of luster like cuz you
know you know what's coming you know how
things work I'll you seen behind the
curtain but it's still it's quite fun to
like be able to like while I've been
here I've actually gotten a lot better
at just playing Guild Wars because
there's some times where it's just like
they're like we need you to do this
naturally and you're like but this is a
really hard fight it's like oh well you
got to figure out how to play the game
at speed yeah like with the hearts and
thorns one oh my god he put me on a on a
path back when I was a tester and it was
to run through hearts and minds the
final instance of challenge mode and do
it naturally you're mean because we had
to get done because we were going over
the the content um when we were doing
the the reworks
okay
and so I had to learn how to fight that
that fight in childhood with five other
people without any I knew what you meant
I had a pet okay people to Nick yes and
I had to figure out like what were the
you know what were the meta builds I am
here like how to do damage you know and
how to avoid all the stuff on the ground
that is some in the deep end stuff right
there yeah I cannot do that really
easily to okay but at the same time
though it like it does get repetitive
because we do have to play these things
throughout multiple iterations so like
you know I it's also our jobs to know
the content like the back of our hands
so when we enter live its the enjoyment
that I personally get out of it at least
now isn't me playing the game but it's
seeing all this play the game and how
they react to it and if they enjoy it or
if they don't enjoy it and if they don't
enjoy it why do they why do they not
enjoy it
and how can we better serve those wants
to shooter you know how can we process a
feedback yeah but that's a good thing to
watch yeah cuz at a certain point like
playing through the content least once
again for me this might be subjective
but it can get like okay the game is out
now I'm just gonna run through it like I
did
wait yeah every other time yep yeah
that's awesome what else I'm letting you
guys decide I'm not directing you so
said you like Howell you're like Nathan
me Travis sure which one what test was
it ArenaNet yeah you can still talk
about like the fair yeah so within our
game we've got some external tools I
guess internal tools for testing mainly
what we use is slash these things called
slash documents which is basically what
we do is we put in a console command
into the chat box in the game and it
will cause specific things to happen on
the backend code side depending on what
it is so for example like I don't want
to die so I'm gonna like type slash dot
nd which means notice yes so my
character will never drop below one
health or I want to be invisible
and vis will make your character
invisible let me just run through the
map without getting aggro though yeah
one thing I didn't realize before I was
testing here is because I had Manchester
somewhere else I was like do I have to
make a level 80 character before I start
testing and so we have commands for
things like that - yeah turn you into a
level 80 character yeah and we're
constantly iterating on these commands
like for that it's Slashdot Omega reset
and as like mounts came out like we've
we made us level you can unlock mounts
and it's like a couple weeks ago I got
the feedback like hey can we get come in
or tags on those things so we do is then
we'll just go into the engine italy futz
with it and it's like okay now when you
use it again you'll get come here tiger
automatically so it's just okay like all
of these things are getting constantly
iterated upon um we have this thing
called slash out examine which you know
you used to be massive so we found ways
to cool it down to like the most
important information or we have this
thing called /t we'll just lashed out
teleport it used to be that you'd have
to put in the exact string of like a
like a name of something well we don't
know that yeah and it was very tedious
and painful like y'all know that but
yeah so what we did was I think it was
Ben Newell um one of our early
programmers
he changed the command so that way does
partial matching which is basically like
if there are two thousand things and you
type in like a part of a word it's gonna
look at all those things and find
whichever one has that specific subset
of letters and then push out that one
and if it's if it's more than that one
it'll populate a list of like a at
minimum five all rights alright most
five and it's just like okay here are
things that match that that like partial
input and then you could choose which
one of those comes narrow down yeah yeah
and that like that change has helped us
immensely I'm sure yes
yeah it'll at least start narrowing it
down well and you had mentioned like
you're testing weapons and stuff and you
can create items instead oh yeah - yeah
I can create you can create all the
items you can um detach your camera off
your buddies - like look at the items a
little bit closer um you can slow down
the the the animations so that you can
kind of like see how it is as somebody's
like yeah backing slow down time on the
map
after you check to see if someone else
is on the map okay see what else I'll go
ahead and take from Rizal what he and I
is a programmer do to make you a job
easier from our point of view do you
work here
I think there are really three things
that are probably the most important
things you can do the first being to
communicate that's probably the most
important thing to do
let QA know when you're testing the
ground or when you've made a slight
tweak do something sometimes those
slight tweaks you don't think of them as
anything big because you're looking at
the the code at the time and um you
you're like there's no way that anything
could possibly happen with this and then
you find out six months later that no
one has their soul bound stuff correctly
so yeah just communicating letting QA
know when you're doing when you're doing
something before and after before and
after you've done something and to go
off of that like I think the most
important point but not not just for Q
it I think every team in general is
communication is like the most important
thing because at least for us like we
try our best to communicate to all the
other departments and the more everybody
knows the more empowered we are to make
good decisions because we have all the
breadth of knowledge that's necessary
and like going off what Travis was
saying you know like if I if I'm
somebody that like fixed a bug right
from one designer that fix a bug and
it's like a C bug to fix this one thing
so you bug by the way severity yes
severity sorry yeah officer verities go
DC be a and basically what it is is a is
like this needs to get fixed no matter
what V is like this needs to get shipped
thanks before ship C is like this is bad
but we can like we can still ship with
it and then D is like if you want to fix
it weird yeah yeah sometimes they can be
seen this feedback sometimes there are
real bugs but they're like small enough
you'd never worry about them okay yeah
but basically it's like I could fix AC
bug in my like black box content right
and I know it's gonna fix it here but
what I might not be considering is the
fact that that thing then changed to
this thing that then go
over here and that thing is now hasn't
like a bee bug because I fixed this like
C or D bug on an actor you know so it's
just like oh over communication in my
opinion is really important because it's
like the more everybody knows the more
everybody is educated on things that are
going on yeah the more the more we can
prevent issues from happening and the
easier it'll be to tackle to something
to happen and that severity the dcba
yeah allows everyone to see that and
make decisions on the use of their time
because you only have so much time right
right and okay what do we need to do
with the amount of resources and the
amount of time that we have so everyone
and it's a communications tool yeah so
everyone working on this stuff can see
okay what what do I need to triage like
you were talking about earlier yeah okay
second C what is debug commands anything
that allows your testers to save time
helps so much because for instance if
you have a long series of events that
you need to test but the bug is always
in the fifth event if there's no way to
easily skip to that fifth event and have
all the actors in the right place and
all the right triggers set you have to
manually go through all of those and it
doesn't seem like a lot but 10 minutes
every time you're running something when
you got to run it here 20 or 30 times
adds up super fast so any kind of debug
code and what's really important is that
it can't just like skip to it it has to
put everything in the right state for it
to or it has to call you like it has to
act like you've played through that
content right because otherwise you
could end up getting false positives
there and then probably the the third
most important thing after communication
and debug commands is and that goes my
train of thought
we might come back to so we have time
for each of you to do one more question
okay cool um I so Charlie's asking what
advice do you have for someone who's new
in QA and wants to yeah so my my thing
is don't be afraid to ask questions like
when I first started working here I was
very afraid to ask questions because I
didn't want to like take up somebody's
time but you have to realize that your
time is also valuable and and the more
questions you ask the extra the faster
you will learn about how something works
because that's really what it comes down
to is you need to you need to learn how
the game works internally in order to be
able to like point out bugs even before
they might happen so if you don't ask
questions you won't be able to get that
um yeah also in my opinion following a
proper formatting for things like bug
writing is really useful should we
finish up this question first
yeah I'd say this is this is like
definitely useful for queue everything
it's also useful for kind of like
breaking into the industry and career in
general is fail fast and fail forward
like do not be afraid to make mistakes
you know because a lot of what we do is
make mistakes you know a lot like and
not just playing the game to find bugs
but like like I said like we we missed
that that memory thing in episode 3 that
was a mistake like granted it was it
would have been a super difficult thing
to find and we didn't have a tool set
but it was still a mistake that was made
and we failed so we learned from it and
we're gonna move forward with it yeah
and really that's kind of what it boils
down to and being QA is just like learn
from your mistakes and a mistakes that
others make be communicative and just
kind of have fun with it because at the
end of the day like if you don't love
your job what like seriously like like
to be a QA you need to enjoy doing this
specific subset of things because if you
don't you're not gonna have a good time
yeah it's just plotting in here
doing the same thing over and over and
yeah and that's like you said it's
you're putting a puzzle together and
you're loving it yeah and that makes a
huge difference yeah I think that oh
gosh I'd say probably just get creative
I mean oh yeah it's I mean it's it's not
just the things you never think of it's
the thing is you don't even think to
think of thinking of mean it's you
there's never a wrong thing to try I
mean the worst case that happens is
nothing happens and then you've done
your job yeah I mean it's I mean as long
as you're not it's you do need to be
kind of acceptable to some level of
monotony if you are gonna have to run
through the same content dozens hundreds
or even thousands of times and you have
to be aware of that that's something
that's gonna be part of it and you don't
necessarily have to love that yeah but
you should be aware that you're going to
have to do it um but it's it's
definitely something where the more
creative you can be with it the easier
that kind of thing is and the more you
get to try out weird things that you
wouldn't ever think about trying oh yeah
and dev environment is a great place to
do it because there's no consequences so
the third thing as programmer designer
or whatever to help QA is life is know
how it can go wrong whenever you're
doing something get like at least have
an idea of some of the things that could
cause a failure on it okay that way you
at least has a vague idea of where to
start like for instance if someone were
to tell me hey I made some changes to
fractals about how to load in surprise
and I'm like okay what am I looking for
like did you change loading times so
like should it be faster to load in um
is it a method and how you load in how
you select different things to load in
because it's not having an idea of where
to start
I mean there's a I mean technically
there's only one way to loan into a
fractal but if I'm not sure if I know
what I'm supposed to be looking for I
don't know if I failed this change it's
just I made a change to this thing find
it good luck it's really nice when they
say something like I I changed this and
I'm worried this might happen like oh I
can go look at that for you I can go I
can go like you know look at it like
from a holistic point of view where like
from all sides and say okay I feel
comfortable with it I don't think it's
gonna break right rather than just being
like yeah the change you made looks good
you don't mean like I'm not sure what to
look for so yeah yeah I totally agree
with that all right Nick so I'm gonna
butcher this name probably so I do
apologize Dena read Tibet asked without
spoilers can you give concrete examples
of what you've done to keep things
coordinated and preserve continuity ask
you this is it okay to talk about things
that we ended up not doing so I'm mostly
talking that's like saying I made a
change in this fractal remember that I
think we decided not to if it's what I'm
thinking of okay
sorry no it's okay I happen to have
already had okay yeah no that's that's
good to know sorry sorry but basically
things that we do to make sure that we
keep things coordinated and preserve
continuity is really looking at the time
box that we have and figuring out what
we can best do to get a return on
investment for the time allotted like
for example I use the alphas a lot you
know like because we want their feedback
on things and to preserve continuity
like these are people our office or
people that have played the game like
more more than anybody else honestly
yeah and they love it and they love
everything that goes into it and they
want to be a part of it and they want to
help like you know make it the best that
it can be yeah definitely so of course
like having them participate in our play
tests and having play tests that are
tailored for them and kind of having
these conversations about what's going
on with like the story and the content
that were presenting and the political
character
presenting helps to really preserve the
continuity and make sure that everything
that the feedback that we're getting is
is wholesome
you know it's things that people who
play our game enjoy whilst also making
sure that we are always being cognizant
of of making sure that we don't care to
a specific sub-sect of everything that's
also important yeah yes kind of
dangerous to do yeah that's that's a
good answer for this question and just
concrete as we can get yeah that makes
sense all right and Travis huh hmm last
question
pressures on um so I will actually go
ahead and answer two of these at the
same time ooh you rebel yes okay so uh
as Nick mentioned I am going to
slaughter this name yeah terribly but
Eduardo ped Ray pedrera asks why can't
mini pets be as fast as ranger pets
minions
is there a I too sensitive to tweak and
Matt sessions asks what do you do to
help keep your day fresh while playing
the same content over and over so by
keeping my day fresh I believe I have an
answer for the question about any pets
okay awesome
so part about keeping your day fresh is
all about finding new ways to do things
you've already done a hundred times um
so this is part of that whole being
creative thing that I mentioned earlier
so a lot of times you can do things like
maybe you don't like Nick also mentioned
earlier about us having certain commands
that don't exist in a live environment
one of these is a command allows us to
change the species of our character so
all right perhaps you don't feel like
running the event as a char today you
would rather run the event as a whale or
maybe you would rather run the array be
you would perhaps rather do the heart
200 times larger as a character than you
actually are
mm-hmm or maybe 10 percent of the size
of a normal character so okay oh there's
a time for that that's those exist um
but I mean we can go well beyond what
the tonics can do in a development
environment um so one of the things that
you can so because of that the you know
we chose of changing my size and doing
all kinds of other things you notice
specifically the difference between say
when an orang moves and when an asura
moves an orang takes very large
deliberate steps and a Asura takes lots
of tiny frantic ones but they actually
move at the same speed in the game okay
um it is important very yes they move at
the same speed it's just their
animations are increased so if I
understand it correctly the reason that
many pets can't be as fast as mmm
Ranger pets or minions is because
they're very very very small so their
legs are very short so as a result a
ranger pet will look normal as a normal
gait running but if you were taking mini
pet and make it move that fast
it would just be zipping along and a
super fast rate those legs are like
hummingbird wings right exactly
it looks terrible okay so that's I could
be wrong but that's my understanding and
how I've seen it work so it's it's just
a presentation thing we don't want the
mini pets to look like their poor little
hearts are going to explode catch up to
your character so I'm pretty sure we've
we've written a bug's boat many pets
going too fast we have this I'm too slow
yes low end too fast at the same time
everything is wrong that explains what
like you know your character will stop
and like five seconds later your mini
pet comes for me put me in your backpack
something anything okay that makes some
sense all right we are yeah it's like a
quarter after one so it's we're and I
know you guys have to go back to work so
thank you guys very very much for
helping us kind of uncover I mean I
talked to Nick about this a couple weeks
ago and it was like you know I know you
guys find bug
and you test the game and that's kind of
it why don't we kind of look behind the
curtain and let the players see how you
guys do your work so I really appreciate
you guys hanging out with us and letting
us chat about QA for about an hour so I
really appreciate you guys taking some
time thank you so thank you I will you
guys get to work and I will see you guys
on the next skilled chat thank you very
much
y'all have a wonderful weekend have a
great weekend you get some rest

Notes[edit]

The episode title may be a pun on the 2010 film The A-Team.

Guild Chat - Episode 72

Contents

Transcription[edit]

For Fans By Fans merchandise ad [5:55][edit]

Guild Chat studio [6:26][edit]

Notes[edit]

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