to TALEWORLDS -> QA - do you have testers or just paid players?

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19Molnija85

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First, sorry for my poor English, I use google translate and I will try to write easily!

I am big fan Bannerlord and Warband, I have thousands hours played! I'm not dealing with the development of Bannerlord in the last 8 years I bought Bannerlord on the day of the release and immediately gave a positive review. I'm aware it's EA. I always try the beta once a month. I have currently played around 600 hours! But I have to say that version by version it's getting worse and worse. I work as Test Manager/Tester (banking, telco, goverment, industry) 16 years. I work in company with 250 peoples, of this there are 10 of us testers. 10 testers on cca 25 products...among other things, products for healthcare to support basic life functions, that is, demanding and responsible products!

According to Credits in game have Bannerlord around 30 - 35 testers?! WTHell? Where is the result? Version by version more severe and more serious bugs! Quest cannot be completed due to system error! Serious errors in game business logic. Untuned basic mechanisms of the game...often (relatively simple) algorithms solve several versions which introduces other problems.

There are still a lot of serious bugs unresolved for months! Many bugs are marked "need more info". Communication consisting only in sending "Save files". I would really like to know what your 35 testers are doing!

I do not know where is the problem, whether you miss seniors (developers, game designers, analytics), or your QA is realy only paid players?! You just have to realize that the average age of a player (customer) is no 15 years! I am aware of the concept of Early Access but he also has some rules.

@MArdA TaleWorlds, I don't know who to move it to, I wanted to move it directly to your QA Manager!

Unfortunately, after 9 years, I'm starting to get sharply disappointed and I stop believing in Bannerlord!

Molnija
 
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I'm alos curious in genreral what the testing process is like.
In my work (game support/outsourcing), our tester always receive the weekly patch 1 week before the release. They run all possible scenario related to changes of the patch. Major patch/update is being tested a month before public release.
 
You can view Credits in the game, and see "QA":

It's very likely that the QA team changed over the MANY years of development, and the credits list everyone that was on the team at some point.
It doesn't mean they are all still there, like you seem to expect. People have better things to do then to test a single game for a decade.
So the actual QA team at present may consist of only a few people, all of them interns.
If you have the time, try to google the names and see if they are still Taleworlds employees.
 
It's very likely that the QA team changed over the MANY years of development, and the credits list everyone that was on the team at some point.
It doesn't mean they are all still there, like you seem to expect. People have better things to do then to test a single game for a decade.
So the actual QA team at present may consist of only a few people, all of them interns.
It is maybe true, but now it looks like no one is testing it. I don't know how anyone can release the relatively obvious bugs of the new implementation. E.g. a Quest for the destruction of a conspiracy party, or problems with autorecruit and many other serious new bugs. I implement something, I move it to the tester, he tests the whole implementation and moves it to the customer ...and it doesn't matter if it's a standard testing or a gaming industry, the concepts remain the same and in to the manual tests and regression tests the tester does not need any technological background.
 
It is maybe true, but now it looks like no one is testing it. I don't know how anyone can release the relatively obvious bugs of the new implementation. E.g. a Quest for the destruction of a conspiracy party, or problems with autorecruit and many other serious new bugs. I implement something, I move it to the tester, he tests the whole implementation and moves it to the customer ...
Yes, their testing is poor. The developers also share some of the blame as they don't seem to test their own features and just leave it to the testers (and the players) to catch their bugs.
That means they have some inexperienced staff, which is not a surprise since they also probably have a high turnover rate over the years, with experienced people leaving, and being replaced by interns straight from university.
 
Yes, their testing is poor. The developers also share some of the blame as they don't seem to test their own features and just leave it to the testers (and the players) to catch their bugs.
That means they have some inexperienced staff, which is not a surprise since they also probably have a high turnover rate over the years, with experienced people leaving, and being replaced by interns straight from university.
Nothing wrong, but 6 testers would be enough for the whole bannerlord. Two who test the new implementation, one who tests the quests and the game environment, one technological who does white box testing and checks the correct operation of the algorithms, and two who test the whole concept of the world (practically playing) and hire a few temporary workers at MP. That is all!
 
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Yes, their testing is poor. The developers also share some of the blame as they don't seem to test their own features and just leave it to the testers (and the players) to catch their bugs.
That means they have some inexperienced staff, which is not a surprise since they also probably have a high turnover rate over the years, with experienced people leaving, and being replaced by interns straight from university.
I also share the same opinion I also think they have a huge problem with people and it can cost a neck ...
 
First, sorry for my poor English, I use google translate and I will try to write easily!

I am big fan Bannerlord and Warband, I have thousands hours played! I'm not dealing with the development of Bannerlord in the last 8 years I bought Bannerlord on the day of the release and immediately gave a positive review. I'm aware it's EA. I always try the beta once a month. I have currently played around 600 hours! But I have to say that version by version it's getting worse and worse. I work as Test Manager/Tester (banking, telco, goverment, industry) 16 years. I work in company with 250 peoples, of this there are 10 of us testers. 10 testers on cca 25 products...among other things, products for healthcare to support basic life functions, that is, demanding and responsible products!

According to Credits in game have Bannerlord around 30 - 35 testers?! WTHell? Where is the result? Version by version more severe and more serious bugs! Quest cannot be completed due to system error! Serious errors in game business logic. Untuned basic mechanisms of the game...often (relatively simple) algorithms solve several versions which introduces other problems.

There are still a lot of serious bugs unresolved for months! Many bugs are marked "need more info". Communication consisting only in sending "Save files". I would really like to know what your 35 testers are doing!

I do not know where is the problem, whether you miss seniors (developers, game designers, analytics), or your QA is realy only paid players?! You just have to realize that the average age of a player (customer) is no 15 years! I am aware of the concept of Early Access but he also has some rules.

@MArdA TaleWorlds, I don't know who to move it to, I wanted to move it directly to your QA Manager!

Unfortunately, after 9 years, I'm starting to get sharply disappointed and I stop believing in Bannerlord!

Molnija
You must understand that you work with products that can potentially kill people, this means your company must be responsible. Gaming industry, AAA and AA especially on the other hand can afford to have extremely low standards most of the time, because most of their cutomers dont sue them when they are unhappy or even do not or cannot refund.
 
You must understand that you work with products that can potentially kill people, this means your company must be responsible. Gaming industry, AAA and AA especially on the other hand can afford to have extremely low standards most of the time, because most of their cutomers dont sue them when they are unhappy or even do not or cannot refund.
I agree with that. Still, it's extremely unfair! There is big money in the gaming industry, in many cases much larger than in standard IT companies! However, the hill of gaming companies is behaving like rock stars. Owners of game studios must realize that they are no longer in the 90s, 20 century! The average age of a player is no longer 15 years, but 34! It's time for gaming companies to stop sweeping with customers - the market has become an adult!
 
Sandbox games allow subroutines to occasionally interact in unpredictable ways. That's tough to replicate in testing. Equally, an over-reliance on automated testing programs that fail to unearth bugs they weren't programmed to find may contribute to the problem.
Of course, I'm not talking about errors in the cycle, for example, but about errors that are extremely easy to reproduce not at the level of testing but already at the level of Unit tests. And in sandboxes, they still have bugs in the dynamic part of the code.
 
I agree with you in that point, each version after 1.5.8 is worst than the previous one, almost unplayable due memory issues, the game use to much the HD, some people with sds didn't notice it, but in middle game it takes almost 10 seconds each time I open a inventory, that's why I'm still, and enjoying, the 1.5.8 with lots of good mods.
 
I agree with that. Still, it's extremely unfair! There is big money in the gaming industry, in many cases much larger than in standard IT companies! However, the hill of gaming companies is behaving like rock stars. Owners of game studios must realize that they are no longer in the 90s, 20 century! The average age of a player is no longer 15 years, but 34! It's time for gaming companies to stop sweeping with customers - the market has become an adult!
Well there is some sort of implosion coming in gaming industry (at least for AAA). Esentially bean counters have taken over and were abusing good will of people that came from previous reputation of the companies. The shift from our customers are fellow players so lets make best game possible to make money, to lets make as much money with least possible effort because consoomers will eat even **** no matter what (too big to fail, eternal good will of people and other myths like that). That way you end up with modern day Blizzard, CDPR, TW or Paradox. This kind of stuff works until it does not and then its fast ride down, but in a meantime investors made their money by abusing naive fanboys (virtue signalling comes into play here too - aka we are woke on twitter but in a meantime we got silent tolerance of rape and all kind of -isms in the company). This is not exclusive to gaming industry at all, pretty much any system (industry, state byrocracy etc) where you can avoid responsibility and where there is growth eventually ends up bloated by nepotism and profiteering, then collapse or in better case painfull reformation follows.
 
Well there is some sort of implosion coming in gaming industry (at least for AAA). Esentially bean counters have taken over and were abusing good will of people that came from previous reputation of the companies. The shift from our customers are fellow players so lets make best game possible to make money, to lets make as much money with least possible effort because consoomers will eat even **** no matter what (too big to fail, eternal good will of people and other myths like that). That way you end up with modern day Blizzard, CDPR, TW or Paradox. This kind of stuff works until it does not and then its fast ride down, but in a meantime investors made their money by abusing naive fanboys (virtue signalling comes into play here too - aka we are woke on twitter but in a meantime we got silent tolerance of rape and all kind of -isms in the company). This is not exclusive to gaming industry at all, pretty much any system (industry, state byrocracy etc) where you can avoid responsibility and where there is growth eventually ends up bloated by nepotism and profiteering, then collapse or in better case painfull reformation follows.
I agreed the trend exists but don't believe it applicable to TW. The Bannerlord engine is the only future for their company, they've got to make the most of it. While I don't agree with all of Armagan's decisions, it is clearly still a work of passion for him.
 
Well there is some sort of implosion coming in gaming industry (at least for AAA). Esentially bean counters have taken over and were abusing good will of people that came from previous reputation of the companies. The shift from our customers are fellow players so lets make best game possible to make money, to lets make as much money with least possible effort because consoomers will eat even **** no matter what (too big to fail, eternal good will of people and other myths like that). That way you end up with modern day Blizzard, CDPR, TW or Paradox. This kind of stuff works until it does not and then its fast ride down, but in a meantime investors made their money by abusing naive fanboys (virtue signalling comes into play here too - aka we are woke on twitter but in a meantime we got silent tolerance of rape and all kind of -isms in the company). This is not exclusive to gaming industry at all, pretty much any system (industry, state byrocracy etc) where you can avoid responsibility and where there is growth eventually ends up bloated by nepotism and profiteering, then collapse or in better case painfull reformation follows.
Essentially once you open a game up as a publicly traded company you stop worrying about appeasing the customers and start worrying about appeasing the stock holders. There are a few exceptions but that's the general rule of thumb, but in TW case I think it just comes down to greed and poor management.
 
Even without becoming publicly traded company there is simple problem of fast growth, if your first product allows you to hire 100 more people chances are lot of them will work in your company for the sake of having a job unlike your 4 friends with whom you created the first product. Then you grow again, and lot of friends and cousins (of individual employees not necesarrely the owner) are gonna get hired due to non-meritocratic reasons, then quality is gonna get reduced further. Then you start caring about public image so you start with the woke ****, which over time alianates majority of your players and the old guard (more so if it is just dishonest public image).
 
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