It's been a while since I reported on one of these, but the Bethblog has posted a new "Inside the Vault." I figured this one was pretty relevant because the interview is with Fallout: New Vegas QA Lead Andrew Scharf. Here are some highlights:
What’s your job at Bethesda?
I’m a QA Project Lead. My responsibilities include scheduling testing throughout the various stages of the game’s lifecycle, managing the day-to-day tasks of my testing team, and maintaining the bug database to make sure that the issues we find are clearly communicated to the development team, management, and production.
Part of my job also involves the creation of test documents, including a high-level test plan that covers the “big picture” of how all the pieces fit together to make the game — and how our testing will thoroughly cover each of those pieces.
...
I would say the worst part about being in QA is that due to the volume of bugs found in an RPG of the size and scope of our games, near the end it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to resolve every single issue in the database. Also, it can be a bit frustrating having to explain to the outside world that there’s more to the job than just playing games. No, we don’t spend our lunch breaks playing Dance Dance Revolution. Well, ok maybe some of our lunch breaks.
...
What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?
I’m a huge fan of the Interplay/Black Isle RPG’s, namely Fallout 1, 2, and Planescape: Torment. I can’t even begin tell you how many times I’ve replayed those games over the past 10 years. Other than those games, I’d say Diablo 2 and System Shock 2 are also favorites that I find myself coming back to every couple of years.
Hopefully he does a better job than the Fallout 3 QA team. It's also good to know he's a BIS fan. You can read the whole interview here. |
