Excellent advice. I definitely agree to never talk shit about your co-workers or employers with anyone, save your gf or spouse. Because hopefully you can trust them not to tell other people your grievances. I love how my original QA Lead and I have basically swapped positions on each other a few times at different…

I'm still in QA. Only this year have I gotten enough self confidence to actually put myself out there and let people know what I want to do. For me it's either production, because I work really well with people, and have worked very closely with producers for years now. Or some aspect of design. I just want to utilize…

Nice, well yes it seems that Jira has become adopted as the standard in bug databases. When I started we used Filemaker, and later studios used Bugzilla, Test Track Pro, and a few other systems. If I can recall the only major changes that have come along were with Jira pretty much putting all of those features in one…

Yes definitely! They love hearing how you would creatively go about doing destructive testing. Like if you were in a racing game, you'd try driving in reverse so many laps, then go back the right direction and make sure the laps are counting back properly. Things like that. This is where your creativity comes in.

Good question! To add to what Joseph said, those issues also get assigned a severity (these vary from studio to studio, but in this case we'll use a numerical system) from 0-3.

0 = Crash bugs and any issue that requires the user to physically shut down the system to proceed. Save corruption, and things like that also…

This was a great question! Honestly, I think if you can present your findings, and back them up with a reproduction, the devs can do very little to push back on it (Producers love to call bugs "features" though). Unless it's simply a matter of not having enough time to fix the issue (especially if it's a severity 2 or…

I basically do just that (Ad Hoc test) on every game I rent or play lol

And how about instead of trolling me, why don't you take a few minutes and answer some of theses questions? I'm sure if you're as experienced as you sound, you must have something to share? Instead of wasting time tearing other people down.

Come on now, I was given an hour to address hundreds of questions. Each one couldn't turn into an essay. Besides if you look at the article I wrote last year, I address a lot of those issues.

I never claimed to be an expert in QA, or anything else. I'm constantly learning and growing just as everyone else is. What I…

Mike, that's being awfully generous. I mean, I might be a really awesome guy, but hardly a deity.

Probably my favorite moment in DS II was chasing this invader who tried that trick. First he invaded the wrong player, since I way overleveled him, second he hid as an object, but failed to keep still. So I just chased this barrel around until he cornered himself. At which point I did my best Donkey Kong impression,…

Thanks man. I seriously can't believe the balls on this guy. I'm pretty positive I know who it is. And the funniest part is if it is who I suspect it is, he's one to talk about being a shitty QA tester. Considering he was the lead responsible for shipping an unavoidable game breaking bug (which actually made some…

Hahahaha my VERY first game that disturbed me was "APB" in the Arcade in the mid-80's. I know it's nothing compared to mass slaughter and torture found in newer games, but it is still "torture", and this was like 1987. So seeing police brutality in a video game, was pretty shocking to my 10 year old mind. The…

Yep! Same here! It was either Manhunt or Twisted Metal: Black (those backstories... ugggh)

LOL Shhhhhhh!!!

Before you respond to that first message, which I'm sure you will. Given you took the time to create a troll account to attempt to rile me up. Just think about one thing. What did you do this morning? Did you wake up and do an AMA with the readers of one of the most popular gaming blogs? What did you do to help answer…

just going outside or. just completely stopping what I'm doing at the moment, and doing something else. Also venting to someone else (be careful with this though). Some managers are happy to help you deal with stress, others not so much. But it doesn't hurt to let someone know you are feeling overwhelmed.

Making you look lame? How so? Please share? All I did was encourage people to keep their head up, and stay positive, or they will hate working in QA.

And no I am not the phantom shitter. That person had to be at least three or four times my size. And I'm pretty sure I know who you are, and you've just shown the world…

Listening to mine right now. Actually ever since I got these, my production quality has jumped significantly. What a difference being able to hear your mix clearly makes!

Listening to mine right now. Actually ever since I got these, my production quality has jumped significantly. What a…

I enjoyed working there. I did not enjoy their ethics, or the meddling that people in executive positions made in their various titles. But I met a lot of great people there, and even work with three of them at my current gig ;)