MAG Developer Interview: Test Leads

What’s up everyone? For this edition of the MAG Blog, we thought we’d take a closer look at Zipper’s pair of MAG Test Leads, Jay Embry and Kurt Manning. A key position for videogame developers everywhere, Test Leads are the folks responsible for making sure that the game works the way it’s supposed to – managing projects for the quality assurance team (QA) who find and fix bugs or other issues that would otherwise affect the overall game experience.

These guys have incredibly busy schedules, sometimes putting in 18-hour days, all for the betterment of our fun. To get a better idea of what the Test Leads do for MAG, we sat down with Jay and Kurt to ask them about their roles and their involvement in the finished MAG product.

Q: Hey guys, can you tell us a little bit about your experience here at Zipper and as Testers in general?

Jay Embry: I’ve been working at Zipper for three or four years now, and when I first started here I was on Fireteam Bravo and then Fireteam Bravo 2. Before that, I bounced around as a contractor for a few places in the area – I worked at Microsoft, I worked at Nintendo; I did testing on Dungeon Siege II, Forza, Kameo and some others, and have been testing games in general for about 10 years.

Kurt Manning: I’ve been at Zipper for about 3 1/2 years. I started here working on SOCOM: Combined Assault. Before that, I contracted for Microsoft testing things like MS Learning and other non-game programs.

Q: For aspiring videogame fans who aren’t really sure what role Testers have in the development of MAG, could you explain what your typical day is like?

Kurt Manning: It really depends. They can range from wild and crazy to pretty basic. The basic version is that we come in — Jay and I arrive around 7 in the morning — we look at our builds, run through our verification process and make sure our game is looking good before sending out emails to the company letting them know where our current version stands. You know, things like what issues we’re faced with and stuff like that, and then we spend the day looking for bugs and regressing issues previously reported. On the flipside, there could be really hectic days. We may need to submit a build to Sony, and that could mean prepping both a beta version and a final game version for them to take a look at. That’s a lot to check in on and those days can be really long and crazy — especially if we run into some big difference between the beta and final build that shouldn’t be there. When it takes roughly seven hours to create a new build of a game, you can see how it can get busy really quickly.

Jay Embry: A lot of the stuff we do as Lead Testers is figuring out and organizing the test team into groups to focus on specific areas of the game, and understanding where we need to be to meet our build requirements. It’s really rewarding at the end of the day, though, when you get a lot done and the game is a big improvement over what we started with. On days like that, it’s great just to sit down and actually play the game.

Q: Do you think that says something about MAG? That even though you and your team are always testing it, that you still like to just sit down and play it for fun between tests?

Kurt Manning: For sure. In fact, I wish I could just sit down and just play it even more than I do. It’s a fun experience – who wouldn’t want to play it?

Q: When you’re talking about new “builds,” what does that mean exactly? What’s an example of differences found from one version to another?

Jay Embry: Well, it could be something as small as a tune to the rifles to give them a little further reach or do a little more damage, or something as big as changing the way that the user interface looks and works completely. We could have drastic changes or subtle changes; it really depends on where you are on the project. Right now, though, as we approach the end, we see a lot more “behind the scenes” fixes and tuning as opposed to the major things that change early on.

Q: You’ve been working on MAG from the very beginning. If you were to summarize the difference between the game in its earliest form versus what it is now, what would you say?

Kurt Manning: [Laughing] It’s completely different.

Jay Embry: Yeah, totally different.

Kurt Manning: In the beginning, we had some levels that were absolutely ginormous. They were almost like three levels that we have now put together. Basically, it was like exploring Disneyland and California Adventure all at once. They were so huge that it was possible to go to a part of the map where you’d never see anyone, and that’s what we used as a jumping off point to understand how big was too big based on our early playtests. That’s probably one of the biggest changes design-wise. Amazingly, even though we scaled the maps down, they’re still huge.

Q: How instrumental have the beta testers been in shaping MAG into what it is? How much influence does their feedback have on the game?

Jay Embry: It’s definitely had a lot more impact compared to any of our other games. We’ll get a ton of feedback from people, recreate the problem, send it to the development team and get that stuff fixed up. It’s really important to get feedback from the MAG beta testers — especially when we see positive feedback regarding how much they like something, because then we know what we should focus on and add more of what they like.

Kurt Manning: They’ve had a significant impact. We go through every bug those guys submit. We put them in our database and then prioritize them based on severity and start to work on them, especially if we see repeats. It helps our game progress and it’s been great to get feedback from these guys.

The beta has also been a big help to our network and design teams as well. It’s been invaluable to learn how people play certain maps in the beta, for instance, because it allows the us to understand not only how to fix issues we might have, but also make adjustments to the maps so that they’re better based on people’s habits and tendencies. I can’t stress enough how important this beta has been for us.

Kurt Manning: Yeah, even after it comes out, we’ll be making tweaks and advancements to keep the game as balanced as possible.

Jay Embry: What’s great about it, though, is that a lot of our tweaks and adjustments can be made server-side so that we can make our changes and updates fairly quickly. Sure, we may need more traditional patches now and then, but a lot of the stuff we’ll monitor and adjust can be made behind the scenes without interrupting anything.

Q: What’s the hardest thing to test and “get right?”

Jay Embry: The game is different based on the scale that you’re at (64, 128 and 256 player tiers). Because of the nature of how the game plays at these different scales and how many people it takes to play a certain game type, we have to be really good about scheduling — since we can’t just whip up the number we need to play the mode that we need — out of thin air; especially if it’s in a build that we’re getting near the end of a day.

Kurt Manning: When you look at multiplayer and testing multiplayer, there are so many different things to keep in mind, that it’s always a challenge. If you have 256 guys playing and something crashes, there are so many different variables going on that it tests your ability to narrow down what’s happening. We’re always kept on our toes [laughs]

Q: To close, for Zipper fans who enjoyed our SOCOM games on PS2 and PSP — why should they be excited for MAG?

Jay Embry: In addition to its cool tactical options and the fact that it has a ton of action, it gives you a lot of options. MAG lets you get together with all your friends and join the group of your choice, form a squad, and take out whatever gets in your way. But you can also play it as an individual and there’s plenty to shoot at and blow up as a loner.

Kurt Manning: Well, it’s important to note that MAG isn’t SOCOM, but, it does have some of SOCOM’s elements like the option to be a little more tactical and great shooting. But, more importantly, fans should be excited because this is a great idea. I’d love it for them to look at MAG and say, “Wow! This looks like fun. I want to be part of a squad and lead my guys and secure these objectives as a team and have a great time. I want to play in a 256-player battle and test my skills! Honestly, I don’t think we have to try and convince SOCOM fans to pick it up; the game is cool enough and big enough that it should be able to do that itself. I think they’re going to understand what MAG is and realize that it’s a blast to play.

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