Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Their Q/A is outsourced to Romania and India. I would imagine once the devs in Texas create a change and then Google translate it for Romania and India, they read the translation and later Google translate their response back into English it is completely a cluster fudge. They could have mediocre interpreters much like the guys you speak with at a outsourced call center where you and them can't understand each other no matter how clear and slow you try to speak and they are giving answers unrelated to the reason you called. Q/A should be under the same roof. The devs who made the changes should literally be standing there watching the Q/A guys play or be a couple of cubicals over from the guy tasked with looking at his changes. My boss's door is down the hall in case I have a question, am confused about his orders, or need further elaboration. If he was speaking a foreign language 10,000 miles away, accessible only via email and translation software, and asleep when I'm working due to time zone differences who frikken knows if I would understand and do what he has tasked me to do correctly. Source: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0 Edited February 7, 2012 by Twolow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racsofp Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 That's bunk. It was outsourced to the Jawas. Of course, if you've been paying any attention to the Tatooine News Network you'd know there was a large Sand People raid underway and most Jawas are taking cover. Unfortunately, hiding in giant Sand Crawlers or sitting in a dry, cool cave with no power doesn't lend itself to a lot of Bioware QA work being done. Have patience. When the Sand People are done raiding, the Jawas will get back to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stem Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 My boss's door is down the hall in case I have a question, am confused about his orders, or need further elaboration. If he was speaking a foreign language 10,000 miles away, accessible only via email and translation software, and asleep when I'm working due to time zone differences who frikken knows if I would understand and do what he has tasked me to do correctly. Lol..... if your boss had 1000 people lined up at his door with Q/A, he'd outsource too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Here's the actual answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekahab Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 100% agree. Outsourcing critical development teams causes more issues, bugs and doesnt net a good return for the money saved..because you spend even more time fixing what was working but your QA team on the other side of the planet missed. The business software development world has figured this out, the gaming software industry hasnt caught up yet. I wont even mention how hiring locally helps the economy and puts more money into the US taxpayers pool. Seriously EA (not even gonna blame BW since you know this came from the suits looking out for shareholders and not gamers) take your dev cycles seriously and get decent QA processes in place! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSchmo Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Please site your source on them out sourcing stuff to India and Romania so you sound more believable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 100% agree. You're wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekahab Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Here's the actual answer. Thats an amazing article full of nothing but excuses, and this is from a guy who knows the dev/qa cycle very well. Sure , there are whiny players with no understanding of the way things work or unrealistic expectations, but its also making alot of excuses for just poor regression cycles and flat out bad defect tracking & prioritizing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Thats an amazing article full of nothing but excuses... You must not have understood it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Please site your source on them out sourcing stuff to India and Romania so you sound more believable. It was LA Times I believe, let me see if I can find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekahab Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Please site your source on them out sourcing stuff to India and Romania so you sound more believable. There was an article posted on this very site from an interview on a gaming site with some ToR dev staff, he isnt lying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) There was an article posted on this very site from an interview on a gaming site with some ToR dev staff, he isnt lying. Here is the link and quote: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0 Quality assurance testing takes place in Romania, Argentina and India Edited February 7, 2012 by Twolow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slightlycampana Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Er... Actually the answer is that this is a pc game. Really, that's all you need to know. Anything else is speculation unless you can provide a link? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Here is the link and quote: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0 Okay. And? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekahab Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 You must not have understood it. That must be it, because you are infallable and never wrong, got it. After all, some obscure article written by a jaded and lazy developer on the web said so! The QA process with ToR is fine, and defects like *ILUM IS BROKEN AGAIN* and small exploits like the valor farming 2+ weeks ago truly are really hard to find defects that only occur when the rings of saturn align with swamp gas reflections from the moon, amirite? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 That must be it, because you are infallable and never wrong, got it. After all, some obscure article written by a jaded and lazy developer on the web said so! You said the article was "nothing but opinion." Which part struck you as subjective opinion instead of an objective presentation of how things actually work in software development? Crying "opinion!" doesn't actually make it so. You need to say how. You haven't. Whenever you're ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Okay. And? It means they have added several hurtles to jump over to produce quality content with little to no issues. Having the testers in house under the same roof as the designers saves a massive headache. The bean counters are the only ones overwhelmingly ecstatic with each patch with their outsourced savings. Call a outsourced call center to try to have a issue resolved, heck just try to explain a issue and see if they are on the same page with you at all, and then honestly tell me outsourcing has zero effect on the amount of bugs that clear Q/A. Edited February 7, 2012 by Twolow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NaimiIflya Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Check the Credits. It mentions EA's Romanian QA Team, hell, TONS of big game companies are moving their general QA to Romania. Companies now keep "Analysts" (formerly QA) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dantragk Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The problem with that article is that things like the unresponsive UI and defense bugs were considered unimportant bugs, or bugs that were brought up in general were things that Bioware should ignore and that they were working on things they already knew about. Heck WZ bug is still in but I guess according to that article the fact that it's causing you not to enjoy the game doesn't matter because they're working on other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The problem with that article is that things like the unresponsive UI and defense bugs were considered unimportant bugs, or bugs that were brought up in general were things that Bioware should ignore and that they were working on things they already knew about. Heck WZ bug is still in but I guess according to that article the fact that it's causing you not to enjoy the game doesn't matter because they're working on other things. You might have missed the part of the article about team sizes, prioritization, and limited resources. Here's the rub: The problem with that article is that things like the unresponsive UI and defense bugs were considered unimportant bugs... Because it's not fixed doesn't mean Bioware considers it unimportant. You're conjecturing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Call a outsourced call center to try to have a issue resolved, heck just try to explain a issue and see if they are on the same page with you at all, and then honestly tell me outsourcing has zero effect on the amount of bugs that clear Q/A. A QA department is not an "Outsourced call center." Bioware isn't calling Dell. They have QA teams in other countries. Most software development companies do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) A QA department is not an "Outsourced call center." Bioware isn't calling Dell. They have QA teams in other countries. Most software development companies do. The language, cultural, and communication barrier is still there. That is my problem with outsourcing in any form. To say the quality coming out of Q/A would be identical if they were in Austin vs India is just beyond rational thought in my opinion. I can verbally explain to a co-worker how to down SOA far easier than I could type out a email and translate it into a form I hope a Indian can understand clearly. I then hope I can understand his response correctly. Unneeded, pointless, and anything but time efficient. Edited February 7, 2012 by Twolow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dantragk Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 You might have missed the part of the article about team sizes, prioritization, and limited resources. Here's the rub: Because it's not fixed doesn't mean Bioware considers it unimportant. You're conjecturing. I'm not commenting on Bioware. I'm saying what the article says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustTed Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) The language, cultural, and communication barrier is still there. That is my problem with outsourcing in any form. So they can't do a decent job? Huh. It's a wonder that anyone can work with anyone else. Edited February 7, 2012 by JustTed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolow Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) So they can't do a decent job? Huh. It's a wonder that anyone can work with anyone else. If the devs were all Indian living in India or the Q/A were all Americans living in Austin then yes, I think they would do a more decent job of pushing content to release with fewer issues. One half of a important team cannot clearly and easily communicate with the other half about very small details that mean everything when it comes to bugs. Edited February 7, 2012 by Twolow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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