Devs play test V or

[AuSsIeThUnDeR36]

Do the devs actually test their own work by playing the game? Or is it just game testers that do it? Or do Sam Houser, Dan Houser and The Benz all sit down and have a V sesh?

Or does everyone at R* have a go at it?

This has been on my mind for awhile now. What's your take on this?

[AKalashnikov]

During GTA IV's development one of the Houser brothers spoke about playing the game in great detail. He made mention of a 'gang' in a shoot out with police in free roam as well so I was surprised that was cut, if it was there at all. One of them also mentioned how he preferred the way the PS3 version of the game rendered. I don't have which of the two said what, it's been about 5 years since I got it from an article posted on these forums. All this taken into a account it's safe to say they play it, haha.

Edited June 8, 2013 by AKalashnikov

[Meezarawcks]

 

During GTA IV's development one of the Houser brothers spoke about playing the game in great detail. He made mention of a 'gang' in a shoot out with police in free roam as well so I was surprised that was cut, if it was there at all. One of them also mentioned how he preferred the way the PS3 version of the game rendered. I don't have which of the two said what, it's been about 5 years since I got it from an article posted on these forums. All this taken into a account it's safe to say they play it, haha.

Very well said.

 

I think it was Sam Houser that said that the PS3 Renders well. I was looking up interviews of his yesterday and I read it.

 

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=3&cId=3167500

 

SH: That's a complicated one. I met with a bunch of the senior fellows from [Microsoft]. I said, that's kind of complicated.... The upshot of the technical challenges we've experienced on either the 360 or on the PS3 is [that] both companies stepped up to the plate and have supported us in a way that was beyond even my greedy expectations. They've been amazing. I think that the 360 is going to have to get 'round this issue we're talking about. I can think of various ways they can do it. Hopefully, they're going to adopt one of those in the next year or so, because it's going to become more of an issue. If we're filling up the disc right now, where are we going? It's not like our games are going to get any smaller. I think that issue's on the table with a bunch of games right now. I'm sure they'll come through with an intelligent solution.

 

Getting things running on the PS3 initially was challenging. I think it was challenging for a lot of companies, but it's also a machine where, now that we've got comfortable with it -- I don't want to say we've cracked it, but we've got comfortable with it -- we know we can make our games. We're at a point now where the games pretty much look identical side by side. There's a slight difference in the way they look. I think that's to do with really low-level technical stuff that I'm not the guy to explain. The 360 games have a certain look to them; PS3 games have a certain look to them. I like the way [the PS3] renders. There's a certain kind of softness without being blurry -- some warmth to it -- and then there's a certain more clinical element to how the 360 looks. Both have plusses and minuses. As far as I'm concerned, they're neck and neck now. That's very much our goal; we do not want to get in the middle of that rather heated, fervent debate.... These guys who wanna defend their systems, you know what? Good on 'em, and let them do it. We just didn't want to give them something that would in any way fuel it....

[AKalashnikov]

Edited my post about 5 times because I kept changing my mind about who said what. I'll just leave it how I had it originally.

[d3ex2]

Of course the developers play it and test it...

 

They also hired game testers at Rockstar North back in January 2012 on a 12 month contract.

 

 

[Patriot_Action]

My bet would be that the majority of the play-testing is done by the people who's job it is to just do that (once the actual programmers have determined things are mostly working correctly). Periodically the newest work is probably presented to the "bigwigs" for them to see how things are progressing, once the kinks have been hammered out. I have no insight into the video game development profession; I'm just guessing. But large development companies usually have a pretty good-size staff just for play testing, and it's not just whoever's around doing the testing.

[Fireboyd78]

From what I understand, the role of a playtester/QC is to periodically communicate with developers, compile the game, and test it. They are not handed the game by developers to play, that would compromise the time they have to work on the game itself. So think of a playtester as someone who is knowledgeable in programming, but they don't actually work on the game and advance it forward. They point out bugs and attempt to figure out what's causing the issues. They have access to the source code and can compile it to test it at any time. As for the Houser brothers, I imagine they spend the majority of their time planning where to go next with the company, and when the developers have a significant build to show them, they sit down and have a big gaming session.

 

So really, everyone gets a slice of the cake. A lot of it.

[Dope_0110]

What do you think OP. They code it and release without any testing?

 

Of course there's extensive testing troughout development. That can be done by the developers on some small scale and once the game is almost finished, that's when playtesters come in. Those are people payed to play the game extensively and explore every detail of the game to try and find something that wasn't done properly.

 

I think Rockstar actually has one small studio dedicated to quality assurance and that they probably playtest all of their games there.

[AuSsIeThUnDeR36]

Wow great info everyone! So it's safe to say that a majority of employees have had a play of the game's mechanics but the main thourough testing for any issues is performed by the hired help (employed from Jan 2012 on 12 mth contract)

Guys, this will be the best darn gta ever. Hold onto your seats!

[d3ex2]

 

Wow great info everyone! So it's safe to say that a majority of employees have had a play of the game's mechanics but the main thourough testing for any issues is performed by the hired help (employed from Jan 2012 on 12 mth contract)

Guys, this will be the best darn gta ever. Hold onto your seats!

Just try imagine how many hours have gone into testing this game! I wonder how many people they had test the game for ~6-8 hours every working day for 12 months.

 

Say 100 people tested it for 8 hours each day over 260 days (no holidays) then that would be ~208,000 hours of testing! And that would only be the people who were hired as game testers. Who knows how long devs have played it.

 

So think about this. GTA V has been played for at least 208,000 hours by hundreds of people. We haven't even see a single second of proper gameplay yet! It makes me thinking that people are playing this game pretty much every day.

 

Edit* some more (guessing) numbers.

 

Lets say there have been 200 people from Rockstar working on V for the last 5 years every working day for 8 hours a day....

 

That's 2,080,000 hours! Add in the hours from the game testers and you get a total of 2,288,000 hours!

 

Not saying this is accurate. There might be more/less people working on, people will have days off and they might not spend the entire day working on it. But it gives u a somewhat rough idea of how many hours might have gone into it.

Edited June 8, 2013 by d3ex2

[BillGates]

At R* you have the freedom to grow into different roles. Often, these game testers also create minor environment props.

 

The process of testing happens recursively:

The programmers creates/fixes something (including test) -> Sends it to the test department -> If there is an error (either it is caused by the new feature or it caused another error indirectly) it is sent back to the programmers.

 

There was an interview with a R* web developer back in the days who was working at the New York studio (the HQ). He said that eventually before release they gave him GTA: Vice City to play along and test it because it was such a huge game.

 

Also offtopic:

 

Cons – - The tools. The reason why the games are constantly delayed is because of the tools. Rage is a very artist unfriendly engine. As an artist, expect to suffer through tools issues on a daily basis. The tools department is stuck in their ways, unwilling to admit that their pipeline is inefficient and contributing to poor productivity. Band-aids are issued to patch up issues in the short term, without any long-term plan on how to fix things. No artist should ever have to see a maxscript error pop-up. Ever.

- Lots of artists with outdated skillsets, and unqualified people who come from other departments (often QA) simply to fill seats.

 

Edited June 8, 2013 by BillGates

[JOSEPH X]

Before it even gets to play testing there are QA software engineers, who test, analyse and debug every aspect of the game. Modellers and artists will make say a car, and then pass it on to QA to see if it gets a pass into the build or needs modifying. They are the top dogs of testing and are highly skilled programmers.

 

The lowest form of testing is focus testing. Focus groups are picked from the target audience, play the game, then answer questionnaires to find out whether aspects of the game resonate with the audience.

 

You never know - we could be doing some focus testing on GTAForums "Wow! Flipping the bird. That's awesome!" R*, "Stick that in the bin with fingerless gloves."

[K.Walters]

I don`t know who the testers are, but I would guess that the devs themselves and possible a some sort of GTA alpha/beta tester group

[Rios44]

Probably a mix of both

[FAH-Q]

You can't possibly be a good chef if you don't taste the food you cook, right?

[Leafy Hollow]

Testing GtaV = Dream Job

[d3ex2]

 

Testing GtaV = Dream Job

I don't think so.

 

Part of the job requires playing it in an unfinished state so you're not getting the full experience. Also, testing is very repetitive. You could be playing single sections of the game over and over again for hours, day after day, week after week. You'd get sick of it no matter how big a GTA fan you are. You aren't playing it for fun. You can't do anything you like. It's your job and you need to do it properly.

 

I was going to apply for the job when they advertised but I don't want the game ruined for me. I'll play it when it is finished and released for everyone.

Edited June 8, 2013 by d3ex2

[Killerdude]

I'd imagine the devs do some pretty basic play testing as they are going about coding, then they hand it off to testers who find every little bug.

[Leafy Hollow]

Testing GtaV = Dream Job

I don't think so.

 

Part of the job requires playing it in an unfinished state so you're not getting the full experience. Also, testing is very repetitive. You could be playing single sections of the game over and over again for hours, day after day, week after week. You'd get sick of it no matter how big a GTA fan you are. You aren't playing it for fun. You can't do anything you like. It's your job and you need to do it properly.

 

I was going to apply for the job when they advertised but I don't want the game ruined for me. I'll play it when it is finished and released for everyone.

I would still rather play a game and support my life that way than any other way.

[AuSsIeThUnDeR36]

Testing GtaV = Dream Job

I don't think so.

 

Part of the job requires playing it in an unfinished state so you're not getting the full experience. Also, testing is very repetitive. You could be playing single sections of the game over and over again for hours, day after day, week after week. You'd get sick of it no matter how big a GTA fan you are. You aren't playing it for fun. You can't do anything you like. It's your job and you need to do it properly.

 

I was going to apply for the job when they advertised but I don't want the game ruined for me. I'll play it when it is finished and released for everyone.

I would still rather play a game and support my life that way than any other way.

Seriously it would be great at first but after playing the same mission 200 times over and over or just testing if a weapon location respawns after the 6 min interval or testing a ladder that should work for the 100th time, it would get mind numbingly boring.

When the game is released, you'd have nil interest in Grand Theft Auto V. Period.

Also I heard the testers don't get paid much, it's only like $14 an hour for doing repetitive boring work. It doesn't sound 'fun' to me.

Put it this way, testing the game would be like packing donuts into boxes all day. The same thing over and over again.

[BillGates]

 

Testing GtaV = Dream Job

I don't think so.

 

Part of the job requires playing it in an unfinished state so you're not getting the full experience. Also, testing is very repetitive. You could be playing single sections of the game over and over again for hours, day after day, week after week. You'd get sick of it no matter how big a GTA fan you are. You aren't playing it for fun. You can't do anything you like. It's your job and you need to do it properly.

 

I was going to apply for the job when they advertised but I don't want the game ruined for me. I'll play it when it is finished and released for everyone.

I would still rather play a game and support my life that way than any other way.

Seriously it would be great at first but after playing the same mission 200 times over and over or just testing if a weapon location respawns after the 6 min interval or testing a ladder that should work for the 100th time, it would get mind numbingly boring.

When the game is released, you'd have nil interest in Grand Theft Auto V. Period.

Also I heard the testers don't get paid much, it's only like $14 an hour for doing repetitive boring work. It doesn't sound 'fun' to me.

Put it this way, testing the game would be like packing donuts into boxes all day. The same thing over and over again.

This.

 

Someone who tests GTA 5 would never want to even see the game when it is released.