April 5, 2024

This week's question is from Joseph DeMarco.

Joseph asks: "I've been curious about the QA process of writer/narrative development. How are you involved with the QA process for the writer/narrative part of the development?"

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This really depends on the studio. If you have a narrative-focused studio, then you’ll likely have a QA department (or a team inside QA) that will be devoted to spotting narrative issues during their play passes. This isn't always the case, though. There's a good chance your studio or your team will just have a general QA pool at their disposal. However, with proper context and communication, you can have these generalists help spot narrative issues in your game.

So, what narrative issues does QA look for?

From my experience: plot inconsistences, discrepancies in character voice, odd leaps in plot logic or dialogue, or missing dialogue (which is also an audio issue, but it’s something that narrative needs to be aware of). Also, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Eagle-eyed QA testers will also be familiar with your game's proper nouns: titles, naming conventions, weapon names, locations. When I was working on Guild Wars 2, both QA and the editing team would double-check map names and even look up if a Charr name in-game matched the rules for naming a Charr character. No detail too small.

What’s typically not under narrative’s control in a QA play pass: general level design issues (like traversal issues), missing art assets (hey, where's the painting I'm supposed to steal?), missing ambient audio or effects, missing character animations, or absent visual effects (like an explosion going off). QA will notice these issues and file bugs to the appropriate teams, however.

A word of context here: QA isn't here to be your servants. They will not be at your beck and call at all times. Depending on your stage of development, QA might be slammed with other requests from other departments. They have a job to do for the whole studio, not just you.

Whether the studio is narrative focused or not, narrative should always brief QA on what it should be looking for before it does its play passes. This helps narrative as well as QA. Narrative will get specific feedback about what QA finds while QA can narrow the scope of its review. Be proactive about this. Engage with QA from the start. If you don’t have a dedicated narrative QA team, then give QA detailed guidelines about your team is always looking for AND the best way to send feedback to the writers. This is an ever-evolving process, so be ready to constantly communicate new targets to the QA team when necessary.

Speaking of, let the QA team know about problems that already know about. This saves QA from writing bugs it doesn't need to and saves you the headache of multiple bugs for the same issue. And trust me, duplicate bugs are a triggering aggravation you don't need. I have lost count of all the times I've seen devs (dumbass younger me included) seethe with contempt at QA and bitterly send back a bug with a note saying (paraphrasing) "Stop sending me this, you moron."

You want to get ahead of this mindset. You need to see QA as more than a bunch of nitpicking elves who send you bugs that eat at your creative confidence. You need to see all the hard and thankless work QA does in the shadows. Be kind.

QA is often the punching bag of the studio: the most grueling work with low pay and little prestige. Think of it this way: when QA does their job, they aren’t noticed. Compare that to when you great dialogue, engaging audio, awesome vistas, or kick-ass cutscenes. All those devs can take a bow. Players never see all the work QA has done to spot and flag all the issues. However, when something does blow up or break a game, everyone points their fire at QA: “Why wasn’t this obvious bug spotted?”

I've also seen QA framed as the pit where talent comes from, not where talent is. At ArenaNet, QA was our farm league, where testers worked their asses off to be noticed and then "promoted" into design, art, audio, programming, or writing. QA was a stepping stone, something to get out of. As you can imagine, it gave the impression that QA wasn't a place you wanted to be. The pay sucks and the respect wasn't there. The older I get, the more I see this as unfair.

So, give QA the respect it deserves. When you work with them, be clear about what you want them to look for. Be clear about how you want them to give you feedback. And be clear that you appreciate their hard work.

After all, QA is there to help save you from yourself. Honor that.