Completely restructured QA Testplans and became a total loremaster.
Masterful Expertise
Working at BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic, I went from a casual fan to a dedicated loremaster, and gameplay expert. I achieved this by playing every storyline of the game on live, by playing every relevant prequel, and by keeping appraised on Wookiepedia, the forums, fansites, and documentaries.
Being so deeply embedded allowed me to easily apply expectations to new expansions, like the game’s very first, Rise of the Hutt Cartel, and to existing content as well. I managed to find a bug in the Trooper story questline logic that had been missed for years.
•Story Setting Loremaster
•Narrative Copy-editor
Fundamental Test Plan Rewrites
I started assigned to one planet, and over time assumed responsibility for:
•Every planet•Every storyline
•Every class
•Every companion
•Every expansion
Testing criteria was originally laid out in step-by-step directions that were completely copy-pasted with every test case, making any improvements inconsistent and easily lost. I instead created testing “subroutines” in Confluence by separating the unique info from the repeated info. To visually represent the improvement:
Concentrating mission testing criteria into its own section allowed that documentation to be much more robust, covering important details that the step-by-step commands missed or breezed over.
I built out these extra details by:
•Reviewing existing test cases•Trawling old bugs
•Documenting as new bugs came in
•Drawing on my player knowledge
Concentrating testing criteria also allowed the inclusion of diagrams, images, and examples, making expectations extremely visually clear and easy-to-understand, which was very important for any new or outsourced testers.
Narrative and Combat
This subroutine format was so universally useful that I helped the combat systems QA team adopt it for their boss fight testing criteria. I also helped them divide boss fight abilities into “expected boss behavior and consequences,” and “expected player strategies” to test both boss abilities and fight difficulty as separate tests.
All my immersion into Star Wars and SWTOR-specific lore helped me adopt Narrative QA duties as well. I helped provide copy-editing and story feedback to the writing team.
Making an easily-resuable list of expectations like this made content testing easier, faster, and more consistent.
