13pm
Water Chip? Been There, Done That
Yes, it is time for another 'Inside the Vault' today. Meet the QA Lead guy Kevin Kauffman.
<blockquote>What’s your job at Bethesda?
I am the QA lead on Fallout 3 and I manage the daily activities of a few dozen testers. In addition to scheduling and, you know, actually playing the game to look for bugs, I help manage the bug database that we use to communicate issues to the dev team — on a game this big, that can be a full-time job by itself. I am also fortunate enough to work closely with the development team to determine what needs to be tested on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Early on in development, this will start as a long term test plan based off of the concepts the designers and programmers have agreed should make the final product. Later in development this will mean sitting in on implementation meetings or pistol whipping developers Jack Bauer-style to get them to talk — so that we know exactly how they want functionality “X” to work.
What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?
Please give me a shout out if your favorite game of all time is also Blast Corps for the N64 (crickets). That game just had such a unique idea and was so tight for its time. The concept says it all: A trailer carrying a nuke has lost control and is rolling slowly toward suburbia (over and over again on different levels) and instead of trying to stop it, you have to obliterate everything that stands in its way. Also you can drive the A-team van. Sold!
So hard to choose just one though… Civilization 2 is pretty much the only thing I can remember about the 8th grade. I also still enjoy the classics… I highly recommend QIX to anyone that hasn’t played it in a while — try to “split the stix”. Growing up in State College, PA, we had one of the greatest arcades on the planet (R.I.P. Playland) so I plunged a lot of quarters into the Theater of Magic and Attack from Mars pinball games as well.
What games are you looking forward to?
Is it fair to say Fallout 3? See, testing a game that you think you would normally really enjoy is kind of like seeing a relative naked (Yes, I am from Central Pennsylvania, but this really isn’t coming from any deep seeded history for me). You would normally really enjoy hanging around with this person when they are all put together and presentable, but you have a hard time picturing them with clothes on because, well, there they are, all naked and related to you (see, this analogy is about you). It’s hard to look them in the eyes, and next time you see them it may take a while before you can start talking to them again. I really am looking forward to playing Fallout 3 when it is fully dressed.
Outside of this building, Spore has me thinking I may have to go out and purchase a new gaming PC.</blockquote>It's not hard to figure out which question was left "Outside the Vault" again.
Link: Inside the Vault - Kevin Kauffman
<blockquote>What’s your job at Bethesda?
I am the QA lead on Fallout 3 and I manage the daily activities of a few dozen testers. In addition to scheduling and, you know, actually playing the game to look for bugs, I help manage the bug database that we use to communicate issues to the dev team — on a game this big, that can be a full-time job by itself. I am also fortunate enough to work closely with the development team to determine what needs to be tested on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Early on in development, this will start as a long term test plan based off of the concepts the designers and programmers have agreed should make the final product. Later in development this will mean sitting in on implementation meetings or pistol whipping developers Jack Bauer-style to get them to talk — so that we know exactly how they want functionality “X” to work.
What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time?
Please give me a shout out if your favorite game of all time is also Blast Corps for the N64 (crickets). That game just had such a unique idea and was so tight for its time. The concept says it all: A trailer carrying a nuke has lost control and is rolling slowly toward suburbia (over and over again on different levels) and instead of trying to stop it, you have to obliterate everything that stands in its way. Also you can drive the A-team van. Sold!
So hard to choose just one though… Civilization 2 is pretty much the only thing I can remember about the 8th grade. I also still enjoy the classics… I highly recommend QIX to anyone that hasn’t played it in a while — try to “split the stix”. Growing up in State College, PA, we had one of the greatest arcades on the planet (R.I.P. Playland) so I plunged a lot of quarters into the Theater of Magic and Attack from Mars pinball games as well.
What games are you looking forward to?
Is it fair to say Fallout 3? See, testing a game that you think you would normally really enjoy is kind of like seeing a relative naked (Yes, I am from Central Pennsylvania, but this really isn’t coming from any deep seeded history for me). You would normally really enjoy hanging around with this person when they are all put together and presentable, but you have a hard time picturing them with clothes on because, well, there they are, all naked and related to you (see, this analogy is about you). It’s hard to look them in the eyes, and next time you see them it may take a while before you can start talking to them again. I really am looking forward to playing Fallout 3 when it is fully dressed.
Outside of this building, Spore has me thinking I may have to go out and purchase a new gaming PC.</blockquote>It's not hard to figure out which question was left "Outside the Vault" again.
Link: Inside the Vault - Kevin Kauffman
