Obsidian Fun avowed There is an important technical success for the game studio playing a poor role. Although the company has a 3D Action RPG experience Fallout New Vegas And Outer worldsFor, for, for,. avowed The focus of the company’s isometric pillars brings the world to a large scale of 3D. Like her predecessors, avowed Allows players to decide a flickering number in gameplay and dialogue that all connect each other and create their journey. Pair these branching choices with the progress of the game First personal fighting and animationAnd you have an extraordinary complex game that is at risk of launching with a disturbing number of insects.
But that didn’t happen. avowed Launched for critical definition, With some critics to note the gameBlunt“As Osidian has many dear old titles. The studio’s reputation for small sports was so noteworthy that at the 2025 game developers conference, Osidian Qi Ladd David Benege briefly mentioned it in his QAwork flu, briefing it.
What are the reforms? According to Benny Field, Ocedian has passed since the last decade (2016 release) Brutality) Reenly reorganize its QA department to work closely with the rest of the studio. Qa tester became QA analyst, and instead of just running tests on sports construction avowedThe QA team began working with all striped designers to review their work in Obassan’s narrative and unrealistic engine, searching for insects before colliding with the “Kamt” button.
This process may begin to wash – but if you want to strengthen your QA team, Benjard said that you can boil this process to a phrase: “Train your QA team, whatever methods of training your designers.”
Access to OCA’s QA testers Brutality The tools of the statement
The annual long journey began in 2015 for the QA department of the Owaisidine Department while developing CRPG Brutality. In a conversation Brutality Various Premium is accompanied by pictures of characters in “Pose” that clarify their emotional state. In fact, the post was to be set up by the narrative team working in the Osidian statement tool, but according to Benefield, the team was defeated in making questions and content for the game, and the work was behind the schedule on implementing the pose.
Implementing these poses was not a complicated process, it only needed hours and hours, and the QA team had bandits to take the task. But with access to this device, they realized that there was Load About the material he had never seen or tested it before.
“We have found lines that have never been tested, or, in some cases, lines you can’t even reach as a player because of the bug,” he said. “Sometimes she was hidden inside the branches of the entire struggle, small and large, that as long as you stumble as a player, or it is documented somewhere, you do not know that it is present, meaning … QA Big (Log) couldn’t know if we could not know.”
Photo via OBCDine Entertainment/Paradox Interactive.
Benefeld was a tester at the time, and while he was implementing the Pose, he saw a potential game breaking bug associated with the game’s reputation system. At the early times of the game, players balance the requirements to gain credibility from various factions such as “unwanted” and “Scarlette Forest”, which ends on a scene that will strengthen their initial allegiance. This scene examines the player’s reputation with each faction, which is calculated by the book that goes up or down in terms of different choices. Whatever faction has a good reputation for the player, it will determine what scene shows and how the game develops.
Since Benefeld was working in the narrative device and could see the number values and rhetoric node routes, it worked on mathematics and found that it was possible for players to create a precise set of choices that would end with equal credibility values with each faction. It was not a desired result, and the player would not be able to develop the story.
He showed his superiority to the bug … who congratulated him on his move but said he could not enter a ticket unless he re -presented it to a construction. It took two hours to test and restore his theory, and the fix took 30 seconds. “I was personally disappointed to see that I found such a bug of high intensity, but the cost and time to regenerate it would prove to be far more than the time to fix it,” he said.
Fortunately, Osidian listened to his opinion, and then Brutality Its QA testers’ status collided with QA analysts (their salary increase) and created a process for analysts to review Quest and dialogue node trees before going into construction.
To extend to toll tests avowed
Benefeld took a few years from Osidian in working as a producer in Naxon, but was retained to the company as a QA lead. avowedWhere he began to implement the process more strictly. avowedThe nodes of the conversation were not larger or more complicated than BrutalityBut now the QA team also had to track animation, audio, and other gameplay bugs that came with the first person’s fight and dynamic conversation.
Using sample conversation with a merchant from the beginning avowed It checks that if there was a special member of the party, Benjid showed in three ways that a mistake in the story device could lead to a bug in the game. If a designer developed a node where the “bark” (a line that is without dialogue) is moved in a full dialogue setting, the conversation is broken. If a designer forgets to identify the speaker when setting a node, or the speaker is deleted after the file is set, the conversation is broken. And if one forgets to keep the “red” talk node (which ends the conversation) at the end of his continuity, the conversation breaks. These three bugs came to “dozens” bars avowedAnd they are “very easy” to find inside the tools than to report inside the game.
Photo by Bright Francis.
In the process of catching these insects and other logic intervals, the Testing team began to find scripting errors more advanced (Benefield called “Entertainment”), found them in sports data and flagged the statement designer. It has saved time for both teams as the narrative designers now know the main reason for a problem rather than telling the symbol. “It also saves QA time by looking for more worms per minute than spending the test content in the game.”
The process was not restricted to the testers in the OCDian-the ordinary Testers of Qloc, who provided service, were also given access to this level. The testers of the two companies have become so expert in working with the story tool that the beneficiary began to think – what if they even implemented the process on unrealistic blueprints?
OCDI’s unrealistic engine designers hugged to work with QA
After a long time with this new process (and healthy holidays), Benefield began preparing a pitch for the rest of the studio. He argued, “If analysts know these tools so well, and they know the game so well, the only pieces they are missing are how stimulations, triggers and blueprints work on the unrealistic aspect.” “Then what will happen if we get them this information too?”
The pitch has mobilized a little “ampeaster syndrome” in Benefield. When he first joined OCDI, the company’s Org Chart kept the QA away from the rest of the design team, and there was not much professional overlap among the company’s different heads. You had no compliance with other game studios (this was the last end of a period where some companies had forbidden to talk to teams outside their department), but this was not what you call close relationships. Although the departments have been closer over the years, the delay was still delayed to see the QA as Grunts at the bottom of the organization.
Fortunately – and Benefeld said it was one of his “favorite parts” to work in Osidian. Many designers warm the idea quickly, and are willing to give it a shot. Because of this, the “joint analysis session” was created, where testers and designers stepped through a struggle while reviewing the flow of information in the unrealistic.
Photo via OBCDine Entertainment/Microsoft.
“When they pass, the designer called every trigger and script used in the pursuit, literally pulled them to the joint screen to see and ask the analyst,” said Benefeld. “We also record them so we can be very short about our notes and focus on what is really just on the screen.”
“Since the QA is just watching how it runs, it gives (designers) say, ‘Wait, that should have been done, I didn’t realize that it was a bug.’
These meetings last for an hour (scheduled with numerous meetings if it takes a long time in the pursuit). Sometimes the insects were so clear that they could be fixed on the call.
Qa and designs to bring together
According to Benefield, OCDian designers loved these sessions. The insects were squash, the QA learned more about the material needed to test through traditional sources, the production continued more effectively, and perhaps most importantly, it was a huge promotion for morale.
Benefeld reminded, “I didn’t see this coming, but it was very prominent for everyone involved and everyone adjacent to these sessions.” “People were enjoying them. (Designers) After defeating them during a joint analysis session, they felt much better about their questions.
Even after these sessions, designers and QA analysts were more comfortable to reach each other with questions and comments.
Many other improvements to the QA process while making Obsidian avowedBut all these returned to the basic practice of training testers on the tools used by designers.
Although the team still used a classic “black box” testing to check the organic emerging insects in the game, the method of “White Box” brought happiness and support to the development of the game.
As the Benny Field concluded, “How will I get it” by combining the QA mentality, “How will I do it”, we are allowing these people to work together, and we get a better product in a short time. “
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