Mod Tester's Handbook
A reference guide for testing mods. Includes info on how to find bugs, how to narrow down the steps to reproduce and how to write good bug reports. Also includes a 'game development terminology' reference section.
Posted by Crispy on Jul 25th, 2008 Page 1 of 11
Intermediate QA/Testing.
Table of Contents
- Why test?
- Who should read this tutorial?
- Lifecycle of a bug
- Be a loser
- Be fast
- Be curious
- Be destructive
- Communicate
- Information gather
- Eliminate
- Reproduce
Writing a Bug Report: The Bug Summary
- Keywording
- Summarising
Writing a Bug Report: Bug Classification
- A class bugs
- B class bugs
- C class bugs
- D class bugs
- Examples for comparison
Writing a Bug Report: Communication
- Precision
- Relevance
- Neutrality
Writing a Bug Report: Steps to Reproduce
- Format
- Example
Writing a Bug Report: QA Terminology
- List of terms
- What testing can do for you
- About the Author
- Extra Reading
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© 2002 - 2013 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 3316 modders.
very useful for beginning moders! gj
and for experienced ones to :)
required read for every modder :)
Interesting read, I myself have tested a few mods now and still am so I'm quite familiar with some parts in this tutorial. However, it felt like some parts were mostly for single player games/mods but it's good that you managed to cover all parts. Good job and keep your tutorials comming! I will definitely show this to my fellow testers.
Hi! I know it's some time since you made this comment, but I've updated the Bug Hunter section with some ideas for multiplayer testing anyway.
This is a very good read. I have been testing games for a while, and this clearly explains all of the characteristics of a bug that a game tester must explain to the developer. This is a must read for any developer/game tester, since it shows how much organization can help you in the bug-fixing process.
I thought page three was a bit too deep and overcomplicated for most mod teams - it doesn't need to be so formal in a small team. Might be valid for one of the few really large mod teams though.
The rest of it is spot on though - if all bug reports were done to this standard I'd be a very happy developer :)
Funnily enough this piece started off as part of a bigger tutorial, which I then decided to split into one for QA testers and one for QA Leads. When I wrote the introduction to what will now be the management tutorial, I put in a warning that small mod teams don't need to exhaust their efforts on fancy bugtracking software if they're only going to have 500 bugs in their database. There's no point writing up playthrough testplans if all you're changing is some weapon models and variables.
The same is true of testing to a certain degree. As far as a tester is concerned, the main points to focus on whether you're a big or small mod fall into two areas:
1) Bughunt actively, don't wait for bugs to come to you
2) Communicate information with the whole team in mind, whether it's a bug report or a fix.
What parts from this tutorial you choose to apply to your own testing is down to the scale of the project. Ultimately the QA Lead should be setting the benchmarks for your mod's bugging practise, which is what the next tutorial will look at.
Thank you for making this tutorial Crispy. :-)
I have already sent a link for our beta testers, as there is a LOT to learn from this article.
Personally, being the beta team leader of our mod, I can't wait to read your upcoming QA management tutorial. ;-)
OH MY GOD this is so awesome.
Looking forward to your QA Lead guide
Good work Crispy.
Thanks for the kind words.
If you have any D class bugs of your own, I am taking all feedback on board to work on improving the tutorial and making it more relevant to more teams. Based on the comments so far, I'll be looking at adding in more stuff relevant to multiplayer testing and also trying to make it clearer what is applicable to smaller mods.
Very interesting read, Crisp.