Trenthian

WITS? srsly

Nice to see it here.

TL;DR QA is where they put good and talented people, to store them for later use. QA wears you down, while you wait for someone upstairs to either quit, or get fired. If you have enough talent, sometimes they will outright replace someone if you manage to stand out properly. Problem is, QA is a very, very difficult place to be after 6 months. You become jaded towards games, and you lose a lot of sleep due to the hours. I have worked QA for 4 1/2 of my 6 years in the industry. I moved from QA to production technician after applying several times. PROMOTION IS NOT for everyone. Of the people in QA, not everyone is talented in some other area outside of finding bugs. These people have less of a shot of being promoted save for anything but lead tester and futures in upper QA management. Of those QA testers that do have that extra something, if they suck at bug writing, they get it the hardest. After a project wraps up, the company will usually only keep a handful of its best and brightest testers around. People they keep are those who still after months of grueling work never complain, do not talk much, and sit down and do their job tirelessly. The rest are let go or put on call through the temp agency they were hired through. Complicating the matter is that there are so limited the number of so called Permenant positions that they have to put even some of thier really great people on call. During my four 1/2 years as a tester, I had been on call twice, one was between Job A and Job B (A long time ago before Job B bought Job A) and the other was when I got to Job D, I was on call for a week before they called me back and I never went on call again. So these golden testers who manage to cheat the odds and stay on active duty will be the ones considered for futures in QA's upper management. Of these Golden testers, some of them are crafty enough to in a non invasive way get their name and or talent out there into the eyes of producers and developers. A place like Job D is more of a publisher and as such, you are a lot less likely to get jobs involving direct development such as art, programming, sound or anything that goes into the game. You might make a suggestion in a bug (which they dont like you to do) on how to do something better in the game, and get a little attention that way from he actual develper, but I have never seen anyone actually get a job this way. At a publisher, the jobs you will be shooting for are Associate producer (entry level outside of QA) Marketing Assistant (Entry level) Marketing art Brand associate (Entry level) There are other jobs that are on the radar, from QA at a publisher. Public relations positions have their entry level and anything associated with brand management is what you will find at a publisher. At a developer, things are MUCH different. A lot of Developers routinely keep a team of about 7 - 10 testers per project that are looking for stuff in a smoke test sort of way. Their job is to find the biggest stuff right away, things that crash the game. You wil be going into levels assigned by an associate producer, or even a lead tester, employed by the developer, or commuting from the publisher themself. Once in these levels, you will smoke test them. This means you check to see that you can get into gameplay, exit rinse repeat with every level. In the beginning there are usually debug cheats here to help facilitate this. Later on you wil literally have to know the game inside and out and do run throughs as fas as you can. Sometimes the publisher handles run throughs later on and the developer side testers look for more advanced A priority bugs. Crashes, Stuck gameplay. Falling out of world bugs that prevent level completion. To get into a developer as a tester is a LOT harder. But once there, if you do your job and do it well, you have an AMAZING oportunity to show the people who make games what you have got, be it programming, producer skills, Art skills, website skills, level and gameplay design skills. Talk with your immediate NON-publisher leader( such as the developer's associate producer and if possible skip him and make friends with an actual producer), and give him your portfolio. Remember to be polite and not too pushy. My original team at Job A all moved on to development. I was foolish and went to Job B instead of staying. Whatever you do, SHOOT FOR LONGEVITY at the company you work at. The longer you are there, the more loyalty ou build. People like familiar faces, and are more likely to pay attention to someone who they remember as always being friendly. I hope this has been insightful. SALARIES IN GAME TESTING ENTRY LEVEL Development houses will pay less than Publishers. in the 9 - 11 dollars an hour area with about 8 - 12 hours a day, sometimes more hours right off the start. As a project gets near completion get ready fo 6 back to back 14 hour days. Developer Publishers will pay more than Developers 10 - 12 $ an hour. Same schedual as development QA. PUBLISHERS the big guys- pay the best in QA. 10 -14 an hour. Everything else is up to you and pays better. Here is a development house job flow chart This is not to be taken as a empirical source, but a guideline on where the different sides of the game industry lead. QA Tester -> (Choose one: Production, Developement, Resources) Production flow chart Associate -> Producer -> Exec prod. (college req'd) Development ( Art, Level Design, Gameplay designer, Programmer, Game Engineer, Writer) Tester -> Sold Soul -> Level one of the catgory -> level 2 -> level 3 -> Senior Resources (IT, HR, Admin, Web, PR) These places are less flow charty, and more targeted. You find these jobs and go after them. There are less of these than any other job in the other two categories. Publisher house flow charts. QA tester level 1 -> (Choose one: QA, Production, Marketing, Admin.) QA: There are multiple departments to Publisher house QA. General QA, Technical requirements group (TRG), Standardization and Foriegn language Testing (FLT) The non-general QA branches accept testers of all walks, be it tester level 1, 2 or captains based on interviews and tenure. Flow cart Tester level 1 -> Tester 2 (the so called permenant. this is where you might want to consider looking for ways onto other departmens if that is your goal) -> Captain (Not an official title, or rise in pay, but a lot of companies have captains that act as assistant lead testers, these are the guys being groomed for a lead tester position) -> Lead Tester -> QA test Manager -> QA Supervisor -> QA Floor Manager (college) -> QA Director (College) Production flow chart: Tester level 2 & up -> Associate producer - Producer -> So forth I dont know much about marketing or the other parts of the developer, save for that it is lot easier to get those jobs if you are a tester at the company, because they WILL look at your resume before someone out there on the internet, or walk in. Unless a higher up is showing nepotism to a friend or outside source. But there is an abridged trenthian guide to QA in development and publishing.

Tetris style folk DreidelDreidel go go!

Reuben was a wonderful young man. It is most unfortunate for all of us to lose such an amazing person. Myself and many others will never forget him. I cannot begin to imagine how this tragic turn must make you feel, but please allow me to express my most sincere sympathy. Reuben will always have a special place in the hearts of many.

This is so utterly unbelievable! I dont have words to describe what I feel about this matter. I hope he was prepared for this, and faced his trial with bravery and had no regrets.

Remember to be thankful for... Turkey, Football, Consumer goods, Geographic displacement and the disruption of lifeways, Programmed ethnic population decline, Blankets that had been exposed to smallpox, Deliberate well and groundwater poisoning, Other fun white man diseases including typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis. Let us all remember... The massacres, The murder, The rape, The sacking, The enslavement The countless extincted groups, The people who died to offer us taco Tuesdays. And most importantly, let us remember Turduckins, and convenient living.

It is a very sad thing indeed. Tragic that any life was lost. I have to say though, I am glad that YOU JJT and your friends are alive, and well. That is something I am sure you can be thankful about.

I can't believe the influx of nublets coming to the site and hating on this track. Anyone who cant see the brilliance in this track and then feels its nessecary to talk trash needs to be made sterile. Get a life detractors.

Trenthian's Ultimate bedroom. My ultimate bedroom would consist of a second floor room accessible by two hatches on both ends of the room. The hatches would be controlled via a voice activated lock. When not in use, the hatches would be part of the rooms floor. When commanded, the hatch would open up ( provided there was no pressure on it from above) and decend down to the ground floor by forming a stairway. The stairs would of course do a visual scan to make sure the area below was clear before decending. If for some reason or another the stairs were unable to come down, there would be a seekrit third stairway accesible via hidden doors. There is nothing automatic or mechanical about this hidden stairwell, its just secret and shouldn't be used except in emergency. Inside the room: The floors would be thick with carpet. the room itself would have five walls, forming an equilateral pentagon. Above the room would be a loft area extending over a third of the room and sectioned off with a safety railing. The walls themselves would be very high indeed allowing me to comfortably stand and stretch in the loft area. I would have the walls textured with large stones like the interior of a castle. Towards the cieling, I would have it look as though the castle has been falling apart, revealing a sky landscape painting in panoramic view. The Cieling would be painted to be a view of the night sky at twilight. The sleeping area would be available through yet another hatch, leading to the loft area mentioned before. The hatch would be located in an invented constellation in the shape of my sigil. I would have a california king bed, partitioned off from the rest of the loft area with a heavy curtain. There would also be a writing desk up there, with shelving fully supplied with a superb stationary collection, and a bedford writer's guide. Next to the bed on both sides there would be a manually posable hydrolic arm extending from the wall, supporting a 2x2 table space, which could extendover the bed, to support a lptop or something like that if you felt like being really lazy, and keeping warm. Everything in the room would be custom crafted. I would have a mastercrafted wooden bedroom set in the loft area. Down in the main space would be a Large wraparound work table, with one main multimedia PC with top of the line everything, and 4 secondary systems, loaded primarily for speed, data storage and network. They would be used as a PC farm for my music projects. In this workspace, I would have my keyboards racked so I could play them seated. I would have a large printer capable of printing out conductor's scores, and large ornate parts for orchestra. I mentioned that the room should be large. At the push of a button, from slits 10 feet up the wall, sound treatment curtain would unroll, and make the room suitable for recording and monitor playback. In the room I would have a shelf area, stacked with drum shells, and cymbals. This shelf area would sit behind a two level drumrack, and I could add or subtract shells and pieces to my drumkit as desired. There would be a minifridge and watercooler. ( for mountain dew, beer, snacks and water of course!) I would have a sandwich closet. ( a place to store bread, and sandwich makings) I would have a large comfy couch paired with memory foam ottomans. Im thinking a large top of the line DLP screen, complete with Wii, PS2, Snes, DVD, CCTV, and Gaming PC. The house this room was in would be part of a 10MBPS wireless interenet signal. On one of the five walls would be an intercom, and dumbwaiter type thing leading to the outside world. I could order the finest takeouts or pinkdot and have it delivered directly into the room. There would be a trash chute leading to a large trashbin/dumpster outside. It would of course be odor free somehow. So basically the room would be kinda like a music making, fun having, thought inviting fortress that I could sustain myself in for weeks if need be. One day. ::sigh::

More like Caramell O's with Marshmallow men in drag.

Hello, a friend of mine has something really impoartant due and his MAC just shit bricks. I know nothing about MACs. Maybe somone can shed some light. His MAC crashed, and when it restarted, it seems to have a changed backround, and duplicate desktop folders. There are missing files, and folders. Anyone have an explanation? if so please IM me on aim : trenthian or send me a pm, and bump this thread till I give the all clear.

gamasutra.com

link(gannon) or it didnt happen. Oh, man... I dont know what to say, besides I still want to eat your children once they have been prepared.

I was wondering what musical achievements people, especially mixers here are most proud of. I would like to see only your personal achievements, not tales of notoriety, or how other people see you, but how YOU see you and are proud of. Ill start us off by saying, Today I woke up. I said I wanted to sing an Eb. I sang one and it was fantastic. I can give an Eb, B natural, A Natural, Bb and F on command now. I am still learning to associate other note names with thier tones. it is coming slowly, but its happening! I can feel the cosmos.

man...... cutting it so close... house MD starts at 8:00pm pacific over here. .............. compo would then be starting at 9 correct? hmmm maybe I can make it.

More liek tappy gets expelled. All joking and trolling aside, I love the MGS music, and always have. Regardless of plagerism. and I love the original russian piece a LOT. Saved.

I think you better go back and play it again... you know.. just to be sure 99% of us really didnt hear it in the game. or even on the soundtrack disc, and to make sure this controversy isnt being waged for no reason. Cause Im pretty sure that we as a game music community have forgotten the soundtrack to one of the most popular games in history.

Wow. Are you even listening to it? I think what you mean to say is, "This is not nearly as similar to the Russian tune as you guys are making it out to be." This is also wrong but a more accurate postulation. Nearly every single phrase from the Metal Gear Solid Main theme is present in this russian piece, which I might add was composed way before the original Metal Gear was even a twinkle in anyone's eyes. The rhythms are changed, and the meter is very russian in the original as well as a great deal of mixing and mashing taking place in the tappy version. The only phras really missing, are the opening orchestral riff. But who is to say whether or not that was borrowed from another track on the russians CD. Stolen or even borrowed, its good that people are trying to give credit to people where due. The lines are very hard to draw when it comes to borrowing famous or infamous classical tunes. I highly doubt anyone is asking for any money. It looks just like some russian folks were interested in seeing if they even realized the music was borrowed, and to make them aware for the future, so maybe someone might be credited. At this point there is no question to me, as to whether Tappy arranged the MGS theme from this motif. The only questions remaining, are whether it was borrowed, Stolen, or even used with permission but without credit given.

lol.. man you cost me @1.50 with that text message shael!!

::sniff:: that is so cute.

there is obviously a problem with your genitals then, Try putting on a male to male adaptor, and post resluts.

In a trenthian remix?????????? NEVER. Quite intentional progression really.

wow I thought this was WAY cheesy at first but man once the invasion starts, its a lot cooler. and I got the shivers. Nice.

Man, if I could make it there I would be thrilled. I hate being unable to afford plane tickets.