FZ!

While work’s been keeping me very busy, I’ve been having a grand time with the folks from that excellent community/art/game SF0, particularly the subset of us in and around the capital, or DC0.

I’m excited to announce that out biggest event is coming this May: Survive DC!

We’ll be hosting a game of Journey to the End of the Night in the DC area. It’s part tag, part race, with just a little touch of scavenger hunt added for good measure. It’s free and all-ages appropriate, although you should be comfortable running around through the city at night. More importantly, it’s also a great way to meet people in the area, to get an adrenaline rush, and to explore the city by night.

Hope to see you all there!

The astute observer may realize that it’s been a while since I posted. I can only say, in my defense, that you’ll have an opportunity to read quite enough of my writing in Fall ‘08.

Bioshock

But I was glad to take the opportunity of the long weekend to dive into a pair of fascinating satirical works: Bioshock - the lush, terrifying rejection of Objectivism that’s been the talk of the gaming community - and The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil - the tiny, surreal exploration of man’s search for validation that’s been the talk of five or six really observant literature geeks.

Having literally been late to the game with Bioshock, there’s very little I can comment on that hasn’t already been covered in more detail and with more interesting insight by others, from Lorenzo Wang’s exceptionally thorough (and spoiler-riffic!) artistic critique of its story and themes to Leigh Alexander’s examination of creepy little girls in video games.

For my part, I share the love of the game that permeates the internet. But I was most fascinated by the quality of its narrative. While the general story arc was no surprise to those who enjoyed its spiritual predecessor, it was presented quite well, and I feel I was even more engrossed in it because it was a satire of elements with which I was already familiar. The touch of familiarity allowed it to be more engaging, but even moreso, it meant the work engaged me on multiple levels - as a shooter game, as a story of survival and free will, and as a critical refutation of a philosophy.

It shares this multi-level enjoyment with Candide, another grand story written as a refutation of a philosophy, although I’d say Candide’s life was harder than Jack’s in Bioshock. They’d certainly have some tales to share of the fabulous cities they visited and how badly their lives were ruined. But I digress.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

I also had the chance to begin and almost immediately finish George Saunders’ excellent and quite tiny book, “The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil,” a book so short and engrossing that it reads faster than Margaret Luongo’s critical review of it. It’s a surreal satire highlighting the human condition in general, and our nationalism, demagoguery, and desperate reaches for validation in particular. All through the use of defective alien robots and a country whose boundaries are marked with colored string.

As a satire working with man’s dearch for validation, Reign of Phil deals with issues that are more relevant to today’s world than Bioshock does - although exploring the nature of free will is one of those things that never goes out of style, like an excellent pair of shoes. But Reign of Phil can easily be misinterpreted as a shallow refutation of the current administration, rather than an examination of a larger issue, and I worry that this will cause it to be dismissed too quickly by nearly half of the US audience.

Or, at least, by half of the US audience that isn’t already turned off by a world where sarcastic cow heads grow from the ground and the titular character’s brain is only barely attached by a wobbly bolt. Which is a shame, because even if you ignore the underlying message of the satire, it’s a fun little read.

On Satire

In the past, I used to love works of pure fantasy, from the broad, mythic strokes of Tolkien (who insisted that his works were never allegorical) to the more lighthearted works of Brian Jacques. I read Candide for the ridiculous story. The same is true for any number of games of my youth, the vast majority of which bore no connection to the world around me at all - neither Mario nor Sonic ever highlighted follies of the human condition, unless they were in relation to man’s pursuit of more coins or rings.

More and more, I find myself most satisfied by good satire in my stories. This holds across all narrative forms, from literature (with the playful fantastic satires of George Saunders or Terry Pratchett), to the screen (with rapier and main-gauche wits of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report), to games (with the darkest of satires in Bioshock and, of course, Fallout). I even recently re-read Candide along with a research guide so I could appreciate the philosophical points it was disputing.

And while I enjoy a good satire’s effect of seeing my world clearly through carnival mirrors, I wonder at the reasons for this trend. Is it a personal shift in tastes, or is it more common in others? Or is a larger shift in the way more stories are presented?

Is this a strictly personal development in taste - a desire for more and deeper levels of meaning in my stories, or an interest in stories that relate

As genres blend, is it becoming possible to view nearly everything as a satire on some level? Are satirical elements becoming more and more common in our collective works?

Is it simply that, in our rather ridiculous world, some of the best narrative works are satirical in nature? As our cultures increasingly feed off themselves, is it only a natural progression that those that do so with humor are bound to be described as satire?

Or am I just being too influenced by two excellent pieces of work I just experienced?

I’ve been mighty busy working and posting to the Fallout 3 forum, but over the weekend I took a break to visit my family. And while I was there, my ever-talented mother and I had a little fun with hair dye.

In honor of the first tantalizing glimpse of work at the Fallout Forum, I figured I’d put up a little image I whipped up last Valentine’s Day. It’s just a modification of an already-known public piece of Fallout 3 promotional material, which was done by a fellow who’s a much better artist than I am.

I never expected it to go outside the internal company, but Ashley really liked it, and suddenly it got out to the world. It’s quite an honor, really, and while it’s obviously not anything like an official statement of what the game is like, it is a nice little thing to share with everyone else who loves the games as much as I do.

Now, back to work for me!

Certain sections of the internet have caught fire with Goldmania, as a variety of dedicated geeks discover that some of their favorite web artists have had their images systematically plagiarized by a millionaire artist and his T-shirt company, selling highly derivative versions of their works everywhere from Hot Topic to fine art galleries. The plagiartist in question is one Todd Goldman, and as happy coincidence would have it, he’s also a tremendous asshole. It’s nice when antagonists are clearly unlikeable.

For those few of you who haven’t read about this situation on your counter-culture site of choice, Eliza Gauger does an excellent job of compiling and presenting the major pieces of evidence.

However, the real investigative work on this matter was not done by her - it was done by numerous individuals, spread across the goons at the Something Awful forums to individual coders, web artists, and other persistent internet sleuths. Goldman’s works were viewable on the internet, and when hundreds of eyes looked through them all for plagiarism, and compared them to the works of whichever artists they knew, a staggering amount of evidence was compiled.

Over the course of a few weeks, this case has gone from one artist noticing a blatant plagiarism to thousands of people on the internet becoming aware of that plagiarism and dozens more. Goldman’s response has gone from ignoring the accusations to legal run-arounds to calling his accusers pedophiles to threatening libel suits against those who compile the evidence. And all the while, his works are being suspended from sale at a growing number of outlets.

Now, that’s interesting enough in its own mice-teaming-up-against-the-cat fashion. But it’s even more encouraging when seen as a major confirmation of collective intelligence claims made by (my game design heroine) Jane McGonigal.

In a recent, and intellectually scintillating article in the San Francisco Weekly, Jane McGonigal spoke of how players of her Alternate Reality Games pool their collective intelligence and creativity to find answers to mind-bogglingly obscure references, deeply hidden clues, and Gordian puzzles. And furthermore, she shares how many of them had attempted to harness this same collective intelligence to solve real-world puzzles, like tracking down the Beltway Sniper of 2002, or investigating government waste in spending.

These real-world applications had not come to fruition, she says, because these real-world applications did not have clues that were available enough to “players”, and results were neither regular nor rewarding enough to keep “players” excited and interested. In essence, real world puzzles weren’t too difficult, they just weren’t interesting enough.

However, here we have a clear-cut case of a collective intelligence in action solving a real-world problem. Because there were a ready number of clues, a strong incentive of righteous indignation at plagiarism by the wealthy, and a steady sense of progress as Goldman’s facade has begun to unravel, these investigators have continued and surged in strength. And slowly but surely, McGonigal’s claims of collective intelligence are vividly supported - when presented in an engaging manner, there’s a tremendous amount of information to be obtained through human computation.

Of course, for anyone who’s been following McGonigal’s new “World Without Oil” - going live in a scant 2 days - it’s already quite clear how applicable the collective intelligence harnessed in an Alternate Reality Game can be. But the results of this very standard-reality occurrence should highlight the power of collective intelligence for problem solving and investigation for any of the holdouts who still dismiss them.

At very least, that’s one plagiarist who won’t dismiss them anymore.

So, I have a funny relationship with life. I set up interesting potential narratives, and then it brings them to fruition, giving me interesting stories and anecdotes to share. It’s a little arrangement we’ve got going, and it’s been pretty successful over the years.

Well, you may have noticed my most recent two posts were about: (1) how I’m planning on updating more often, and (2) how effective working in QA can be for preparing a person for other development positions. Funny thing about that, you see…

Apparently, the narrative universe realized that it was a perfect time to fill up my free time by leading me to a new, higher position at work. Sure, I may have done the working, writing, applying, interviewing, and general awesome-Fred-being that impressed the right folks, but my life is too full of happy coincidences to take full credit for it. At least, doing so would shatter what vestiges of humility I’ve still got.

So obviously I’ll be busy forging my creativity into concrete results outside of this webpage, but I’ll still keep the updates coming. As always, they won’t be about my particular workplace or, of course, anything on which I’m working. That would hardly be professional. But the observations about the industry will continue unabated.
After all, I’ve just moved to a slightly different perspective, and that’s bound to lead to new insights!

Since I’ve just made this site known on my personal journal, it stands to reason that it’ll actually start having steady readers of its own. And that means it’s my responsibility to keep these guests entertained.

Nay, it is my solemn duty to feed the hungry maw of curious readership, and to keep at bay its furious boredom. Oh yes.

To that end, I promise a more regular update schedule, and a feed for RSS 2.0. And while today’s update is but a mere downpayment on the promise of regular updates, I can offer you the full RSS feed right here and right now. Enjoy!

By now, you may have noticed that working in Quality Assurance is generally a low-paying, time-consuming, and largely-thankless job. It’s a rare beast that decides the QA life is for them, choosing low pay and prestige, to act as the perpetual proofreader. So, why do people actually take Quality Assurance jobs?

Everyone loves to compare games with the film industry, so let’s see if we can find any parallels in the cinema. During the growth of the film industry, there was a story that everyone knew:

A bright and promising youth would go to the movies and somehow the flickering images would ignite their imaginations. They would yearn to be the shining star on the silver screen, become enraptured with the possibilities of the camera’s lens, or feel their own stories well within them and ache to tell them to the world. And unlike the passing fancies of so many of their fellows, they would stick to their vows that someday it would be they - yes, they! - that would be the name behind the film! And to achieve those distant dreams, they would pack up everything they owned and embark for the big city in the West and its big studios, wrapped in confidence of their unique talent.

And then they would find that they weren’t the only prospector to flock to California’s second gold rush, struggling to stake their claim to fortune on the silver screen.

Some would take any job near a studio, waiters and cigarette girls hoping that their brilliance would catch the eye of a big name who would open all of the doors to them. Occasionally, it would work, but for most of these hapless souls, their time would lead only to bitterness and frustration. Some incredibly skilled few actually would have the skills to get in the door, but for each that became a sensation, others withered under the real strains of the industry.

But for most that made good, success came from taking whatever work they could find on a set, starting as a simple grip or assistant, and learning the real skills of their craft by watching everyone else on the set. They worked their jobs and studied the jobs of those around them, earning respect and trust until they found their chance to shine. They were apprentices who learned their crafts from the ground up.

Fade up to the present day, and you’ll see that at least as many promising young talents are entranced by the sparkle and gleam of games. They yearn to draw that dashing hero, to push that powerful processor, or to introduce players to the worlds within their minds. And unlike so many of their fellows on the fora, they take the chance that they - yes, they! - would be the name on the box. And to achieve those dreams, they pack up their best works and apply to those big studios around the globe.

And like their predecessors, they find that they aren’t the only person on the ‘net to try to get to that glittering gem.

Some spread themselves across the internet, posting in fora and news sites, hoping their insights would catch the eye of a big company who would open their doors to them. Occasionally, it works, but for most of those hapless souls, they descend into cultish sniping and deluded irrelevance. Some incredibly skilled few have the portfolio to get hired from obscurity, but for each wonderboy that becomes a steady force, others cannot handle the responsibility of working with a team.

But for most who make good, success comes from taking the jobs available at a game studio, starting as an intern, QA tester, or (heaven help them) as tech support. And from there, they begin the task of learning the real skills of their craft by watching the teams around them.

In one of these positions, an observant worker can see the many difficulties in the rough path a game takes towards completion. And nothing exposes a learner to
more of these mistakes than working in Quality Assurance as a tester. Testers see every mistake made and corrected, uncover every flaw found and fixed, and
log more hours on a game than any other human would ever consider. And, at every step, a clever tester learns about how to create game art, program functional code, and write gripping stories.

There’s simply no better apprenticing.

People occasionally ask what skills it takes to be hired in Quality Assurance.

Okay, that’s a damned lie. Most people are only interested in working in QA as a way to get their foot in the door of the games industry.

But more on that in another post.

Regardless of your reasons for working as a tester, there are some important skills that you must develop to provide quality quality assurance. And they aren’t all what one might expect.

First, the big misconception about working in QA: people outside the games industry think it’s just “playing games all day”. This is sort of like describing gardening as “playing in the grass all day”. Sure, it’ll help if you enjoy that, but it’s definitely underselling the work that’s done.

A Quality Assurance tester is given an early build of a game and then told to find ways to break it. When we find problems, ranging from “here’s a typo” to “this wall doesn’t look right” to “doing things in this complex, obscure order makes this other thing act incorrectly”, then we write detailed descriptions of the problem, how we caused it, and how it can be caused again. If we’re really good - and I am - then we include information pertinent to how it may be fixed (debugging info, dump logs, etc).

A brief disclaimer: technically, this is more accurately known as “Quality Control”, with “Quality Assurance” referring to creation of effective production methods. And yet, it’s still generally called “QA” at many studios. I blame the fact that “QA” is a much catchier acronym than “QC,” and now we’re stuck with it. It’s just as well: if we were called “Quality Testing”, then we’d be forever stuck with people calling us “cuties.”

Regardless, it relies on a strange mix of skills. A good QA tester needs:

Gaming Familiarity - You don’t need to be a game virtuoso, but you need to be able to interact with the game all day, every day, for months. You should be able to play at least as well as the average player, just so you can get your work done and explore the game properly. But try not to play too much better than average all the time - otherwise, you won’t be checking the game thoroughly and realistically.

Observation - Not every bug is as obvious as a crash. Sometimes, a bug will go unnoticed by testers for months, just because no one thought to look at the monster from behind, or no one really read the captions of the conversational dialogue all that closely. In a section that every tester had seen, I found a misuse of “loath” instead of “loathe“. It’s probably the most nitpicking of bugs I’ve found, but it’s still a mistake that can be corrected for a better final product. The devil may not be in the details, but the bugs often are.

Clear, Tactful Communication - You need to be able to clearly express exactly what the problem is and how to recreate it, all while maintaining a certain amount of tact. Remember, you’re talking about how you broke something they’ve been working on for months, and people can get testy. Sadly, the downside of the gaming industry’s loose attitude is the occasional risk of unprofessional egos, so know how to tread lightly when critiquing.

Creativity - Anyone can test for the obvious things, but the bigger and more open the game you’re testing, the more you need to be ready to try crazy shit and see if that works. You need to be able to play a game in a hundred different ways, because there are ten million users out there who want to play the game their way, and they will complain if it doesn’t work.

Development Familiarity - The more familiar you are with the fundamentals of the programming, art, and design sides of the particular game you’re working with, the more specific your bug analysis can be, and the quicker your bugs can be fixed. You can’t be patronizing in your analysis, since they sure as hell know their side better than you, but knowing what clues are useful and what’s chaff makes a big difference.

And, of course, none of these skills will help a tester stand out unless they’re paired with the most important QA skill:

Perseverance - You will be working on the same game every hour, every day, every week, for months. Even the most complex and deepest games will become routine to you. You will hear the same dialogue, complete the same missions, and face the same monsters until they invade your dreams. If you can’t find a way to keep yourself interested, fresh, and energetic, your excitement at working in the games industry will burn out and wither after a few short weeks.

And if you burn out because you lack perseverance, all of your other skills will be useless.

But then again, that can be said of most worthwhile tasks in life, can’t it?

I’d like to apologize for the long delay between posts. Obviously, I’m still getting the whole site fully operational, and the various distractions of the holiday season weren’t any sort of help. Playing around with development of a card game hasn’t exactly helped my free time, either…

Still, I’m back now, and I’ve had plenty of ideas percolating. So let’s get right back to it!