JagexBreezy

I got into QA at Jagex as it was a good entry point into the industry. I had never done QA before and didn't really know what was involved either.

I studied game design in university. After graduating I did a stint as a researcher for a nearby university creating VR/AR app prototypes for their clients, and then went back to teach/mark projects at my old university for about a month. At that point i applied for Jagex and here i am.

QA and really any other role can differ depending on what company or studio you're at. At a baseline there are many similarities of course, and the knowledge/experience required is always invaluable.

Client restarts (coldfixes) are required whenever any client data has changed, which is almost every time we reboot the servers.

Hotfixes are purely server-only changes that take effect immediately; since no client data changes, no reload is needed.

We also have the ability to do "warmfixes" for some specific client changes. Those require a client restart to load the new version of the client, but you're still able to play in the moment.

Posted a long response to a similar question. https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/sttlkk/game_development_reddit_qa_with_mod_breezy/hxawyc5/

Any form of comp sci/game development is a great start. No matter what type of work you do, games related or not, if you're able to translate your learning and skills to match what's required of you, you'll be in a good spot. There isn't really a "right" answer, and if you'd like to give yourself more options, maybe general comp sci courses ...

Like one of my uni lecturers once said, a degree is simply a license to hunt, hunting successfully is down to you. Realistically, any form of degree will display your ability to do various things, and that's good on it's own. In any industry you'll be surprised to find people come from many backgrounds. A degree related to the field you're going in to, however, is of course a better start. Knowing software development, project management, game design and development etc. is a great platform to start from.

In my time at Jagex i've seen people come from some very cool and strange backgrounds and industries, and the game industry atleast doesn't discriminate in this sense... But thats because employability is more important. What each industry deems as employable will be different. In general though being mature, confident, professional, knowledgeable and just generally a good person to get along with in the workplace will do wonders for you.

RE: the games/tech indust...

A lot of what i'd suggest is going to be things you could apply to any situation in life. Generally you want to pace yourself and assess your productivity, but be nice to yourself.

I think one of the best ways to avoid this is to agree (with yourself or others) towards an iteration and work toward that and only that. Be it a prototype or something further down the line. Once you're at the end of the prototype "playtest" it and then write down your thoughts and ideas.

"Feature creeping" things in your head mid-development can be great for cool ideas but if it's leading you down rabbit holes and being overwhelmed then it's best to write them down somewhere whether it's a sticky note or spider diagram etc. and forget about them. Pacing yourself with your work will give you lots of breathing room, and most importantly allow you to view the product as a whole rather than being lost somewhere in the middle.

Hope that helps. I'd also recommend looking into working...

There's two ways to answer this. I'll start by saying the recent iteration of Ninja didn't focus on bugs, instead that's a shared responsibility amongst all dev team on a regular basis.

In terms of how we prioritised what work we did in Ninja, we would look at the impact vs. scope/risk. For every iteration of Ninja, the ideal was high impact, low scope. That is - deliver the most impactful QoL change that's also quick to develop. If a single delivery from the team consisted of only that then that's the best thing ever. Of course, real life doesn't work in ideals and so it varies. Realistically a typical Ninja strike would then focus on delivering at least a handful of high impact changes with slightly less regard for scope required.. and then other changes on any part of the spectrum. This is all to put it loosely, it could get quite complex as to how we assess our time and whatever else might be going on around us in that moment.

In terms of how bugs are prioritis...

Very often, on any given day you could be in contact with anyone anywhere.

Let's take a live bug as one example. You could be talking to people from various other teams/departments to investigate it. Maybe that bug is simple and just deals with some content so you only need to talk to a content developer, if any. Sometimes it's more in depth and requires engine or platform work so you need to speak to someone from those teams. Maybe you need to discuss item refunds or bug abuse with player support teams. If said bug requires removal/refunding of items or variables then maybe you need to speak to the analytics teams to gather data on who's affected, to provide to player support. If that then needs more, you might need to speak to the community management team to communicate said information.

That's just one example, but none of that is the typical flow, it could go any way. We also communicate with other teams as we're involved in risk assessment, triaging of issues,...

Hi all, I'm Mod Breezy, QA Analyst on the Content team for RuneScape, and I'm hosting a Q&A session about game development.

Whenever I can, I like to enlighten people on how different aspects of game development work because it's super fun and interesting. It can be very mysterious as to what goes on behind the scenes of any job, so whether you're a curious gamer or an aspiring game dev here's your chance to find out more about game development.

Do you want to know how mechanics are designed? How QA processes work? Do you wonder why or how we decide what mechanics of an update we keep or cut? Are you curious about the pipeline of production or… what a producer even is? This is your opportunity to find out!

Post your questions in this thread and I will reply to the most interesting questions over the following days. Feel free to up-vote any questions you like too.

I won't be answering questions unrelated to game development - anything such as "what up...

"not much to most" is definitely not true. Well done on an incredible achievement!

Hey, just letting you this is known and we're looking into it :)

Hello, can you DM me your RSN please?

There is an impostor among us amogus!

This has now been hotfixed :)

See my comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/q13gbm/clue_puzzle_boxes_are_broken/hfh4d9b/

This has not been hotfixed: https://twitter.com/RuneScape/status/1445375723158507523?s=20

The hotfix means there'll be a very slight delay when opening slider puzzles. We'll resolve this when we do a full fix.

Hey, Reaper points/Marks of War at Glacor were actually changed, the patch note just slipped through the cracks and was missed from the news post. I've asked CM to add it :)

Commented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/q13gbm/clue_puzzle_boxes_are_broken/hfcfoh1/

Just here to let you know we're aware and looking at a fix for it :)

You can win per day, not a one and done situation

The tickets from skilling/killing are fairly uncommon. They’re not like event tokens, but more like the random Treasure Hunter keys you get from skilling/killing every so often

1. Yeah. You can win a new set/prize from any category you entered each day if you’re lucky. For example if you enter both Golden God Wars and God Swords in one day, you can win both, or win one and not the other etc.

2. Fair point, will pass on to the CM/news post teams