I'm that person who tries to exploit geometry (lol at least I admit it) in order to get somewhere else faster or find the highest point of a hill or mountain. I become easily frustrated when I run into invisible walls and it absolutely destroys my immersion. Fortunately McQuaid and his team are known for following the "if you can see it, you can go there" structure.
I have tested and reported so many games i dont know where to start. I try to look for any UI bugs first, oddy interactions and report first. I think load in, and doing normal game play interactions with players and the enviroment. If i see anything i look for LOCation type areas that seem to be worthy to report. I look for network lag, UI issues, and links that do not fit right.
We have so many different type of players, so if i where to say, we have our crafters who are hardcore bug testers in that field, then we have our combat specilists that look for parsing and odds in that area then we have our explorers. So i fit right in the middle of it all, playing the game but reporting as i go.
I used to also do video streams to prove the point to the devs, but that is very taxing on yourself and the devs to followup on it.
First and formost looking for a place to properally report bugs is the most important feature a tester could have, but open dialog with the intern devs or levels of development to report these problems.
I hope to be able to help, paid or not paid position and progress this forward to beta.
I've been a software engineer for 10+ years, so my style of testing is obviously of the automated variety.
When I "test" an MMO alpha/beta, I look for bugs I think have a good chance of being present based on my experience in other MMOs. Things like inventory item duplications, skills that don't do the damage they are supposed to do, holes in the world in the usual places, menu related UI bugs, getting mobs stuck on world geometry...all the typical bugs that plague MMOs.
I spend a good amount of time detailing how to reproduce the bugs I find. Unfortunately, I've yet to be part of an alpha/beta where I see the bugs I report addressed. After spending 10-15 hours reporting such bugs, and not seeing them fixed (or even acknowledged) within a week or so, I typically stop "testing" and start "playing".
I suppose simply having players in the world is useful, and I guess that's all most games want from testers.
I'll start out giving Pantheon the benefit of the doubt that they actually want testers to find and help squash bugs...until they show that's not the case.
It's been a long time since I've really beta test a game. In the last few years, I would use open Betas as a chance to get the game early. When I was a teenager though, I would help my dad Beta-test games that he got access to. I was directly in the beta for Vanguard, and indirectly involved in the beta for City of Heroes, Horizons, Star Wars: Galaxies, Everquest 2, and possibly another one or two I'm forgetting. I also was in the Path of Exile beta, but I was turned off by the game early and quit.
I've learned a lot about QA in that time, and I regularly report bugs and trawl forums on games I play now. When I'm playing a game I try and do a normal playthrough and don't do things specifically to hunt for bugs, but any bug I find I try and reproduce it if possible and write in as much detail as possible. Knowing a little bit about logic models and programming structure can sometimes give me a guess on where the game went wrong, but I was told once in a dev e-mail from the Vanguard beta to stop including my theories because he lost half-an-hour trying to find the problem I thought it was when it was actually something else entirely. (Don't remember what the problem was now, it was something with a Diplomacy encounter not resolving correctly.)
I don't really have the patience for Alpha games, I have a lot of strong opinions on UI, accessibility of game mechanics, and visuals that I don't have fun Alpha testing, but usually Beta is complete enough that I can have useful input. 'Placeholder' graphics and textures make me unreasonably upset.
I've been in more Alphas and Betas than I care to admit to. I will be the first to admit I like trying to break game mechanics. I know saying that comes with a bit of eye roll, but it's fun. If anything does get found detailed steps in replication are given/reported.
/shrug. I just get bored and things happen
I have tested many games since I played EQ. I guess I found that when it comes testing im more of the combat mechanics tester along with lore and questing line up where it makes sense and intrigueing. I have tried collision testing and class balance testing but it was not thing. Especially with class balancing. I truelly beleive balancing of classes is best to leave it be. Let the classes play pro and cons and all that.
I'm a Fester Bestertester sort of tester.
I can't believe I totally missed my chance to post this on January 31.
... just waiting for the gorilla suits to show up.
HA!
(there, how is that for obscure old school).
Seriously, though, I'm a "test this" sort of tester where it is already predefined what I am supposed to be testing.
