A Day in the Life of a QA Analyst

A Day in the Life of a QA Analyst

We’ve just published “A Day in the Life… John Shin” on our 20th Anniversary website, chronicling a single day in the life of a QA Analyst III focused on quality assurance for World of Warcraft. John gives you an inside look at testing World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, collaborating with the development team, and staying active while working a busy day at Blizzard Entertainment.

You can read the full article here.

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Comments (18)

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Tointend
Feathermoon
Tointend
2/20/2013
If the story contained something along the lines of:
1st, indexed every new: NPC, Instance, Spell, Talent, Race, Quest, Power, iTem, Raid, Scenario, Algorithm; etc - in short - everthing that a player *might* interact with.
2nd, Formed a master list of every role, task, project, goal, objective, issue, media & outlet where authoritative information information might be useful to have @ the touch of a button: - GMs, future edits/tweaks, Bugfixers, Forum Moderators, The Playerbase, Designers, New Staff, Marketing, etc.
3rd. Assigned someone else appropriate to the project of guaranteeing that they had appropriate access to that information by End.Of.CurrentPatch.
Last. Backed Up information above...
Then, that would have been a really good QA day.
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Tointend
Feathermoon
Tointend
2/20/2013
... Really, anything like that.
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Zárdoz
Caelestrasz
Zárdoz
2/19/2013
What ever happened to Rock and Roll Racing Blizzard like it was the best of fun when I was playing the playstation would love to find out if your doing anything with that concept or game style.
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Dkprincess
Shadowsong
Dkprincess
11/25/2011
wow i thought they would have came up with a better name than mists of pandaria
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Norvallen
Feathermoon
Norvallen
11/15/2011
Who's John's main in SSF4? :o
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Fray
Magtheridon
Fray
11/12/2011
It's likely that the fact that he works out twice a day is dishonest. Possible, but unlikely.
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Beltathar
Eonar
Beltathar
11/10/2011
More of a "day in the life of a QA lead". John Shin is a bit more management than an in the trenches QA person. Still, interesting to hear some of how QA is done for a gigantic project like WoW.
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Evilsnake
Blackrock
Evilsnake
11/10/2011
Nice
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Lorinall
Greymane
Lorinall
11/10/2011
I enjoy these. Keep them coming!
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Lorinall
Greymane
Lorinall
11/10/2011
@Lorinall: Interesting though this was, I was hoping it was going to be the type of QA that deals directly with PTR and Beta/Alpha testers. Those are the guys I'm most interested in since we get to interact with them ourselves.

A day in the life of Sapperwix please?
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Elm
Lightbringer
Elm
11/10/2011
@Lorinall: Maybe after they get done with management they will do the same for the worker bees. As a one time fellow worker bee that would be most interesting to me.

I love these stories, keep em coming :)
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Arlanos
Perenolde
Arlanos
11/10/2011
interesting
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Thander
Bladefist
Thander
11/10/2011
Interesting to see what it's like during crunch time.
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Marchsixx
Hydraxis
Marchsixx
11/10/2011
5th !
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Azureblue
Balnazzar
Azureblue
11/10/2011
4th comment and lul
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Deanykong
Doomhammer
Deanykong
11/10/2011
I was a Software Quality Assurance Analyst once. Software Engineering is waaay more fun.
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Elm
Lightbringer
Elm
11/10/2011
@Deanykong: Me too! But I enjoyed testing and breaking things way more than creating things. I still get into trouble every now and then with my "oo wonder what happens if I do this..." tendency... not cool when trying to actually play a real game and you crash it or lock yourself inside that sprite darter cage and have to beg for help getting out because you don't want to spend 20 mins crossing the continents again... my guildies still make fun of me for that ;)
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will their Be something special in WoW or say some cool collectibles here in there?