MMORPG GAME TESTING ON WINDOWS, MAC & LINUX

With its teams already spread across United States, United Kingdom, Asia and China, working with a remote team wasn’t new for our client. But for obvious reasons there’s always inertia that ‘first’ time. Here too, there were apprehensions initially about outsourcing their testing work to India, concerns about the quality of work, the lack of ‘complete’ control, data privacy and integrity, concerns and questions about the team that would be working on the application. To add to it, Mindfire was a green horn to the MMORPG (Massively Multiple Online Role Playing Games) genre. Nevertheless, with our certified and experienced team members and proven results in the past, it wasn’t long before we had established an association with the client. What started as a pilot project with 3 team members for regression tests, to be reconsidered later, went to become a full fledged project with 9 members on board within a year’s time. In addition to the testing services, the team is now also involved in every QA decision made for the application. With its feet strong in the ground and several successful releases and accomplishments, Mindfire continues to adhere to the client needs, with all gusto and consistency.

Client: A leading developer of PC web-based games

Location: Europe

Industry: Software

Outsourcing the testing services, gave the client all the time to concentrate on their core designing and development activities while the Mindfire team would help handle the validation work. With the client’s openness and Mindfire’s rich experience with the remote work protocol, Mindfire soon earned the client’s confidence.

• Initial discussions included interview and access proposed resources: A software test lead and 2 software testers.
• Co-ordinate with the clients QA point of contact and thoroughly study the test requirements (releases, builds, defect tracker, product knowledge, workflow).
• Test planning, testing schedule, chalk down risks involved with contingency plans.

The architecture mostly deployed for MMORPG’s is the client server architecture. The software that generates and persists the virtual “world” runs continuously on a server, and players connect to it via client software..

The client continues to benefit from the services provided by the virtual team with its available as and when needed considering the new methodology adapted. Its already rich data repository has grown richer with the virtual teams’ interference!