Peek inside Lord of the Rings Online's QA team
by Eliot Lefebvre 
Mar 7th 2010 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Bugs, Game mechanics, Patches
Contrary to some popular beliefs, testing generally doesn't consist largely of playing the game -- it's more about finding areas of the game that might be a bit weak and straining them to the breaking point. As the diary points out, it's also about investigating the smaller areas of gameplay that might not be immediately apparent from looking at the big picture. Travel routes, pricing on small-scale consumables, and minor text quibbles aren't easy to spot unless you're looking specifically for places that can be shored up. The full diary is worth reading not just for Lord of the Rings Online players, but anyone interested in seeing what the QA teams are actually responsible for in an MMO's production.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John said on 10:08AM 3-07-2010
I give LOTRO credit...it is really a high quality game...I sure hope it stays around for a long time. I go back every few months for my middle earth fix....I'm never disappointed.
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yep said on 11:53AM 3-07-2010
"The full diary is worth reading not just for Lord of the Rings Online players, but anyone interested in seeing what the QA teams are actually responsible for in an MMO's production."
Yeah... I'm thinking this article would be great for many recent publishers who appear to be ignoring their QA teams -- if they even have one at all. You know who you are.
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Averice said on 11:57AM 3-07-2010
Kind of a short read, a lot shorter than what I was expecting, but an interesting insight nonetheless.
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Werther said on 12:28PM 3-07-2010
That game has a QA team ?
The game has tons of problems with windows 7 where you will get the occasionally load time from hell. The game will not even star when used with some antivirus such as avast.
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yep said on 1:04PM 3-07-2010
Have you tried using the defrag tool? I've heard this helps speed things up.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=316502
Also, I'm using Windows 7 (64bit) and have antivirus on my computer (not Avast though) and haven't had any issues. Could be maybe you need to set the game to run as administrator?
sugewise said on 3:53PM 3-07-2010
several people in my kin, myself included, use 7 and have an antivirus going with no problems. you should probably get a new computer if your's can't handle lotro.
Werther said on 5:16PM 3-07-2010
Game will not start with avast 4.8 so in order to start the game you have to disable the antivirus ;)
And the long load times on windows 7 is something people are complaining about all over the lotro forums. And it has nothing to do with the computer. It usually loads every area super fast and then suddenly it takes forever.
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Samael said on 5:45PM 3-07-2010
It might be a problem. But I am hopeful they will fix it for the people affected by this. I am thankfully not one of them.
Brian said on 2:54AM 3-08-2010
I'm curious, can you post the links to all these long load time posts?
Iokthemonkey said on 5:25AM 3-08-2010
I stopped using Avast over a year ago, as I'd noticed longer load-times on my old system. I don't think it's a LOTRO-specific issue you're experiencing.
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Seffrid said on 5:26AM 3-08-2010
I don't have any problems with Vista 64 and Avast 4.8 but I can't speak for Windows 7. However, 4.8 isn't the latest free version of Avast so you might want to look into upgrading it and see if that makes any difference.
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