INTREPID STUDIOS - ASHES OF CREATION - CONFIGURATION TOOLS
LARGE-SCALE WORLD CONFIGURATION
This is an archive of various configuration tool proposals aimed to make management of large-scale playtests on the player test realm, easier for anyone involved. From QA Setup to Community Team, I worked with my producers and engineers to implement changes when we had time.
This archive serves to detail these larger proposals which were in pre-production before the studio shutdown.
Table of Contents
Teleport NPC - Playtest Tool
Custom Vendor - Playtest Tool
World Configuration - Playtest Tool
Find and Remove NPCs - Playtest Tool
Recipe and Crafting Configuration - Test Tool
Road Inspector - Test Tool
Teleport NPC - PlaYTEST TOOL
Problem Statement
“How can we save developers and QA time during Large-Scale Playtests?”
Why was this an issue?
Testing large-scale systems on the Player Test Realm was a time sink
Players needed to be at specific locations quickly
Developers were wasting tons of valuable time creating Custom NPCs with specific locations
Proposal:
Instead of making new npcs which require baking into the build - we offer a Dynamic NPC that allows the user to provide specific Coordinates.
Json files can be edited live on the fly and saved for later use.
Custom vendor - playtest tool
Problem Statement
“How can we save developers and QA time during Large-Scale Playtests?”
Why was this an issue?
Playtests required player characters to be specific Levels and gear
We would bake Vendor NPCs with custom tables that would allow players to obtain items pertaining to the test
No central team managing new NPC’s or upkeeping them
Waste of valuable development time creating Custom NPCs for new test
Proposal:
Provide Devs and QA with an NPC that can support custom vendor tables
Json files can be edited live on the fly and saved for later use.
Save Developers time, allowing them to fix actual bugs
World ConfiGURATION - playtest tool
Problem Statement
“How can we save developers and QA time during Large-Scale Playtests?”
Why was this an issue?
Testing large-scale systems on the Player Test Realm was a time sink
Systems like War and Siege require both world and player configurations
Setting up a world configuration and resetting was a time sink for QA
No way to Save the configuration for a future test
Proposal:
Allow Creation, Save, and Load of World Configurations
World allow for bulk biome and bulk settlement configuration
Find and Remove NPCs - Playtest Tool
Problem Statement
“How can we find developer placed NPC’s, spawned NPC’s, and check various related behaviors, loot tables, etc?”
Why was this an issue?
Finding NPC’s is difficult for any tester
Often developers were not providing spawn coordinates
QA needs to be able to clean up NPC’s or Bugged NPCs
Proposal:
Create a Filter system to find specific NPC’s
Utilize gameplay tags, guids, or radius to filter
Provide ability to Teleport, inspect, and Remove
Recipe and Crafting Configuration - Test Tool
Problem Statement
“How can we save developers and QA time when it comes to checking Recipes, Crafting, and the associated player requirements?”
Why was this an issue?
Testing large amounts of recipes with current debug tool is time consuming and prone to user error, leading to false negatives.
Associated scenario requirements of the recipe learning and crafting game loop forces testers and developers to go to and from 3 different debug menus.
Proposal:
Streamlined Debug Interface
Create Buildings and Expand them quickly
Set Character Level and Status
Learn All Recipes, Unlearn to reset character
Filter for Recipes + Give Recipe + Load Recipe Requirements Data
Give all Requirements after the Data has been loaded
ROAD INSPECTOR - Test Tool
Problem Statement
“How can QA provide accurate location and state information pertaining to Roads to Developers?”
Why was this an issue?
Roads often were disappearing for various reasons.
Road related Bugs were often duplicated, or multiple issues were bulked into one ticket
Fixes for issues Failed due to a singular issue failing, resulting in bad production data
Logistical nightmare for QA to keep track of the health and intended visuals of the roads given there was no established “Grid”
Proposal:
Provide QA with a direct method of inspection to any road segment or intersection by GUID
Provide a way to display intended materials for Road State, Buffs, and different weather conditions
Provide a way to copy and paste targeted road segment data to the clipboard via raycast within range
OR be able to automatically send a Bug Report to our internal reporter or Jira
Be able to Summarize and Detail bugs using World/ GUID - and therefore reduce bug redundancy
