by scar3crow » Mon Nov 18, 2013 4:40 am
This thread managed to evade me while it was active, but I'm jumping on it now. As a precursor, I am not a programmer and do not claim to be one. But I do have almost six years experience in professional games QA (coming up on 70 titles). In all of the projects I've been on, rewriting seems to be the most effective method from a QA perspective. Fixes achieved by rewriting regress on a much smaller scale (typically: never) and create fewer bugs in other systems. Typically when they do create new bugs in other systems, said systems were put together hastily or are generally antiquated.
That being said, Fixes Over Features for me. Knock out all the big fish, then take care of the minor ones. Show me a new feature when it isn't going to be impacted by a bug from an old one which distracts me as a user. As a tester, show it to me when I'm not going to wonder "Is this behavior from new code itself, or just an old bug that has evaded our attention?"
And speaking from a project perspective, bug fixes are great for morale. QA loves to close out bugs as Fixed and verified, and everyone enjoys seeing a project "start feeling 'better'". If a game I'm working on has a fairly common but not dominant crash, but also some inventory issues, misaligned textures, incorrect art assets, and rendering issues, the crash isn't what is undermining my experience. With the crash fixed you are still looking at a bizarre and difficult to handle game.
Basic Functionality Fixes > Quality of Experience Fixes > Performance and Stability Improvements > Features > Minor Issues.
...and all around me was the chaos of battle and the reek of running blood.... and for the first time in my life I knew true happiness.