It is amazing at how simple a question can have such a broad answer, which involves a lot of time, energy, and planning. This very question is the one that we deal with every single day in the Bethesda Softworks Quality Assurance (QA) department (team motto: we break games). And depending on the scale of the project, it can either be a pleasure to deal with, or cause you to run screaming for the hills.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "It's easy! Just load it up and play it, dude! How hard can that be?" Okay, good point. But what most people don't realize is that there is a massive framework that must be created to support testing a game. If you just dive in head first, there is no telling what creepy crawly bug you may miss that can bring the whole game crashing down around you like a house of cards. The best way to go avoid that is to create a testing plan that outlines what systems will be looked at, and in what order they will be addressed. Don't get me wrong; we do indeed "just play the game." I mean, if we didn't, we may miss the whole point: that the game is supposed to be fun.

Instead of me yammering on like a college professor talking about boring test plans and flow charts, lets put it all into perspective. One of the primary challenges in QA right now is testing the upcoming release "Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition"(GotY). Should be a piece of cake. Just take Morrowind, add a cup of Tribunal, a sprig of Bloodmoon, mix it up in a bowl, bake until golden brown, and serve to the gaming public piping hot, right? Not by a long shot. Follow along with me, and I shall lead you down the Hallowed Halls of Testing.

The first step was to acknowledge the difference between "original" Xbox Morrowind and what we envisioned as the finished product. What was going to be added to that original version to make it truly a Game of the Year? Well, the powers that be (ok…ok… Todd and Ashley) decided they wanted to add all of Tribunal, all of Bloodmoon, some features that later versions of Morrowind PC had, tweak it, and put it all together. What does that mean for us in QA? Well, we have to make sure that it is seamless. You drop the GotY disc in your Xbox, and you instantly have access to all of Vvardenfell, Mournhold, and Solstheim right from the get go. To make this all work on the Xbox properly, the programmers had to work their magic and get it all together on one disc.

Which brings me to the next task. We test every single quest line; from getting that package to Caius Cosades all the way to the very end of Bloodmoon (not that you have to play it in that order of course). Even though these things were tested before, we have to make sure that nothing became "bashed" when the whole kit-and-caboodle was tossed together. Nothing would be more upsetting than to release the game, and a whole slew of quests don't function.

Our Bug Tracking Software

Quest testing has it's own interesting challenges. We need to think about testing every quest in unique ways, to make sure the designers have covered all their bases. Even a simple quest can have many different endings possible. Let's take everyone's favorite Seyda Neenite for example… Fargoth. We all find out that he's been stashing his loot in that tree stump. But many other things can happen and they all have to be handled: What if Fargoth is killed during his sneak? What if you go to the tree stump early, is the loot there? What if you kill the quest giver before the quest, during the quest, or after the quest? What if you elect to sleep while Fargoth is sneaking? What if you leave Seyda Neen while he is sneaking? It's our job to come up with as many ways to break the quests as possible, to give the designers unique insights into what people may do while going through their quests.