interview Tester Interview

[Sacrifice 2,278]

Hello Newspaper Readers!

Testers are an ambitious group of helpers who test each and every aspect of the game to ensure that players like us can play the game with minimum bugs. Today, we have with us Fride and Inflamable_Dragon for the interview. Without further talking, let us dive straight in to the interview!

Hello! Welcome to the interview. 

Hey! I got really happy when I saw your message, because you gave me a chance to tell the EN community about our work as testers, which will definitely help to bring together the whole TO community. So, fasten your seat belts, I will try my best to show you our testers as I see them.

 

Can you please introduce yourself? Our readers are not very familiar with Russian assistants. 

Fride: Greetings! My name is Alexander, I am 20 years old, I am a tester of the Russian-language locale of our game.

Inflammable_Dragon: My name is Danila (Regency calls me Daniel), I’ll be 20 soon, studying at university at the moment. In school, first 6-7 grades I was a real deadbeat, to be honest. Then I went to a Thai boxing section, it taught me a lot and I’ve learned some vital things, which help me now even in my work. I’ve spent one year in England studying, where I met many good people and did so many crazy things that I’m a bit embarrassed of.

Who are testers, and what are their main responsibilities? 

Fride: Testers are a certain group of people who understand the mechanics of the game, how everything works in it, and carefully check the updates before they get to the main servers.

Inflammable_Dragon: I could’ve told you some general definitions, but that’s not why you’re here) Something more interesting is needed. Testers are an initiative friendly group of volunteers who are here to make our game better, like all other helpers of the game. Our responsibilities include testing the game & updates, as well as searching for bugs and glitches, for their further fixing.
 

What made you send your application For testers? Is it your hobby, or is it what you want to do in life? 

Fride: I have long sought to get into the testers of the game, more than 5 years I played on the test server, sent bugs to the forum, later, I noticed the Administration, and offered to write a request to the testers, I certainly did not refuse, and immediately after the interview was accepted for the candidacy, after a few months, I became officially a tester.

Inflammmable_Dragon: Hmm ... that’s an interesting story. I have been playing tanki since 2010, back then I was a little kid that just wanted to make the game better, I don’t know why, but I had such a dream of becoming a helper. However, I had a very bad karma, so all my applications got rejected (I’ve sent 8-9 during these years). One day, my friend told me to try to apply for testers. I found the application on forum, fulfilled everything and submitted it, thinking that they would answer in a week or two, and worth mentioning, I was sure it would be rejected. Surprisingly, after 7 hours, I received a response from “plombirka” testers’ Administrator that my application was approved, I was just shocked. TO is of course a hobby, I do not plan to work in the IT sphere, because I want to commit my life to a bit different thing)

Remember your first day as an assistant to the game? How was it?

Fride: A lot of joy, I would never have thought that I would become a tester, but still I became one. When I was a candidate, I met a good man named Igor (NeverWannaLookBack), and together we started this path from a candidate to appearing in the main line-up of testers, and when we both got into this line-up, there were a lot of emotions. I even saved a screenshot of it on a social network.
 

Spoiler

Inflammable_Dragon: Oh yep, I was added to all testers, warmly welcomed. Everyone, including the administrators, are always ready to answer my questions even if they are sometimes meaningless.

 

I heard that you sit for hours on a tes t server looking for bugs. Can I find out exactly how is a usual work day for you?

Fride: Yes, sometimes the search for bugs takes many hours, and sometimes a little, depending on the complexity of the task, for example, you can spend hours hammering on the wall with thunder, or Gauss, or go to minus several times a minute in order to repeat the bug.

Inflammable_dragon: We get up in the morning, wash ourselves, slowly drink the coffee and read the newspaper, then play tanki for half an hour and that’s all ... Ah, I wish it was like this. In fact, yes, we often spend several hours on the test server at once, because the test objects are large and you have to check all possible outcomes to find bugs and glitches. We do this because we want our players to spend time with pleasure and enjoy the game, that’s our main objective.

 

Can you tell me some funny situations related to you as a tester?

Fride: There was a funny moment when hunter Magnum broke down on one of our tests. (Unfortunately, I can't find the picture).

Inflammable_Dragon: There are many of them, here is a recent one. As always, I slept only 3 hours and woke up at 6 am to work on the test server.  I had to test Wasp’s overdrive. I made a target on the map (my second account) and activated a bomb close to it. The bomb detonated, damaged the target with 7 k, but the target is still alive... I was so confused and did not understand anything. About an hour I’ve spent thinking and trying to understand what went wrong, and then, I noticed a lifeguard drone equipped on the target… I mean the whole thing was so ridiculous. So foolish I only felt when during a vacation as a child, I stumbled and fell in a restaurant with a full plate of french fries.

 

A question that interests many, can English locale players become testers?

Fride: Unfortunately, no one from English Community can apply for this position.

Inflammable_Dragon: Not yet, unfortunately.  But no one forbids players to be voluntary testers, reporting the bugs they found in special topics on the forum.

 

Do you want to tell me something else about your work?

Fride: In the group of testers, I want to note a great and close-knit team, we try to help each other in finding bugs, prompt in difficult situations, and try to help developers bring out updates with a minimum number of problems.

Inflammable_Dragon: Being a tester is very interesting. The one who was, is or will be a tester, may consider himself/herself a very lucky person because you work in a wonderful environment with amazing people, like a family where everyone supports and helps each other.  But it is also a huge responsibility. After all, the finished product that players will see depends on how good you’ve done your work. It takes a lot of patience and calm, often we face some really difficult tasks. Therefore, I will ask for a small favor - guys, when you see testers at work, do not bother or distract them.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions. Good luck.

Fride: And thank you, I was happy to answer your questions!

Inflammable_Dragon: Thank you for your work. I wish all the players good luck in battles and a bright summer. Good luck!

Let us know down below what you guys think of this interview. We hope you enjoyed it!

[Person_Random 4,991]

Testers are an anomaly. Only found in the Russian community, these helpers do the tough task of catching bugs behind the scenes. This week, our reporter team has managed to catch a few words with this exceptional team. Enjoy this exclusive interview!

[Signal 329]

A very interesting read, thanks!

[Sacrifice 2,278]

@At_Shin nope, we had help from other helpers who translated it for us. 

[NeverWannaLookBack 2]

Very interesting

[Fride 6]

I was happy to give an interview for you 

 

[fghjkl54 1,517]

On 8/22/2020 at 12:39 PM, Sacrifice said:

 

let me guess you asked help from content helpers didn't you?

[Serene 204]

So, you are responsible for so many bugs in Tanki Online? 

[Venem 615]

Wonderful interview!!

I love the test server, btw, cuz I get to test a lot of equipment that I might never have in this lifetime cuz of my rank xD!

On 7/7/2020 at 10:07 PM, Sacrifice said:

I found the application on forum, fulfilled everything and submitted it, thinking that they would answer in a week or two, and worth mentioning, I was sure it would be rejected. Surprisingly,

 

See the above quoted text, @Sacrifice... I feel it's incomplete. Do you agree? (It's the answer to this question "What made you send your application For testers? Is it your hobby, or is it what you want to do in life? ")

Edited August 23, 2020 by SHREYA88

[Venem 615]

Yo Igor, what if the test server itself gets bugged :ph34r:

But anyway, testers are awesome guyz, and keep up your great work!

[Sacrifice 2,278]

Corrections made. Sorry for the inconvenience. I announce to take 1 donut instead of two for this article for my incompetence. Sowwy ;c

[cosmic666 1,055]

On 8/22/2020 at 3:52 AM, At_Shin said:

Did you use the Google Translate web page?

It was nice knowing about the life of testers, a dedicated community of tankers who help resolve bugs in this game. I think they may need more people as they work too hard (like sleeping for only 3 hours) and there are still so many known bugs in the game that need to be removed.

Interesting to read one of them had bad KARMA but got approved, i want to be a battle mod but my karma is off the charts . Still i would be relentless in catching every player that cheated in battle.  

[AncientFire 1,894]

7 minutes ago, cosmic666 said:

Interesting to read one of them had bad KARMA but got approved, i want to be a battle mod but my karma is off the charts . Still i would be relentless in catching every player that cheated in battle.  

forget karma, if u r an anti-hornet then ur application wont even be looked at cus apparently ppl who dont agree with devs r not fit to be helper

[Iamhereforfun 240]

On 8/21/2020 at 5:57 PM, Person_Random said:

Testers are an anomaly. Only found in the Russian community, these helpers do the tough task of catching bugs behind the scenes. This week, our reporter team has managed to catch a few words with this exceptional team. Enjoy this exclusive interview!

Ahahaaaa! Testers? Tanki has testers? Either they are totally incompetent, or the so called 'developers" cannot fix the bugs they catch! Either way it is bad all around.  The only real testers are us, the players that play the game real time and find the bugs which are ignored by Tanki.  You can argue as much as you want about this, the truth remains that there are so many bugs that the Tanki developers have no idea how to fix.  They implement one fix and they break 3 other things! But now I understand why they ignore the players: they are all Russians and they know better!

[Venem 615]

11 hours ago, Iamhereforfun said:

Ahahaaaa! Testers? Tanki has testers? Either they are totally incompetent, or the so called 'developers" cannot fix the bugs they catch! Either way it is bad all around.  The only real testers are us, the players that play the game real time and find the bugs which are ignored by Tanki.  You can argue as much as you want about this, the truth remains that there are so many bugs that the Tanki developers have no idea how to fix.  They implement one fix and they break 3 other things! But now I understand why they ignore the players: they are all Russians and they know better!

Well, as "you are here for fun", I guess we may not take you seriously... XD (no offense mate)

Every game has bugs, and programmers are never perfect. When they get too incompetent, players complain, and they do improve!

Testers are in no way responsible for bugs, please understand. You may have a valid point, but this is not the topic to voice such complaints.

You need a different kind of skill to become a tester, and it's not easy, obviously. You can't expect Tanki to have a massive team of outstanding testers! There are limitations, and we must accept them too.

The best we can do is report bugs and complain in relevant sections of the Forum, not in topics where people come to read about testers and appreciate their effort.

Again, you may have a valid point, but my only concern is that this is not the place to vent out your frustration. 

I really hope that you understood my concern, and please bear in mind that I have no intention to offend you.

With all due respect, thank you!

Edited August 27, 2020 by SHREYA88

[Venem 615]

On 8/23/2020 at 8:19 PM, Sacrifice said:

I announce to take 1 donut instead of two for this article for my incompetence.

Gimme the other donut....