Below are some items I found of particular interest today. I will post more as I find them but there is no telling how long these links will be valid so get them fast.
Star Trek Online’s new direction
Involve Test Early and Often
Time for a bit of rambling ranting on a topic that I have perceived and grumbled about for a long time:
Why is test often integrated into the design and production of a product, particularly games, so late in the life cycle?
As games get larger and more complex, there becomes a lot more that could break and hence more work for test. While the software industry as a whole has been trying to move to embrace “agile development”, “scrum teams”, and other PM and Dev styles that integrate testing at the start, game studios seem to be stuck in more traditional methods. I find this ironic, since many of the computer/video game pioneers essentially ran their teams/companies in what today would be considered extreme agile development.