Making PWI more accessable to the disabled?

FoxRunning - Heavens Tear

i've been working with the gaming industry for many years regarding accessabilty and other disabled issues, and so yes, i am aware how long it takes. but the payback for the company can be considerable, when the disabled community moves into that game.


and yes, i agree...many recent presidents have had real problems! but there are others who are considered to be great whos disabilties-physical and mental-were the assets that made them great. its always a case of 'make lemonaid out of lemons'!b:cute

MANray_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

That it took Blizzard this long to make a patch (being the industry leader and supporting the largest playerbase in the genre) should be a good hint other MMOs aren't likely to be pouring the resources in for this anytime soon. Especially since the developers of that one lame game probably are just trying to offset the bad PR Bobby Kotick gives them by continuing to insult gamers everywhere...

MMOs are videogames by deffinition and suposed to rely on visual media. It can be argued a certain degree of functional eyesight is required to fully access content in much the same way record companies are not required to provide especially dubbed recordings of all their releases to the hearing impaired. A patch to help the visually impaired comes with a cost. A corporation has a legitimate reason to avoid spending that will not significantly impact the majority of it's customer base nor meaningfully increase future revenue.

I do sympathize with your request and support it. I don't mean to discourage you, but i think you should examine what methods are available to improve your gaming experience. Perhaps there's third party software which could be used, and it would certainly be legitimate to request permission from the company for file modifications which address accesibility issues. Perhaps a much larger display would help and there may be organizations that would help provide you with one.

I understand that it may be difficult to deal with many of these issues, there are members of my family who endure physical impairment.

Edit; And i agree, the USA had a mentally disabled president leave office not so long ago, and the current one does seem to be dealing with a couple of psychiatric issues.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

FoxRunning - Heavens Tear wrote: »

but the payback for the company can be considerable, when the disabled community moves into that game.

Can you please link the cost analysis and the returns analysis you have done that demonstrates your points about being cost effective to do that?

I would be interested in seeing it.

In almost every case, it costs more money to provide access to the disabled than it can possible be made out of them, when you look strickly at money, and in the past it has involved government pressure and fines to make companies comply and do the "right" thing.

Is it the "right" thing to do? you bet. Does it make business sense? Not very often.

So, if you have the data, I would love to go over it.

surtr

I'm putting this back in General, since it's really not asking for technical support, but rather new features to make the game more accessible to those with disabilities.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear

FoxRunning - Heavens Tear wrote: »

i've been working with the gaming industry for many years regarding accessabilty and other disabled issues, and so yes, i am aware how long it takes. but the payback for the company can be considerable, when the disabled community moves into that game.


and yes, i agree...many recent presidents have had real problems! but there are others who are considered to be great whos disabilties-physical and mental-were the assets that made them great. its always a case of 'make lemonaid out of lemons'!b:cute

I was more reluctant to ignore this topic and laugh it off until I read two things, one of them from this post. The first is concerning "rights" and this game -- there are none. Second is the notion behind profitability. If it were profitable went was part of the company's bottom line, it would probably be implemented or at least merit an official response. That's likely why there is none, as this is nothing to take seriously. It's unfortunate for those who are color blind or even disabled, but given the time it would take to go through all of the game's code and level design to implement these things, the manpower, labor, and overall maintenance of this code, would not be profitable whatsoever, given the extreme few and no guarantee for a payoff as they could all just be playing for free. No game would do this unless it were politically correct to do so, and could take a hit because of the political incorrectness and attention it might gather and have to fight off. However, we're also talking about a game developed in China, hence the lack of **** marriage, so they don't give a **** about our political correctness, and there is no rights in a video game, so color blind and disabled people, like everyone else, play the game equally.

FoxRunning - Heavens Tear

since i haven't worked with WOW, i do not have access to their numbers. i forward your question to the company i do have contact with, and see if they will release that info.

yes, it costs to produce anything. but PWI has done games with the needs of the disabled in mind:http://www.ablegamers.com/pc/torchlight.html#EditorReview in fact, the recent addition of new hotkeys makes PWI easier for many disabled. (personally, i cant use them, the icons are easier for me to remember...though i almost never remember the names! when my son needs a particularly strong heal, i remember it as the 'blue ice cream heal!' ^0^ yeah, im dyslexic/Dyscalculia....makes things interesting sometimes! but i manage it ok ingame.)

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Can you please link the cost analysis and the returns analysis you have done that demonstrates your points about being cost effective to do that?

I would be interested in seeing it.

In almost every case, it costs more money to provide access to the disabled than it can possible be made out of them, when you look strickly at money, and in the past it has involved government pressure and fines to make companies comply and do the "right" thing.

Is it the "right" thing to do? you bet. Does it make business sense? Not very often.

So, if you have the anylisis, I would love to go over it.

DeathBanana - Heavens Tear

Tap - Lost City wrote: »

How about a bit of a black line around everything that has a purpose? (i.e. not rocks and grass, etc). I was thinking like how that game Borderlands is. I know that would be a huge thing to implement, but maybe it could be one of the graphics options people can turn on or off? Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Kind of like that but like I said, only NPCs, your character, monsters and such.
I think people might like the idea of this, fixing it for people who have trouble seeing things aside. IMO it looks nice.

Just gave me an idea...PW cel-shaded :O
Would look epic...toggleable of course

FoxRunning - Heavens Tear

that could be an option patch that could work....but it might be something that people would exploit or use as a cheat, or all it a cheat, since it would also make it easier for anyone to spot the lil stinkers. with the colourblind patch, it would change colours to fit what the user needs, as i understand it, and i dont imagine the average player would want things to be in odd colours or black and white.

(i dont play WoW, or know anyone who has used their patch, so i dont know how it works, btw)

Tap - Lost City wrote: »

How about a bit of a black line around everything that has a purpose? (i.e. not rocks and grass, etc). I was thinking like how that game Borderlands is. I know that would be a huge thing to implement, but maybe it could be one of the graphics options people can turn on or off? Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Kind of like that but like I said, only NPCs, your character, monsters and such.
I think people might like the idea of this, fixing it for people who have trouble seeing things aside. IMO it looks nice.

Telarith - Sanctuary

Best bet is as was posted earlier as a fix for right now. Turn on monsters on your radar, that will give white dots when an enemy is present close by. Then use auto-target for the crosshairs that appears red underneath the mob to have an easier time seeing them.

Seamuss - Heavens Tear

Just dont jump when you see a venos pet as a white dot creepin up on you :P

Nevaglar - Sanctuary

Clerics that cant heal
Barbs that cant tank
DDs that cant control their damage

Seems to me alot of ppl still cant play this game after, what, 18 months? Either ppl are to dumb to play it right, or alot of them are mentally disabled, so I say yes to any upgrades helping the disabled (or do they just like to fake it?) b:surrender

wolfbrannan

I agree with the colorblind needs. being Red/Green color blind (very common)

This same issue would get me killed so often in EQ, etc. Only one game I seen actually implemented a colour blind option. Was Frozen Bubble. They put different shapes in the bubbles.

MMORGs could do this by instead of all targeted mobs/npcs with colored cirlces, but with option on, have different shapes. Squares/Stars etc

Just a thought

Wolfb:surrender

Aedrian - Lost City

I got an idea.

Make it not default but a toggle one, so, you can activate it if you feel like(Since instead of helping me it would annoy me as hell if I had to deal with it 100% of my gaming time, to be honest).

An arrow on top of every mob's head, and with custom colours(You can turn it white for dark instances, red for brown instances and so on)

As well, if you were to click the arrow, the mob itself would be selected and highlighted with an aura matching the arrow colour.

As an extra, add a range option, to select what range should the mobs be to get an arrow.

My drawing skills are lame, sorry in advance for the drawing I will post, but it is an example of what I think.

I am at work with no screenies available, so, it is Paint made.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7711/testbackgroundandmobtar.png

echindra

Interesting idea, still, ugly graphics.

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear

Aedrian - Lost City wrote: »

I got an idea.

Make it not default but a toggle one, so, you can activate it if you feel like(Since instead of helping me it would annoy me as hell if I had to deal with it 100% of my gaming time, to be honest).

An arrow on top of every mob's head, and with custom colours(You can turn it white for dark instances, red for brown instances and so on)

As well, if you were to click the arrow, the mob itself would be selected and highlighted with an aura matching the arrow colour.

As an extra, add a range option, to select what range should the mobs be to get an arrow.

My drawing skills are lame, sorry in advance for the drawing I will post, but it is an example of what I think.

I am at work with no screenies available, so, it is Paint made.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7711/testbackgroundandmobtar.png

We never had these problems when the only MMOs to play were MUDDs..... Bring back the text based D&Ds

Aedrian - Lost City

Lol, I still remember those, but I would not be able to change fash on the middle of a fight, Would I?


b:chuckle Ppl sometimes wonder where I went to when I change clothes, since I can go from flashy to barely noticeable

lightcharm

I think this game should be user friendly for people with disabilities too. If a person with say a visual impairment can't or can barely play the game because of inaccessibility it's just more money PWE will be missing out on cuz let's face it people aren't going to be inclined to spend money on something they can't even use. If that can't be done I think at least a link in the tech section to freeware (or paid...though for some reason they cost a mint) for things that will work with the game to make it accessible to the disabled would be at least a start.

Aedrian - Lost City

*bites the thread on the arm*

...


Because for an idea as good as this a bump is not enough.