9 replies to this topic

[lordlazarus]

hi folks .

when dropping into a match yesterday i was confronted with a black screen ............

everything was working perfectly i could move the mech and fire the weapons but couldent see anything

i informed my team mates of the situation and one member talked me thru guiding the mech to a relativley sheltered spot left forward right stop reverse a little ect ect . then he said when one of us dies we will spectate thru my cockpit and guide me in battle .

whilst we didnt get to do the battle because i eventually crashed out , the period where my team mate was guidng me thru the factory on caustic i was imagining in my minds eye and from memory, the view from the cockpit this was an amazing experience for me , bec ause my wife is visualy impaired it made me realise just what loosing my eye sight would mean to me in a gaming context . id no longer be able to play my beloved computer games

unlesss............... i had a seeing eye gamer buddy . kinda like a guide dog . wouldent it be possible to create games in this fasion so some one who was partially sighted or fully sightless could have a gamer guide you ! via ts or someother voip .. and viewyour game screen third party to help i honestly dont know how many gamers out there are visually impaired and have to give up gaming because of their disability . i know id would be a huge loss to me if i couldent play anymore . does any such support group exist? im interested in people's experiences

Edited by lordlazarus, 11 October 2012 - 07:51 AM.

[Jooky SeaCpt]

Hey there, Lordlazarus,

I am a visually impaired gamer. I was born with a very rare genetic defect called Ocular Albinism which has resulted in me being legally blind (20/200 visual acuity). I have been gaming since I learned how to read well enough to play text adventures back in the 80's. For the most part I manage well enough with a large monitor, but there are definitely some aspects of gaming that I find far more difficult than my fellow gamers do. In general the most difficult part of gaming is reading on screen text, specifically chat text. I also find that I often miss small things in the upper corners of the screen simply because they are farther away, and I have to make a conscious effort to read diagrams or chat in those locations.

I am a closed beta tester, and although I have found MWO fairly easy to play, I do have a few difficulties. First, the chat window is in the upper left corner, and I have not found any way to move it or make the font bigger. For this reason I almost never see it or read it unless I am dead and spectating. The fact that the chat only stays up for a second or two also makes it easy to miss. In the upper right corner of the screen is all the targeting information: target loadout and paperdoll showing armor/internal structure status. This is something that I have to constantly remind myself to look at during a firefight since I have difficulty seeing it. The paperdoll is easier for me to see, but I almost never take the time to read the loadout/weapon list unless I am in an LRM boat checking for AMS before firing. There was also a semi-comical incident when a friend on vent kept talking about percent damage taken of targets. "Where are you SEEING that?" "It's a number right next to the target box on the main screen, dude." Oh, silly me, so there is.

I also have found it difficult to see mechs at a distance. You have no idea how hellish playing FPS games like Call of Duty is with all those people killing you and you can't even see them. I always had the most difficulty with the snow covered maps and people in snow camo. I adapted by just always going inside where the contrasts in color were greater. Similarly for MWO if I want to spot people at long range I turn on Thermal vision. I almost always have that running until I get to knife fight range (where I need the depth perception of normal view more than the visual clarity of thermal).

I don't know if that helps you or not, but those have been my general experiences with MWO and gaming. I will say that it helps a lot to have friends on vent who can call out things that I miss, and having one spectate me is even better. I am thankful for the amount of vision I have which lets me play games, and for patient friends who put up with me missing things on screen.

[Corrado]

on my office rig, with an old and unsupported videocard (7950GT) i usually play only in thermal mode since without, all the scene is pure black. works fine until i hit a urban map where i can't see the buildings and i can just contours opposed to the sky.

well, next time it happens, just turn on thermal vision and use the minimap to navigate on the terrain you'll not be able to see.

[lordlazarus]

im not concerend about the black screen bug in its self its just the whole experience left me with a tiny little bit of insight (no pun intended ) into the world of the visially impaired . my wife has retinitous pigmentosia meaning the cells in her retinas are dying off from the outside in so her filed of view is extreemly tiny . she can no longer drive but holds down her steady job , we are getting assistance from the sight action group .

my real point is mabbe to raise awarness of disabled gamers get more people to voulenteer to be a battle buddy so more people with visual impairment can get in a giant robot and shoot someone in the face on the intenet with it . to maybe even form an assisted gaming network ? is this feasable or indeed more to the point is it somethng disable people would apreciate .

Edited by lordlazarus, 11 October 2012 - 08:46 AM.

[Atlessa]

I completely support anything that makes gaming easier for any kind of "impaired" people.

I'm mildly hearing impaired myself, which mostly covers the frequencies used by human speech. For me there is an easy workaround in MOST games: turn down music and sound effect volume by about 30%, and UP the master volume by about 20%.
I don't think any such easy workarounds exist for most visually impaired (depending on the game of course.


Another thing I realised with what the OP explained:
It would be pretty neat if you could share your screen with someone, while talking over skype (or TS or whatever), so they could keep an eye on certain things like Radas, ammo count, heat...
And tell you: "Dude, you're almost out of LRMs."
"Look out, you're at 75% heat"
"There's at two contacts on your six"

That kind of thing...

[Jooky SeaCpt]

Altessa,

Having a sighted friend on vent spectate me when he dies is really nice. I often fail to notice things in the chat window and target information window because they are in the top corners of the screen. Spectators are very useful to me because they can point out all the little things that I miss.

[Banekane]

my dad is leagally blind and said i might have inherited his desease not shure yet he had retinal deterioration syndrome witch made him blind one eye and verry poor in his other eye so with regards to reading text when someone uses a text to type maybe have a steven hawkens type of system wher people can turn it on or off where when someone types in words to the text chat box it witl basically say the sentence that was typed in for the visually impaired gamer as well as a few audio notifications of surroundings just a thought

[lordlazarus]

"Another thing I realised with what the OP explained:
It would be pretty neat if you could share your screen with someone, while talking over skype (or TS or whatever), so they could keep an eye on certain things like Radas, ammo count, heat...
And tell you: "Dude, you're almost out of LRMs."
"Look out, you're at 75% heat"
"There's at two contacts on your six"

That kind of thing.." exactly the point of my post sorry it was rather clumsily written but i rush to get the ideas down before i loose my train of thought ! but yess

[JP Josh]

i drive you shoot.

not visually impared but thats what i and my little brorther ended up doin on the second mechwarrior game.
(we only had one pc and could only play it when dad wasnt home)

[SouthernRex]

Atlessa, on 11 October 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

I completely support anything that makes gaming easier for any kind of "impaired" people.

I'm mildly hearing impaired myself, which mostly covers the frequencies used by human speech. For me there is an easy workaround in MOST games: turn down music and sound effect volume by about 30%, and UP the master volume by about 20%.
I don't think any such easy workarounds exist for most visually impaired (depending on the game of course.


Another thing I realised with what the OP explained:
It would be pretty neat if you could share your screen with someone, while talking over skype (or TS or whatever), so they could keep an eye on certain things like Radas, ammo count, heat...
And tell you: "Dude, you're almost out of LRMs."
"Look out, you're at 75% heat"
"There's at two contacts on your six"

That kind of thing...

There's a program called TeamView that does just that. Make sure you turn off "control' settings though, because yeah. They could really mess up your computer if you went to take a leak, and they got into your registry.