As a legally vision impaired person I'd like to put in a few words on the need for features and graphic choices to assist gamers like me.
1. Contrast. Many low vision people have trouble with contrast. In games I've found this is mostly a problem with text on X background, where there simply isn't enough contrast between the text color and background color/pattern. Give us skins or an option to change background on all detail/text/chat/journal type windows.
2. Glares, bloom, lens flare, etc. Those post processing, graphical effects that remove detail of edges or brighten an area like with so many spell effects. What might look amazing to normal vision, they are blinding to low vision people with halo/glare/light sensitivity. Give us the ability to tone them down, turn them off. A slider even! Please!
3. Font sizes. Please--give us the ability to change the font on any and every window. I've been in games there there is no way to read chat or quest text or weapon stats, forcing me to log out and never ever touch it again. Glasses and computer overrides only go so far. Add to this bad contrast and I'll be there asking for my money back.
I'm curious to here what others with vision troubles have to add.
(HAH yes, and I must be spelling impaired today because I can't type "visually impaired" )
I'm sure you're not the only one. While some games may lack these options, they are overall a standard in the industry, so I'd bet VR has at least thought of it. I know they are actively considering how to handle colorblindness, so I think this would fit into a similar category of concerns. If they do not have these options available during testing, it's definitely something that you could and should include in your feedback to emphasize that there are indeed players with visual impairments that need accomodations to enjoy the game to the fullest.
Saoirse said:2. Glares, bloom, lens flare, etc. Those post processing, graphical effects that remove detail of edges or brighten an area like with so many spell effects. What might look amazing to normal vision, they are blinding to low vision people with halo/glare/light sensitivity. Give us the ability to tone them down, turn them off. A slider even! Please!
I'm not visually impaired but I do have issues with light sensitivity and in many games the glares, bloom, etc cause me significant issues and some times even sever pain. So +1 for some way to reduce (preferably turn off completely) these items as most times they just ruin the game for me.
Reiver said:Semi-related: Head bobbing, screen stretching at the edges, and distorted visuals that are supposed to indicate speed.
I have an inner ear issue. Driving a boat in Black Desert was not pleasant. Riding a horse in Life is Feudal is a virtual Vomet Comet.
While I have no problems with anything anyone has listed so far, I do have a good friend who gets motion sick playing a lot of modern games. She didn't have any problems with the original Everquest, but most games since then have caused motion sickness in her. It would be nice if there was an option to disable things like screen shakes, warped vision, etc. Things used as special effects to make things seem more real, but keep some people from being able to play.
I am not visually impaired or have any problems with the game effects so far. But I am all for buttons and sliders to be able to tone the game the way you like it. One thing that does effect me is the absurd amount of magic effects they use in most of the korean games. The whole screen is full of lights and effects. It does not do anything to my sight or effect me in any way adversly except it drives me crazy to lose the whole scene for the few seconds.
When I look at a trailer on mmorpg site the thing I look for is a combat video. If it has the absurd amount of special effects than I no longer check out that game or site.
Eq 1 had a good amount of effects for me but I still believe having a button to turn them off or a slider to tone them down would be a plus. So I am +1 for the ability to control your effects.
Tassadus said: Having multiple ways of showing rarity (item) and difficulty (quests) would also be helpful. A clean, "good" contrasting UI. Understanding that "good" is subjective. To the dev team. If you have questions or want additional detailed feedback l will be happy to help. I am in IT as a sys admin and accessibility compliance within IT. Tassadus
I cannot believe this didn't dawn on me--gathering is my THING. /agree with different ways to show quest/mob/node/item rare would be very helpful. I've two brothers color blind, really, duh, should have thought of this one. Thanks, Tassadus!
I used to have some pretty nasty vision problems in my youth, so I understand everyone's concern. Often times games of the mid to late 2000's and early 2010's would make me dizzy or enriched frames would litterally burn into or static my vision over time from all of the experimental special effects. Most of this has been remedied or reduced as games graphical engines have become more stabilized since then.
I seem to have difficulty determining various shades of the same or similar color as well. Something I never realized I experienced until I messed with one MMO's settings for a condition called Protanopia. The moment I turned on this feature and adjusted it's strength, the world suddenly became more vibrant as the various shades of green could finally be distingished. It's such a minor boon to say the least, but one which was most appreciated.
Options for controling graphical effects are always desirable, and almost always appreciated.
I'm probably going to be very disliked for posting this, but I'm going to anyway. First, I would like to say that I understand and sympathize for people that have to deal with and endure handicaps. However, that being said I would hope that VR would be very cautious in accommodating people who say "I'm handicapped." Throughout my mmo experience that goes back a long ways I have known both casual and hard core players who unfortunately exploit accommodations put into place in games for handicapped players that enable boting exploits through programs that can identify extra visual colors, patterns, sounds, even flat out individual enabling to players from the devs themselves whom believe that the person in question has a true handicap. It ultimately ruins the game. Once it's enabled for one health condition then it has to be applied to all conditions. Then a cycle of unbalanced economy gets introduced into the game, which becomes toxic. This is simply just one way of mmo money manipulation, but it's one that I hope can be avoided. VR did say that scripting would not be allowed, so that would possibly would stop any programmable mischief from happening. I don't really know the answer to preventing this problem. I just don't want it to become one.
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************* This post is from my partner Dain who doesn't have post ability at the moment *****************
The way Daoc handled color blind issues for items/mobs was with + and - symbols.
So a Yellow (even) con is just Bob, a grey (trivial) con is Bob---, a red (hard) con is Bob++, and a purple (death) con is Bob+++.
They actually advertised the color blind friendly con system as one of their major advancements over EQ. Of course then they had the realm war map with lots of red, green, blue, and grey icons to represent ownership.. lol
I'm sure it could be done in a more visually appealing manner, but it worked , and was easy to understand. As long as your visual acuity was high enough to differentiate the small + and - symbols. Doing a prefix/suffix system would have helped solve that. (---Bob and Bob+++)
It helped give people an even footing.
I am all for no add-ons (hate them). But for that to work in this day and age. Your UI designer needs to really be on the ball to accommodate for the limitations and preferences of the player base.
The ideal system to me would be an in-game system for full customization of font size/colors(look at EQ2). As well as backgrounds, health bars, pretty much every aspect of the UI.
If that is too much, a very limited API to create aesthetic only themes, so the community can handle it.
The ability to change spell icons would be nice as well. I've known people who have trouble differentiating them.
Also EQ1 had the ability to disable spell effects individually, by type, or by school.
I have always had some problems with motion blur as well. I also have inner ear problems. I had never thought to put the two together, but it does make sense.
Personally, my biggest problems with games have been with motion blur, field of view, and I couldn't play Wildstar because their snow effects gave me migraines.
I'm all for anything that helps with any form of vision impairment. I have trouble with small text sometimes, and the /chatfontsize 1-4 in EQ is too small and 5 makes it annoyingly HUUUUGE. Would like to see finer incremental adjustments in size.
Also, pretty sure no one here with vsion impairment is looking for special treatement or any kind of advantage over other players, rather just want to be on even footing with the rest of the playerbase when enjoying the game.
Syrenol said:I'm probably going to be very disliked for posting this, but I'm going to anyway. First, I would like to say that I understand and sympathize for people that have to deal with and endure handicaps. However, that being said I would hope that VR would be very cautious in accommodating people who say "I'm handicapped." Throughout my mmo experience that goes back a long ways I have known both casual and hard core players who unfortunately exploit accommodations put into place in games for handicapped players that enable boting exploits through programs that can identify extra visual colors, patterns, sounds, even flat out individual enabling to players from the devs themselves whom believe that the person in question has a true handicap. It ultimately ruins the game. Once it's enabled for one health condition then it has to be applied to all conditions. Then a cycle of unbalanced economy gets introduced into the game, which becomes toxic. This is simply just one way of mmo money manipulation, but it's one that I hope can be avoided. VR did say that scripting would not be allowed, so that would possibly would stop any programmable mischief from happening. I don't really know the answer to preventing this problem. I just don't want it to become one.
Glad this was bumped!
I'm working on a fansite for Pantheon to help me learn MERN stack and accessibility. I'd love to hear more from anyone that has feedback that could improve the site and help me further advance as a developer that cares about accessibility. If you have suggestions to make the site more usable I'd love to hear them.
I'm trying to keep contrast ratio above 7:1, font sizes reasonable, use semantic HTML and ARIA, etc. This project is really more for personal improvement than anything, but I'd really like to create something that serves you well.
Thanks!
Being legally blind since birth, yet also a gamer, by far the biggest issue facing gaming is font sizes.
In the past few years, there's been this continual push for a more and more minimalistic user interface. Unfortunately, that means font sizes keep getting smaller and smaller in order to make that possible. I've lost count of the number oif refunds I've had to request on Steam, because some awesome-looking game had an interface that was impossible for me to use without a great deal of straining or general discomfort because the text was so tiny. Ironically, I hear this complaint from perfectly sighted people as well, be they older folks or even just people who play using large screen TVs.
Contrast, as mentioned in the OP, is a very close second. A great example of poorly thought-out contrast from a recent game, is the local map in Middle-Earth: Shadows of War. The map had a whitish-light blue background with many white icons on it ( see: https://i.imgur.com/x80iC3c.png ). Those icons were very difficult to see.
Adding what are essentially just UI considerations doesn't change mechanics or gameplay. Bloom, motion blur, and lens flare all having an option to be turned off, doesn't break the game. But, they do give an often over-looked population the ability to play on a more level playing field.
Rydan said:What if character movement had textual feedback?
Like, > Groupmember Enchanter SpiffyName moved left
or, Groupmember Enchanter SpiffyName moves left, you get sound effects?
It would have to be auditory, or else the text would probably be harder to read than just seeing the character itself move on the screen. But with all the movement that would be going on, I don't think it's practical to have sound effects for it. Would just be constant indecipherable noise. The character models aren't that small, so if you can't even see them, unfortunately you're probably gonna have bigger problems :/
Hi Bazgrim. Just an example; characters came first to mind, lol.. the point is to turn on/off additional text messages about certain events.
Then maybe a log reading utility can pick up on it and trigger customizable sounds for the visually impaired. The additional information would not need to be read, just be a trigger.
This goes the other way round too; the extra info would help a deaf person get a sensory extention like subtitles "there comes the sound of drums from the north".
My girlfriend and I have been playing together since EQ and recently she lost her sight on one eye and diminished in the other. We have continued to play together but have found some games easier than others.
We agree with a lot of what people have brought up so far, Text size, contrast, and settings to turn off things like motion blur and lens flare.
We have also found others tools in games that have helped a lot
Macros for things like assist and auto follow have been really helpful. I normally make a hotkey that auto follows my character by name and an assist button that assists me or whoever is the main tank. It is amazing how nice the auto fallow can be just to find me when I am right behind her in a crowd.
Another tool we have found to be amazing is the raid tools to put as icon above a monster or group member. I will set an icon above my head and at times above monsters or other group members. This is helpful all the time but in games that do not have an auto follow it is even more important.
Most new games have not had this but EQ added the ability to put a graphic on the ground for your target and adjust size and color. Something like this would also be very helpful.
Being color-blind, I would like to see symbols, not just colors. For example, don’t just put different color rings under a mob, add different symbols as well. Such as a purple ring and triangles, a yellow ring with small circles, a red ring with small squares.
For me, color blind modes rarely work in games, as they are extremely dependent on the monitor‘s contrast, brightness, etc.
Great thread! Critical for me (also visually impaired) and my husband (who suffers chronic migraines and is color blind):
- Opacity slider for the background of the chatbox.
- Ability to resize the chatbox. This is important because...
- I need to be able to increase the font size of text.
- Full range of color blind modes are nice (my husband actually uses those in WS more to help make it less triggering for his migraines, less for the colors themselves). But also VR needs to be mindful that whenever they have a mechanic or something that cues from a color, there must be some OTHER way to distinguish that mechanic - through shape or other graphic.
- Ability to adjust the FOV. Many MMOs keep their FOV fairly narrow, and it triggers really bad headaches and nausea for me.
