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Disabled Fans Shut Out of Galaxies
Ant writes "Wired News' Game|Life reports on Nick Dupree, a disability rights activist and writer who is confined to a wheelchair with severely limited mobility. He used to use one thumb and an index finger to play MMORPG Star Wars: Galaxies. This limited mobility was more than adequate to play the game when it was a sandbox-style adventure, and he was a devotee of the game. With the New Game Enhancements, he is no longer able to play because of the reliance on keyboard/mouse combinations and the action-style combat." There really is nothing good to report on this game update.
The air force still hasn't made fighter jets that blind people with no arms or legs can operate...outrageous
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Someone cry him a river. It's a video game. You play them with stuff. I don't see "Playable by a disabled person" as a requirement for developers.
He could just set up a bot to play for him like half the other people who used to play galaxies...
> With the New Game Enhancements, he is no longer able to play because
> of the reliance on keyboard/mouse combinations and the action-style combat."
It's a good thing to make a change to something that makes it explicitly more accessible to the disabled but if that change also makes it worse to play for the able bodied then that is reverse descrimination. That to me is political correctness at its worse. What about the able bodied majority who find it easier when they are able to use more keys. should we all go around and change every gui so it can be used with a one button mouse and three keys on the keyboard? no! we should make it accessible to all
Not pander to a minority that might be some hundreds of people among millions of players. The producers arent in this for free.
Personally, I love the new game enhancements. The interface is better, the combat is more exciting and less stand-there-and-click-the-next-attack, and the first 30 levels are more intuitive. Plus, you have to look at it from SOE and Lucas Art's point-of-view. This is supposed to be a Star Wars MMO. MMO's are obviously popular (WoW) and there are millions upon millions of Star Wars fans. How many people played SWG before? Not enough, maybe a few hundred thousand, and of those, I'd say maybe 50 thousand actually active players. Out of millions, that's not much. How many copies of Nattlefront have sold? How many copies of KOTOR? A ton. people want to play MMOs, people want to play Star Wars games, but the old game simply was not drawing a large enough crowd. Hopefully the new one will.
That game has been the red headed step child of mmorpgs ever since it was released.. It had potential, but like others.. did not live up to expectations. And with the recent changes(which I have tried out).. only digs itself deeper into the hole of past craptacular online games.
Maybe he should try Star Wars:Pong
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Don't play?
Macro buttons/programs. They're either time consuming to set up(programs), or expensive, but so is all the other specialized equipment for someone that's severely(as TFA's subject) disabled.
The other answer, of course, is that these customers are a very small portion of the consumer base. While it sounds cold, it would be a bad marketing decision to hold the game back because someone couldn't play it(due to a lack of ability on their part).
Look behind you...
Shut-ins are now shut out! "Shout out for the shut out shut-ins!" cried one protester.
I have full function of all my limbs, and I still have a hard time playing these games.
Is this it?
Original (fine) -> Combat update (bad) -> Original (fine) -> NGE (bad)
I haven't followed Galaxies very closely (MUD player), but it seems like the game's due for another revolution of the wheel in a few months once everyone complains loud enough.
Flesh Time(tm) still limits our cyber(r) existence.
I hate to say it, but the gaming company has control over how their game works. If they feel that they will get more profit this way, then they have the right to do so, unless it causes some kind of damage or harm.
Um...let me state two questions that everyone's thinking: /. news (or even news at all)?!
Who the hell cares?!
How is this
Games are meant to be played with more than 2 fingers - except for pong maybe. The target audience is NOT people with use of two or less fingers!!!
Video games aren't like public buildings, you shouldn't need to make the handicap accessible.
That they were before is great... but they're not now, sad, sure, but move on, it's just a game.
===
There are plenty of other games which don't rely on keyboards AND mice...
Here is one that has always been handicapable!
http://www.nethack.org/
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
How hard would it be to offer an accessability patch which might be available for a small fee?
I can't see any reason that sort of thing would be unreasonable.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
So...Is it just me or is this person upset because he does not have the skills (no pun intended) to play Star Wars: Galaxies?
Is there not a different way to set up the game controls to allow for a simpler or older style control set to be used with the new interface?
If not, then there should be.
This does not just affect disabled people, but it also affects older people and the casual, non-computer proficient gamer. Even people who prefer a simpler interface. This affects a significant portion of their user base.
Here's another reason I dislike online-only games. You're forced to endure the updates they provide, good or bad. If you don't update, you can't play. At least with a single-player game, you can decide if you want to apply the next patch/update/enhancement or not.
"Content" publishers want control over everything. Well, guess what? *I* want some control as well.
There really is nothing good to report on this game update.
Maybe that's because you're biased, haven't done much research, and happy people don't make a fuss: they're busy playing.
This brings up a fairly interesting, and much broader question of balancing the needs of few with the desires of many. Without having read the article (I would be loathe to break a Slashdot tradition), I imagine that the change in the control scheme was implemented to, well, make it better, or to accomodate the "New Game Enhancements," whatever that may mean. Let's say that these changes make the game experience better for 99.5% of subscription-paying players, and shut out entirely the remaining 0.5% comprised by the disabled players. Is this a problem?
It's difficult to argue that mandating accessibility requirements - especially such that would detract from the possible quality of the game for non-disabled gamers - is a great idea, particularly since we are talking about playing a game instead of something like wheelchair-accessible buildings. On the other hand, I can of course sympathize with someone who must be hard-pressed to engage in interactive entertainment due to his disability, and has now lost access to something he had previously enjoyed. What do you guys think?
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - G.B. Shaw
They changed the controls so that it will be more compatible with consoles. Wouldn't a console controller be easier to control with a disability? (well more so than a keyboard and mouse setup)
You'd think as someone with a disability you'd look for a solution rather than expecting the company to do so for you. You can't expect them to know and account for every possible disability.
Also, the NBA, the NFL, most soccer matches, Jenga, Twister, horse-shoe tossing, darts, snooker, being an airline pilot...
Look, being disabled means there are some thing you are not able to do. That's unfortunate, but the alternative is to limit all human activities to those things that quadraplegics can manage.
Paging Harrison Begeron...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I think that one of the great things about technology is that it is the great equalizer. As technology advances, fewer and fewer people will have to live with a "disabled" status since we can build machines to help them.
If I were disabled, I would spend all day's in the MMORPGs. I can only imagine how liberating it would be to be equal with everybody else, and not have people immediately take pity on you upon sight. This man, who now has lost his access to this world that had once been a major part of his life, has my sympathies, and I urge the galaxies people to find out a way to accommodate him.
When you're handicapped, you can't do the same things "normal" people can do.
That's why they call it "handicapped".
The fact that one guy can no longer play the game using only two digits doesn't really invalidate the update in my opinion and is rather silly. You can't really have a MMORPG catering to a target group of one.
Combat is something like; Press 5 buttons (in your own time), wait 28 seconds, press 2 buttons, wait 28 seconds, press 2 buttons. wait for mob to die.
The game is poorly designed, poorly programmed and intended to be poorly played. The quests are a joke and the most repetitive, boring and unimaginative I have seen in any game to date. SOE has one thing on their minds and its not good game play but rather how fast they can milk the public for a game that should have been scrapped long ago. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this stinker.
Karma: a simple way of silencing those with unpopular views regardless how correct or just that view might be.
Maybe he should outsource the gaming to China.
Je ne parle pas francais.
So, you're saying due to an unforeseen event, his wookie just became handicrippled? It's more realism!
(Seriously, while I suppose it's all fine and well to 'raise awareness' of such an issue, I believe it equally legitimate for most folks to not get upset about it. Maybe the new game enhancements could have been optional, in order to allow alternate modes of play, but sometimes it's a stretch to imagine Stephen Hawking kicking your ass at Tekken 5.)
You can play Anarchy Online one handed no problem. I do it all the time with my baby daughter falling asleep in my lap. Perhaps he should try AO.
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Ya, dood! It wood by teh suck to have pity; I feel sorry 4 him already! w00t.
(On the other hand, he could always get a worthwhile something else to be a major part of his life.)
the fucking gimp should check the options. There's an option for the scroll wheel to move the character forward.
And don't forgot to include the "win the game"-button for people who are not only physically handicapped
Not trolling, but honestly who cares if the disabled can't play.
I played SWG for the only reason being that it had content that was different from other MMORPGs. This was all taken away in favor of making it more like the MMORPG I loathe so much with the NGE.
Now to my contructive portion:
I hope another game developer is looking very closely at "ALL" the markets now being excluded by the new SOE/LA new NGE to SWG and be able to harness that market.
The comments are interesting, but there is one area that begs comment.
That area is, when do we become aware that each one of us has some handicap or another? Sure, some are severe, physical, and observable. Others, more insidious, are emotional or intellectual in nature. We can operate on a principle of exclusion, or we can attempt the tough work of inclusive design.
I don't hold much credence to commerce as the best measure of value; I believe a humanistic stance serves us better. Yet I am loath to claim that commerce has no value. How you adjust the balance in your deliberations is your personal responsibily. Yet I feel that all parties are best served by a more inclusive stance. Games are important, but especially so for those that can reach a 'normal' life only by proxy.
Should we deny those amoungst us a glimmer of what we take for granted? Or should we choose to include them as much as our wits allow?
I shall be interested as to what will be discussed.
This is progress?
Many years ago in my first software engineering course we went over similar type stuff. One of the problems inherrent in our systems is the assumption of two hands - say, for example, ctrl-alt-del to reboot. Nowadays we are much more sensitive to this, but in the early days of DOS and such there was no real alternative, it was pointed out by the teacher (who had worked at a VA hospital for a few years) that many veterans had some issues - they could type well enough one handed but many key combinations were difficult, if not impossible, to do. One of those being ctrl-alt-del. In the 8086 days that was hard on a computer user. Even something small like "press the green button" can be impossible for someone red-green color blind (and that's really bad considering that in many MMO's green usually means "easy to kill" and red means "nearly impossible").
:) Personally I thought it was very funny, kinda a type of slapstick humor.
.5% of your population can't play your game, nor is there any reason to screw that .5% for no reason other than you don't care. It's a really hard balancing act, and not playing this game I can't say one way or another as to this change. The post and article are too biased, I need more information to fully know what to think.
Of course, me being an insensitive I ass pointed out (by demonstrating - not above a little self deprecation) that they could press ctrl-alt with one hand and smash thier face into the "del" key and do it. About half the students thought I was funny, the other half hated me
Personally, I'm a moderate dyslexic and there is a lot of things out there that are very difficult for me to do. I can memorise each side of a list but can't link them or put them in the correct order - nothing I do will solve this. Nor can I spell worth a flip - in a written media it can really hamper me (to get the grammar and spelling correct for this post would take me several hours of work going from a browser to a word processor). People give all sorts of great advice "Write it down over and over", "Here is a mnemonic", etc. I'm in my thirties, been using computers since my teens, I've been a physics and math junkie since long before them. I still can not do my multiplication tables - I know a few of them and work out from there (for example, I do not know 9x7 but I dod know 7x7 so I add enough 7's to 49 to get the answer). It's like telling an armless person if the *just try hard enough* that they will catch the ball with thier hands - except mine isn't obvious visually. I think I had maybe 4 or 5 teachers that knew what I meant and all had a dyslexic kid or sibling, the rest thought I was trying to cheat.
That being said - I find most dyslexic jokes funny even though some are kinda not accurate (much as my "smash your face into the keyboard"). I don't really mind jokes as long as they are jokes, and I will make many myself.
Personally I always try and think of disabled people when I deseign something, I can't say I always succede, or my bosses approve of my deseign, but I try. I know something of what they go through. Though once I got into the real world no one really cared if I could quote the ISO OSI hierarchy in order from memeory as long as I knew what I was doing and other were talking about. My other talents were good enough no one cared about the dyslexia. If I was armless, blind, or a parapeligic that wouldn't be so true.
Anyway, in the end one must balance what you hurt the majority of your base for the minority. It sucks to be in the minority (and I understand that, I'm also nearly deathly allergic to fish even to the point of not being able to be around them cooking it - something most resturaunts really push on fridays - I just severely limit where I go on fridays and bring my own food the large get-togethers where they have a fish fry). It doesn't do any good to go bankrupt because
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
...did this shit get modded to 'insightful'?
So if the developers decide that the cost to include making games "accessible" to the disabled increase the cost of production, and therefore, the cost to consumers, is that a reasonable effort? Where does resonable become unreasonable?
I sympathise with the disabled. And I think society *should* make a reasonable, good faith effort to make them as comfortable as possible.
But this is a fucking game. A GAME. Not accessing the library, or a courthouse. A game. If the developers decide the *it is worth while* to implement accessiblility features into their games then good. But passing the costs (assuming they're unreasonable) on to the rest of us is stupid.
In any event, fuck the WASD people. I'm left handed and the arrow keys have worked just fine for me. No shit the UP direction should be bounded to the UP ARROW key, dumbass!
With only an RSS feed to rely on (no games icon), I was thinking this article was maybe something about fans aboard the Hubble space telescope being disabled and thus preventing some scientist a view of distant galaxies. Would it have been that much trouble for editors to use the full title of the game or "Star Wars Galaxies"?
At least with a single-player game, you can decide if you want to apply the next patch/update/enhancement or not. ... unless you play Half Life 2.
Good game, but an apalling resource hog with an unpleasant habit of spending 10 mins updating its self, like it or not.
wow. the comments and the moderations here really suck. I see a lot of folk who seem to basically just say "deal with it, you're DIS-abled, that means you can't do stuff". That's fucked up, you shitheads.
I don't think anybody is calling for the game to be shut down for this; but an optional patch that allows for customizing the controls better, as is mentioned is in the works, seems like just the thing.
Meanwhile, more broadly speaking, do you assholes know what designing for disability does? It puts _simply usability_ into your product, shit that we bitch about all the time - godawful GUI's, jackoff interfaces and stupid periphreals that result in trying to play a game looking like you're being raped by a wire-tentacle monster while playing twister at the console.
I hope all of you lose an arm. Or two.
Fuckers.
All I am saying is make controls in SWG CUSTOMIZABLE like before, I never propose forcing my keymap on everyone. are they too vapid to grasp this simple concept? This is NOT the few vs. the masses. This is "make your game customizable" vs. "shut out part of your customer base for no reason." I don't want to change other people's keymap, I just want CUSTOMIZATION back! Why is that so difficult? why must it be us vs. them, majority vs. minority, every damn day? Nick PS Thanks headonfire. Very well put. My letters to Wired magazine: http://www.xanga.com/nickdupree/406939346/item.htm l
Since cuin o my poine ine I'e ound i diicul o play ames such as alaxies and WoW: howee; Slashdo will e he las place I ee un o o sympahy!
perhaps the dipshit nerds here really want to be like their schoolyard bullies, you know ? lets beat up on the disabled kids, makes us feel strong but too weedy to take on the jocks
The guy who wrote the letter started this thread.
If a person has an identifiable handicap, they should be aware by now that manufacturers are not duty bound to provide access to their products. A great paradigm is the automobile industry. Ford does not make any of their vehicles specifically for persons with handicaps, yet thousands of people that have handicaps drive Fords. Why is this? Ford has a pro-active program in place to encourage purchase by disabled people, offering additional cash incentives to help offset costs for enhancements. The disabled customer can use the money to go to an after-market upfitter and have wheel chair ramps, hand controls, etc., installed and use the incentive to help pay for it. Ford does not offer these upfits as a factory option, but works towards empowerment for the disabled by assisting financially in making their vehicles accessible. If a software company has a game or other program available that is not designed for the disabled, they are not required to make a version that is. It does open the door for third-party providers to come up with either a hardware or software based solution that can be used. If a person is disabled, and wants to play, they should bear the cost of any enhancements they require, not the software company. Just my two cents.
The guy who wrote the letter started this thread. Logged in this time.
"Ought to"
"Must"
Simply put, while I believe a patch that removes accessibility (that wasn't advertised before, AFAIK) "ought not" happen, there is no way I'm supporting the "must not" crowd.
I've been playing games for too long and there's only so many times you can play an FPS before you get sick of the bloody sight of them. Generally, fast action button pressing merely introduces the opportunity for you to make an error. A well designed game doesn't need this. Developers seem to want to do as little in terms of character, story and strategy as possible. These are the things that make for a good game and they don't need complex controls.
I prefer a game where I decide what I want my character to do, I press a button and the character does it. I don't miss, or push the wrong button, or push the right button at the wrong time simply because the controls are a bit tricky and the game is too fast. This requires real chess-like strategy which most "game" developers can't be arsed with.
He should just MAKE a cool controller, I used to make cheater sticks using popsicle sticks when I was TEN. Tons of devices are made for people in conditions he's in, it shouldn't be so hard for him to make something, instead of ruining it for everyone else.
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
This incident illustrates another way the Free Software model protects the user. The situation is that a corporation has rented use of a program for a couple of years, and customers became accustomed to it's availability. But later, the corp decided (for reasons that will turn out to have been mistaken) that they no longer wanted to provide access to the software.
Since the software is proprietary, it goes away when the developer loses interest, even though there may remain a strong customer base willing to financially support the older version.
If SWG had been a Free Software project, then this would've never happened. Or, more realistically, if the developer had released their obseleted server code as Free Software (like idsoftware does with the Quake and Doom series 4 years after publication), then amateur servers offering "SWG Classic" would pop up, and all of this negative publicity would've been avoided.
A relation of mine had MD and playing games was one of the few things he could do that put him on a level playing field with the vast majority of us.
I'm not saying that all games should be developed to allow access to all with every conceivable disability - for one thing it's impossible - but if small minor (and cheap) changes can be made to a game, then I can't see a reason not to.
Think of it in terms of buildings. Some old buildings are completely unsuitable to convert to wheelchair access, narrow doors, steps all over the place etc - not even cost effective to try to sort them out. New buildings are much better, open plan, elevators etc - so it's not that hard to go the extra mile to stick in the odd ramp etc (in fact most have been designed now not to even need that).
There are loads of small things that can be done. Deaf gamers get mightily pissed off with games that don't have subtitles (or just have them missing on cut-scenes). Not that much effort to add them is it? (Look at HL2 for a game that has made the effort)
WTF is wrong with a 'Playable by disabled person' sticker on the back? We already have them for 'playable by 18+', 'playable on ninja-PC' and all manner or random shit - just have a look on the back of the box, disk space, sound card blah blah (does anybody have problems with sound compatibility any more)?
How about if somebody came up with some teeny little icons and allowed them to be tucked discreetly on the back - 'subtitles throughout' or 'Full control with mouse only'? If anything they might shift more units - god help you currently if you have a specific problem and are trying to pick a shiny game off the shelf and wondering if you'll be able to play it.
He should play Eve instead.. much better game, and you can play with just a mouse :)
... interactive entertainment is more often than not a domain explicitly for those who are able to use their hands. We don't see this kind of nonsense when a quadraplegic can't play Quake 4, so why should Galaxies be different? Yes, he was able to limp along before (in a game sense) using one button, but the change to Galaxies combat places it a realm of complexity and depth that you'd find it just above every other product out there. If one button isn't enough, then why doesn't he find some software that enables combinations of blows to represent some key-press.
Saying everything has to be equal opportunities is bull. Disabled people don't run in the same olympics as fully-able athletes, but rather in a seperate set of events more geared to their conditions.
Cry more n00b.
It's okay. Learn2Play.
I don't understand this. I've never played either version of the game, so maybe I'm just missing something obvious, but it sounds like they basically threw out the old game and put a new one in its place. So why not have both? Why alienate such a large group of people. It's a virtual world - you can have more than one.
It's not a requirement for developers. It's a requirement for SOCIETY.
===D--. O-:
I imagine the WSAD people you decide to curse are the ones who own your ass.
I see no benefit to the arrow keys whatsoever... you lose control of over half the keyboard and have to move you hand to do certain actions.
With WSAD, your little finger (the one with the least stretch) is directly over shift (for running), capslock (for run-lock), and ctrl (for crouch). Your thumb is directly over spacebar for jumping, you've got F for opening, Q and E for leaning, an effortless stretch to R for reload, maybe C for inventory if you like, or tab for a map or whatever, v for voice communication, T and Y for speak and teamspeak, all this with your hands spread out naturally rather than bunched up to the right (unless you're a leftie).
I wouldn't 'fuck the 'WASD' key people' if I were you. They've got the right idea, even if their movement keys haven't got pretty, easy to follow arrows on them.
orangeacid
If I had mod powers I'd up your post... You have made a great summary of the issue.
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
Please, do not mod me down, this is not a hidden advertisement. I just wanted to let disabled people know that there are some alternatives for them to check.
They've said they're working on making it easier for the disabled... This is a non-issue.
That sucks that he's no longer able to play, but I can't say that I'm surprised. I played EverQuest 1 for a while on one of the PVP servers, and they were constantly changing things without really telling anybody. One week it's OK to corpse camp someone you just killed.. next week they're giving warnings for it. Nobody really seemed to know what was going on.
I had a lot of fun playing EQ, but it was for a very short amount of time, and it was snatched away from me just like SWG was snatched away from this guy. Personally, I'm done with MMORPGs - they're like drugs. Eventually, if you're a serious player, the pain will outweigh the pleasure (in some way; it's different for everybody). If you don't think it will, you're kidding yourself.
You have a disability you by definition *cant* do everything that a non disabled person can.
Its a shame you have troubles, but its a fact of life that some of us have issues.
Sure, people can help you out to come closer to 'normal' but EVERY issue can NOT be overcome.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If he suceeds, I'll be following suit against the makers of every FPS multiplayer for discriminating against those of us with lesser visual recognition skills and/or non-perfect trainable twitch reflexes...
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
There are gertifications for everything else now-a-days, why dont the makers of these special needs interface devices get together with the game companies and form a set of acceptable standards and certification committy tfor individual product varification (a la ESRB ratings) and either a product or title is or isnt "handycap accessable" but the guesswork for the consumer would be gone.
I'm not suing anyone.
My mouse lets me program keyboard macros to buttons on my mouse.
Is there some reason why this person can not use (for example) Intellimouse 4.1 ?
I understand that he is upset the game took away his ability to control his character the way he wants, but most people I know with extreme handicaps are almost eager to show that they can find ways to beat the system.
Why not just map WASD to mousebuttons/wheel and be done with it?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
SWEET you have 4 thumbs?!?!?! OMGWTFBBQ, I wish I had your disability!!!
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Today, i found myself instantly lost playing a sports game where you had to use the two joystick like thumb controls as opposed to the directional pad on the left side of the controller.
But wouldn't two joysticks on the PS1/PS2/PS3 controller be ideal for a tank game? Ignore most of the buttons and press both joysticks up to go forward, press one up and one down to turn, press both sideways to strafe (yeah, I know real tanks can't do that), press both sticks in alternating directions to dash like Sonic the Hedgehog, try to crush as many objects under your treads so that your tank gets bigger, na na, na na na na na na na Katamari Damacy...
There are ways to set up any system for the handling of user feed-back that can accomodate just about any configuration of triggers for events.
Some dweeb never read my 'Rovira Diagram' article and fucked everything up because he made some basic and fundamental errors when setting up his system.
The system should have been set up with entire sets of events (mouse or keyboad or bliss board or voice or touchpad or 3D-VR or whatever,) with the object-event mapping correspondence being handled entirely out of his hands.
What's wrong with Somy these days? They seem blinded by the powder residue from shooting themselves in the foot.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Nice subject truncation... I do hope it was /. being amusing...
I never mentioned suing, or at least not in this context.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Having spent 8 months with a nerve sheath injury I can attest to how anoying it is not to at least have the option to set things to a mouse click or button-that said good test of how good (or bad) a UI tweak is is to attempt to use it with only one type of interface. Why? If someone on a windows box (lots of key board stuff) can't use it, somone on a apple box (mostly mouse) can't, make changes do a public beta apply as needed. This typicly solves --80% of the problems.
Disabled Fans Shut Out of Galaxies
Did anyone else think that this was an astronomy story in the wrong section, at first? The things I was picturing....
SOE has lied since the beginning of the game, and lies and lies and lies and lies and tries to deceive it's customers every chance it gets.
A lot of the posters here seem to forget a few tiny details: - Star Wars Galaxies has had this disabled-friendly interface for 2.5 years, ever since it came out. - No one ever complained about the interface. It was 100% customisable, and actually quite user friendly for non-disabled people (like me. - The 'new and improved' interface is described as horrid by almost everyone leaving, and most of those staying. Most heard comment is that the new interface requires 3 hands to play. Linna
1. Company does something geeks perceive as evil.
2. Geeks write a story which boils down to "Hey, this is evil!"
3. Geeks find a way in which this hurts some disadvantaged group.
4. Geeks write a story pointing this out.
5. ???
6. Profit!
Not to defend Lucasarts or anything, but...yeesh. Are the disabled nothing more than pawns to be used to attack companies with? I seem to recall similar articles blasting Windows (and other things) for not being disabled-friendly. I don't recall many (if any) articles blasting how eeeeeeeeeevil NetBSD is for not catering to the blind or disabled...
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Both SWG and EQ have had some serious screwups, and about the only way to make the games fun again involves using a time machine.
Luckily, the world has enough tall people that some manufacturers are willing to make adjustable seats. --If I sit in a car and can't make myself feel comfortable, I'd write off a possible purchase immediately. So the automotive design departments write the extra paychecks to make their damned seats accommodating to people who are not clones. Aw, poor babies. . .
As for the video game market and disabled people. . .
People complaining about, "That's just how it is. Get used to it," are not being very clever. . .
The whole point of Personal Computing as I understood it when the movement launched a couple of decades ago, was that the Personal Computer would be a multi-purpose tool which could be programmed to the precise needs of its user.
Please consider that.
And guess what?
Despite the mountains of general annoyances and oversights and thoughtless designs, the PC is STILL a multi-purpose tool which can be programmed to the precise needs of its user. Thank heavens!
You can get keyboards and mouse inputs which are highly programmable. In the case of this particular piece of software, however, it sounds to me as though the game itself really needs to be changed. (Actually, it almost sounds as though the new interface was deliberately made to be annoying and very difficult to get around with hardware solutions. So who knows what new madness is going around the Ranch?)
In any case, I'd pen a letter to the guys at Lucasarts asking them politely to spend a couple of days coding some work-around into their interface. Make their interface as highly programmable as possible. (I'd make this standard practice from the drawing board up in all my PC games, but then nobody is asking my opinion.)
Heck, with enough emailing around, you could probably find some hacker interested enough to do it for you for free. Or learn how to hack it yourself.
It's just software after all. It'd be more doable than taking a hatchet to that two inches of thoughtless engineering which cracks my head every time I forget to duck under the doorframe to my back room.
Just my two cents. --And for a third penny. . . What's up with geeks not leaping to solve this problem? Come on, you guys! You get excited about designing a robot which can carry a ping pong ball upstairs, but you're willing to penalize a fellow for presenting an engineering problem which is both interesting and directly applicable to the real world? What's up with that?
-FL
For many wheelchair bound folks, games like SWG, EQ and WoW are the only way they can escape from being tied by gravity to a chair. In those worlds, you can run, you can fly, you can move the hunk of flesh you are stuck in.
I think we're forgetting some of history's greatest pasttimes: the revolution, protest, strikes. I haven't been following this SWG update much (too busy playing WoW ;)) but it seems that it's not working out that well, and most people are pissed.
You know what the best thing you could do? Stop playing. Stop giving Sony your money every month. Not just you, but your friends, your guild. Sony made these changes to help improve their customer base. What happens when they notice their customer base is shrinking and not growing? Best case scenario, they begin to reevaluate what they've done to the game, and recognize that maybe this wasn't the best idea.
Of course, on the other hand, they can look at the time and money spent on the update and say "forget it, we're sticking with it." I know there's a number of people out there, including the disabled gamer in the article, who are thinking "we shouldn't HAVE to do this, it was fine before." Well sure, but sitting and longing for the past isn't going to get you anywhere.
This is the reality now: the game has changed, in your opinion, for the worse. If it's bad, then don't play it. Stop wasting your money. Sure, you spent all that time and money to get that far in the game, but eventually you're going to hit some point where you no longer feel like playing. This happened to me with UO...I played it for 5 years, it was a great game, but they changed it too much from the original vision and I eventually lost interest. Did I regret all the time and money I put into the game? No, because it was great while it lasted.
If you feel that something is wrong and needs change, be reponsible and stand up and say it. Don't look for pity by playing some angle, be strong and state your opinion. Find people that agree with you. Spread the word. And finally, take action. Change doesn't come from talk; only action.
In addition to the on-screen keyboard, Windows also features an accessibility tool called "MouseKeys" that allows you to use the numpad as a mouse.
If you were to pair this with a keyboard remapping tool such as SwapKeys, you could effectively bind the WASD keys to the arrow keys(or numpad keys while NumLock is off) and have everything you need within a fairly reasonable distance.
Granted, it's unfortunate that anyone should have to go to additional lengths to be accomodated in places where there was prior accomodation, but all of you naysayers must realize that things like this are simply the tip of the iceberg for the disabled.
Luckily, technology and society are advancing to the point where accomodations for everyone are becoming more seamless and less "tacked on". For example, Nintendo's Revolution is said to be marketed toward a more general audience, potentially appealing toward those who would otherwise never touch a controller.
Gaming that's exclusively inclusive to the disabled can't be far off.
Something that had been working for the disabled playing this game, all of a sudden stops working, and you expect the people affected to just keep paying their monthly subscription in the hopes that "someday" it will be "fixed?" When will it be fixed? How will it be fixed? For the folks who spent money customizing the UI to accomodate their handicap, who reimburses them for the now un-usable game?
I'm replying to the parent because that seems to be the best way to cover lots of posts. There seems to be a great deal of hostility to the idea of video games being accessible to those with disabilities in this thread. What does that say about the folks who harbor such hostility? In the case of the original article, the guy was complaining because his game that was accessible to him was altered to not be. How would you feel if you were in a wheel chair, and your employer, favorite night club/cyber cafe, or whatever did some remodeling and removed the ramps that allow you entry to the building? That's basically what happened to this guy. I don't say that everyone who writes games should be required to make the accessible. However, they shouldn't be allowed to take a game that was accessible and make it inaccessible. The folks who wrote that patch made the game controls more complex without regard to those who might be locked out of the game for which they pay/paid good $$$ for. I noticed a couple of folks using the example of a blind person and saying that because the blind can't play video games, no accomodations should be made for those with any other disability to play them. Sheese... The very name of "video game" would seem to indicate up front that the blind might have a hard time playing them. I'm unaware of any blind person who would even consider trying a video game. Now, if there was such a thing as an audio game, or a text-based game that was compatible with some form of braile display (do those exist yet?) or screen reader, things might be different. I wonder how many of these folks who seem so willing to exclude the disabled, and were old enough to vote, voted for John Kerry?
"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." --Pericles
Nice subject truncation... I do hope it was /. being amusing
It was. Slashdot limits subjects to fifty characters, and it chops off up to the last three (such as "Idiotic!" to "Idiot") to insert Re: at the front when replying.
The young developers don't understand some of us can't read the tiny fonts - it wouldn't be that hard to make a scaleable interface, but usually they don't care. Even a game like world of warcraft, where the engine already can scale the interface doesn't allow people to actually scale the windows larger, only smaller! Totally brain dead.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
programs should be flexible to accept any input.
Even input from aimbots in, say, a first-person shooter?
Man with no legs or arms cannot swim the English Channel... upset, calls for draining of the famous channel so he can roll across it. Cites unfair advantage of legged individuals.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Now I've heard everything... maybe quadraplegics should sue video game makers because the games are not ADA compliant. While we're at it, the families of coma patients should sue as well since it is unfair to the person laying there in a coma. Kids should get into the act also, and sue the makers of "adult" or "not for kids" video games for discrimination. Women firefighters (who took a more relaxed version of the firefighter physical abilities test) should sue also, saying the game discriminated against them because it doesn't have a built-in handicap system for women. Hell, let's all sue everyone...
"There really is nothing good to report on this game update."
;)
How about it's now a game that sounds like *fun* and not a fucking farming/town simulation?
Seriously though, if you want to live in a game where you are interacting with a big social network (which is what Galaxies was afaics), go play The Real World. I want games to be about *play*!
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
I cannot hit a ball to save my life. My hand-eye coordination sucks. Should I bitch and complain and sue Major League Baseball for making their game inaccessable to me?
Maybe I should go petition the Air Force and NASA to make their jet fighters and the Space Shuttle accessible to pilots with terrible eyesight.
This would have been better with your post if it read:
Maybe I should go petition the Air Force and NASA to make their jet fighters and the Space Shuttle accessible to pilots with one leg.
Ha ha.
This is symptomn of a larger problem.
It's not about whether differently abled people should be able to play action games with twitch references and beat Fatal1ty at his own game and so on.
See, this guy used to be able to play SWG, but now he can't. What he *should* be able to do is go back and play the old version because that used to work. Why can't he do that?
Because Sony *owns* everything to do with SWG the game. They took the old version away and now this guy can't play it anymore. If it was an open source game, he could probably just grab and old version and play it. But Sony has a monopoly on both the game version and the servers it is played on. So play by their rules or hit the road.
It's the same with Valve and Steam. I think it would hilarious (okay, also a bit unfortunate) if Valve went out of business and shut down the Steam servers. Nobody would be able to play HL2 or CS:Steam anymore. At least, not without breaking the DMCA to allow the game to be played without Steam (which has already been done of course but we won't mention that because we like to stay within the bounds of the law).
This is all because corporations are exerting much more control over the way we as consumers play the games they sell to us. This is a bad trend, as today, we have far less control over our own entertainment than ever before. I can only see it getting more worse in future.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
From a business standpoint, the percentage of LucasArts' market that is disabled to the point of potentially requiring special HI Devices is extremely small. It is not worth LA's time to bother recoding their game again to appease such a small portion of their market. All they have to be sure of is that this one case doesn't get so dramatic that people will look upon the company poorly.
...OWNED!
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
Excuse me, but isn't there something in freedom of speech that includes the right to complain? I'm sorry, but I see nothing in the message insisting SWG be sued or forced to accomodate the disabilities of this man, or anybody else, merely expressing dissatisfaction and the reasons for it.
I think he has a right to say that.
Whether or not there's any hypothetical right to access is another problem, but hmm, IMHO, it would be nice if the software companies did consider such problems, wouldn't it?
And yes, I am aware that such openness would expose a risk of cheating from macro-codes and whatnot.
You can't change my controls, I don't play the game.:)
You've made good points... I confess... I just wanted to get the first post... I probably would have said something way different... but people are so fast!
But considering (from TFA) "LucasArts claims they are working on a patch for the game that will allow players to play it using only the mouse" I think the article really could have been more favourable to them, especially since they don't seem to have marketed the game as being especially accessible.
Regarding the curse of the dozen rabid, zombie badgers, I must respond appropriately. Since the bible says to bless those that curse you:
May your camels be fruitful and multiply, but not in your living room.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
needs to be changed. EQ2 is the same way, you press 3-5 buttons over and over again. The orginal EQ at least had some variety as to how to play your character. I am enjoying a free 21day account renewal, as Sony trieds to woo me back. Great game...I just have no time, and my wife needs continuous servicing. Oh well.
Getting old fast, Shit!
As someone pointed out in a previous article about WoW vs SWG, the reason why WoW is so popular with Asian internet cafe goers is because you can smoke and play the game at the same time.
I know quite a few people who smoke at their computer and play MMOGs (especially WoW) at home and if they can't do it then they'll most likley get annoyed.
Personally, I like to drink and play games and let me tell you... It is a bitch to try to drink alcoholic beverages while playing Unreal Tournament 2004. It can be done but I tend to have to get in sips between death and respawn.
If this was something constant in which it would 5 minutes between breaks then I'd probally end up dying or dropping my drink all over the floor when something jumps me and I need an extra hand.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I may be the only /.'er on here but I've taken the NGE changes in stride and have had no real problems making the change. I do agree that they've nerf'd the Crafter/Trader but I like the game and play a couple of hours a night.
My wife is also fine with the interface, but unfortunately she has an Entertainer and a Domestics Crafter which as already mentioned is another set of issues.