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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.
Thought I would respond here...
Basically there are no ways to simplify the controls or the interface. SOE/LA really screwed up the interface for the game, even long time (well abled) customers find the new interface a freaking nightmare. (Most of us say it requires 6 hands to play now).
Here is an example if you are a Jedi...
Find NPC to attack.
Click or press 6 to tell the system you want your right click skill to be your defense stance.
Click your Right Mouse button to activate it.
Click or press 8 to tell the system you want to activate your blaster blocking.
Right Click Mouse to Activate.
Click or press 7 to tell teh system you want to hit harder
Ricght Click Mouse to Activate
Click or press 3 to tell system your want your right click attack power to be lightning.
Left click on target to start attacking it.
Right Click to Activate ligtning. (Timer Rolls)
Click or press 2 to tell system to use Choke
Right Click to choke target
Left click many more times or hold it down
Do all this whil staying in a 5m range of target using your wasd keys to chase target and then repeat several times all of the above - since all the items above are on short timers and have to be reset, several times even in a simple battle with an NPC of your own level.
Oh, and with the NGE you also have to keep your cursor hovering over the targer at all times, as this is their idea of a 'targeting system'. It is like a sick joke and bad interface version of 1992 Duke Nukem.
Sounds fun uh? Not...
In the old system, you targeted NPC and clicked how you wanted to attack it. You did NOT have to the click on the power and then right click to activate it (redundant UI concept from hell, and in current form is buggy and many times the right click power never fires as you have both mouse buttons down at same time and system gets confused).
Truly imagine a system with no character or creature collision detection and yet they are trying to strap on a targeting system. It is an insane idea at best.
Also, in old system you could also walk and navigate and everything with the mouse and one hand, using the cursor keys or wasd was not necessary but available. (Now you find that even more complex games like CoH are 100 times easier to play and at least have a better line of site, collision detection, and more realistic targeting system.)
The old SWG was a great game that they never let it fulfill itself, the original designers had a great vision that is now completely gone. It was probably the first MMO that had no need for quests or developer created content as such. Players created their own. They made their own adventures and their own content. From Player Cities and housing to guild ran quests. All of which is now worthless, and they are moving the game to a quest based system fully, but yet using crappy beta code for line of site and targetting to make it 'seem' like a FPS.
As for the people saying that a disabled person has no rights here, they are not listening and are really cold hearted and minded.
What if I sold someone here a condo in a building that had wheel chair ramps and such and they bought it because it was easy for them to get in because they are disabled, then a month later, I replace the ramps with stairs and tell them tough luck. Do you not think they would be a little angry? Or should we just tell them to learn to walk or move? Not fair.
Even if this does not fall under the disabilities act, it does fall under bait and switch laws. PERIOD.
(This post is not all directed at the poster I am replying to, it was just a good place to jump into this conversation.)
I will gladly take the exact opposite opinion:
The new game enhancements are atrocious. The interface is horrible. The combat, while more exciting, is still "stand-there-and-click-the-next-attack", but the click/keyboard press order has just been changed around a little. Ohh.... and the fact that you have to keep your target in the crosshairs in a non-collision world is ridiculous.
The game is pretty much hollow now. The servers, compared to a year ago, are ghost towns of their former selves. I'm a HUGE SW fan. In fact, the only reason I even started playing an MMO was because it was a Star Wars MMO. Nevertheless, Sony and Lucasarts managed to completely screw up the one hobby I truly enjoyed playing in my evening free time. I survived the combat upgrade ok, but the NGE is completely off the wall. The Sony track record of "Hey... let's screw over our veteran players" is why the majority of the veteran SWG players have left the game! The game is dumbed down enough to where my 4 year old would probably enjoy it.
You can read (in mind-numbing detail) all about why I left SWG here: Clicky.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.