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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.
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.
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...
I have full function of all my limbs, and I still have a hard time playing these games.
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.
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/
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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
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.
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.
There's not much in common between a mass-market PC game intended for the general public and a military aircraft intended only for use in combat operations. At least in theory, everyone should be able to play SWG, especially if it didn't call for any particularly intense control schemes when it was originally sold to the plaintiff.
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.
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.
1). It should, by default, be recognized that certain audiences can't realistically play ANY game, much less pre-NGE SWG or post-NGE SWG. Point is the original game was playable by the plaintiff, while the post-NGE game is not. Asserting that this is somehow related to blind people's ability to play games(before or after patches) is the only absurd argument here.
2). Since when did SWG ever cater to the bulk of the population? *P
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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At least in theory, everyone should be able to play SWG
Why? Do we have to modify every form of entertainment so two fingered people can use them? Tennis? Football? Giving someone dignity an quality of life doesn't mean that all of us can only do activities that severely disabled people can do.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
haven't done much research
Well, it's hard to do any research when Sony locks and removes every thread criticizing their consolification/total conversion of the game, now isn't it?
People are leaving in droves. The game system has been vastly dumbed down (a multi-path skill-based system ejoyed by quite a few, replaced with distinct classes with levels, like WoW but with less content), the interface reworked into some third-person shooter - again well-suited for a conversion to console, and the SimBeru gameplay of resource extraction and crafting has been messed up. Oh, and making Jedi available from the start, thus nullifying the "hard work" of players who had endured the grinds previously needed to unlock Jedi powers? Brilliant.
Then there is the release of the new expansion just days before the changes, which had been in the making for months, came live and essentially made much of the expansion's content null and void. That made a lot of people angry, for very good reason, as they felt they were being lied to when they were sold the expansion's features.
Now, can you actually come up with ANYTHING good about the current SW:G instead of just criticizing a statement with no real counterargument?
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
When you're handicapped, you can't do the same things "normal" people can do.
:P
"Normal" people don't play Star Wars: Galaxies in the first place.
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.
I was a major weaponsmith on Chilastra, but my quick command of my trackball made my human character Namav Forsirn formidable in combat too. I mastered three combat professions, two pilot professions and I loved to frag people and get fragged around the Imperial Star Destroyer in Deep Space. I did a Skywalker and soloed that Imperial Star Destroyer countless times to rack up enough faction points to get factional armor for my friends. I flew the B-Wing, a slow, hulking behemoth only certified at Master Alliance Ace that very few have the dedication to fly. I did all this because controls were customizable. Now they're not.
Someone cry him a river.
I see. Because you can't be bothered.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So why not have both? Why alienate such a large group of people.
Because they're afraid that more players will stay with the old version, and it'd be pretty humiliating for a corp to be faced with such objective proof that "newer" != "better".
Sony tried to have both, and released Everquest2 while EQ1 was still running. They attribute some of EQ2's disappointing results to that choice. Looking at http://www.mmogchart.com/ EQ2 still doesn't have nearly the subscribers as EQ1 (although I don't know if this is confused because of Sony's combined-subscription plans).
The concern of auto-cannibalization is greater for an franchise property like Star Wars. The marketplace might support niches for several kinds of online games based on spaceships, androids, and laser-pistols, but there can only be one "Star Wars Online" at a time. To be THE StarWars game carries automatic value, independent from the quality of the specific game.
The publishers wanted to shift to target different customers, but didn't want to dilute their brand by continuing the older service. Thus, the many existing subscribers suffer because Sony hopes to replace them with 5x the number of 15-21 year-old males.
(This will turn out to have been a losing gamble- if they wanted online twitchy StarWars combat, they should've tried to improve StarWars-Battlefront2 with a more compelling and persistent online service. Instead, they're making a pale WoW-clone in a StarWars skin)
So Quake should be outlawed, too?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They've said they're working on making it easier for the disabled... This is a non-issue.
If it were possible to add something to Tennis or Football that would allow a two-fingered person to play without changing the game for able-bodied people, then yes.
This is not about Tennis or Football. This is about a video game, a video game where the addition of a customizeable GUI would allow disabled people to play without having any impact at all on able-bodied people.
Everyone seems to be going to the absurd extreme of thinking "And next they'll want to make Physics PhD programs open to people in persistent vegatative states! And the NFL open to people with no arms or legs!" That is not what is being talked about, and going to such an absurd argument isn't insightful - it's the exact opposite, and it avoids speaking about the very real merits of the issue.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
I'm not suing anyone.
Well, what you say is true, in a sense. For one thing, there are of course visual art programs that blind people are unlikely to be interested in. There's little or no point in making those accessible to THOSE disabled users.
If it happens that other disabled users WANT to use it however, and have some difficulties due to design, then that should obviously be fixed. The article is about dexterity issues, which can easily be solved by allowing different input methods, as an older version did.
The big issue though, is that people simply being dismissive of disabled users' needs. There is absolutely no reason why, if a user (disabled or not) wants to be able to control a piece of software, that input methods cannot be devised to allow this. So, when I say all programs, I mean all programs that disabled users might want to use, but that IS much closer to ALL programs than a handful, and I really think we need to think of accessibility as a default, rather than an exception.
On high-contrast, high-feedback, low-skill, etc... Again, if a user wants to play such a game, they are likely to believe that they could do it, if the input and feedback only suited them. This could easily be catered for with different UI modes, tilesets, etc. Most user interfaces, even in games, are becoming much more dynamic, using scalable graphics and high-level input APIs rather than bitmaps and raw joystick access. So it's definitely doable. And, yes, I think any cost involved in that extra mode should be part of the overall cost for all members of society who play the game. We're all in this social thing together.
Yes, my wang worked/s.
The nerves that go into your man-member, and those that control your legs are different, so I was safe.
No reason to lie.
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 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.