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Kereth · 10-30-2008, 01:48 PM

Some very good points here. The only things I have to add are that

A. force feedback, audio, and other things still put blind players at a great disadvantage if they are coded as an alternate interface for the gamer stumbling through the 3d forest. Sure, you can move around, but although blind people get mobility training to help them get around a city, they don't get it to fight a group of twenty hobgoblins with crossbows in the woodland. Just like the car thing, yes, people can drive you around, but technology is still something short in those cases of allowing people to take the wheel on most graphical games just yet.

B. 21.2 million people in the united states is an impressive figure, but there are over 300 million people in the united states, which still puts them as a minority (about 7%). Now, interestingly enough, I tried taking the United States unemployment rate against the total population to see what percentage of unemployed persons would actually be blind, and I discovered that the United States unemployment rate (about 4% as of November 2007) placed against the population says that even if every unemployed person in the country was blind, they still couldn't make up 75% of those blind people, so my attempted comparison there fails, either because the 75% is only of a specific subset of that group, or because the unemployment rate has changed too drastically since 2007 and has hit the blind population much harder than everyone else (highly likely).

Regardless, to consult cases of games like Miriani (although maybe you typoed the name? The game I get on the search shows connection statistics of only 16-20 players on average), it's not actually the case "across the board," as you mentioned. Requirements to be easily accessible for the visually impared, even on a MUD is more strict that some people realize (obviously not Brawndel, of course, who will be familiar with the problems by now, no doubt). To use the "overworld map" situation, for example, which is one that's been a problem for blind gamer I've talked to before. RetroMUD uses ascii overworld maps on an expansive overworld. Locating special locations by just wandering around and hoping you stumble across a room with a useful exit even without a screen reader and just not looking at the map, is no easy job. This was countered by having macros provided to travel to various key locations on the overworld. Before these macros were provided, the game was pretty much inaccessible to blind people, and still is without another player to provide the assistance. Even then, there are issues with lengthy battle spam and other messages which can sometimes scroll across the screen quite quickly and be hard to keep up with without the ability to look for key colors to pick out the useful information. Because of problems like this, MUDs that are easy to use without reliance on colors or tend to get more players who need those things that MUDs that don't.

We need more of them.

Still, the majority of the larger MUDs, even on TMS, when surveyed, will profess to have little to no sight-impared players at all.

Now, to my point, we need more games to be accessible to the seeing-impaired. Really, we do. The trouble in getting it is that according to Brawndel, the total number of blind people in the U.S. is roughly the same as the global population of speakers of the Sami language (the language of the Lapps, the indiginous people of Northern Finland), and obviously, that number hasn't been big enough for any video games at all to be translated into Sami, to my knowledge, which would be a much simpler task than adapting those same games for use by the blind. MUDs, to the contrary, provide an excellent middle ground, a set of games that can have a larger target audience, while still being accessible by that smaller group. The complaint, then, if I understand it, is that too many games aren't staying on that middle ground.

Well, more should keep the middle ground, but those that don't shouldn't be condemned for it. The hybrid text/graphic games could potentially be a new genre of gaming on their own, and one that is not necessarily to be discouraged, just because not everyone can use it. So long as MUDs that cater to them continue to get players that cannot see, there will always be MUDs that they can play, if only because those same players keep them alive.

10-30-2008, 01:48 PM	#20
Kereth Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Home MUD: www.retromud.org Posts: 61	Re: Going Graphical Some very good points here. The only things I have to add are that A. force feedback, audio, and other things still put blind players at a great disadvantage if they are coded as an alternate interface for the gamer stumbling through the 3d forest. Sure, you can move around, but although blind people get mobility training to help them get around a city, they don't get it to fight a group of twenty hobgoblins with crossbows in the woodland. Just like the car thing, yes, people can drive you around, but technology is still something short in those cases of allowing people to take the wheel on most graphical games just yet. B. 21.2 million people in the united states is an impressive figure, but there are over 300 million people in the united states, which still puts them as a minority (about 7%). Now, interestingly enough, I tried taking the United States unemployment rate against the total population to see what percentage of unemployed persons would actually be blind, and I discovered that the United States unemployment rate (about 4% as of November 2007) placed against the population says that even if every unemployed person in the country was blind, they still couldn't make up 75% of those blind people, so my attempted comparison there fails, either because the 75% is only of a specific subset of that group, or because the unemployment rate has changed too drastically since 2007 and has hit the blind population much harder than everyone else (highly likely). Regardless, to consult cases of games like Miriani (although maybe you typoed the name? The game I get on the search shows connection statistics of only 16-20 players on average), it's not actually the case "across the board," as you mentioned. Requirements to be easily accessible for the visually impared, even on a MUD is more strict that some people realize (obviously not Brawndel, of course, who will be familiar with the problems by now, no doubt). To use the "overworld map" situation, for example, which is one that's been a problem for blind gamer I've talked to before. RetroMUD uses ascii overworld maps on an expansive overworld. Locating special locations by just wandering around and hoping you stumble across a room with a useful exit even without a screen reader and just not looking at the map, is no easy job. This was countered by having macros provided to travel to various key locations on the overworld. Before these macros were provided, the game was pretty much inaccessible to blind people, and still is without another player to provide the assistance. Even then, there are issues with lengthy battle spam and other messages which can sometimes scroll across the screen quite quickly and be hard to keep up with without the ability to look for key colors to pick out the useful information. Because of problems like this, MUDs that are easy to use without reliance on colors or tend to get more players who need those things that MUDs that don't. We need more of them. Still, the majority of the larger MUDs, even on TMS, when surveyed, will profess to have little to no sight-impared players at all. Now, to my point, we need more games to be accessible to the seeing-impaired. Really, we do. The trouble in getting it is that according to Brawndel, the total number of blind people in the U.S. is roughly the same as the global population of speakers of the Sami language (the language of the Lapps, the indiginous people of Northern Finland), and obviously, that number hasn't been big enough for any video games at all to be translated into Sami, to my knowledge, which would be a much simpler task than adapting those same games for use by the blind. MUDs, to the contrary, provide an excellent middle ground, a set of games that can have a larger target audience, while still being accessible by that smaller group. The complaint, then, if I understand it, is that too many games aren't staying on that middle ground. Well, more should keep the middle ground, but those that don't shouldn't be condemned for it. The hybrid text/graphic games could potentially be a new genre of gaming on their own, and one that is not necessarily to be discouraged, just because not everyone can use it. So long as MUDs that cater to them continue to get players that cannot see, there will always be MUDs that they can play, if only because those same players keep them alive.