GW2 and Accessibility for Disabled People

[Rogue.8235]

Having tested it more, the camera facing is much more useful information than character.  I play with action camera, but the most critical time that I need to know direction is when I'm standing still and panning to figure out where to go (usually on a mount).

 

For instance, I'm on a skyscale on a cliff and I need to reset my bearings because I think I got off track a bit.  I currently need to leave action camera mode, keyboard turn the character until it beeps north, then I'm set.

It would be easuer if it were the camera instead so I can just orient the camera and then fly away.

 

The screen reader does read the text print, and I found out that lat/long is universal (as opposed to per map instance).  Any information you can print to that little window is something I can read and would love to know.  I want to know all the things!

 

Thank you so much for all the work you're putting in!

[Lyssia.4637]

What you two are doing here, Rogue and Leo, is truly incredible.  It is so cool to see people putting so much work into solving problems.  I am so impressed, I really hope the community and Anet give you the recognition you deserve for the work you are putting into this project.  

Edited October 17, 2021 by Lyssia.4637

[Nol Fran Shee.1285]

I'd like to add my two cents worth about color blindness and WvW.

 

Green are allies.  Unless your team isn't green, then sometimes green are enemies.

Red are enemies.  Unless your team is red, then sometimes red are allies.

 

This confusion has gotten me killed more than once.  And never mind that fact that sometimes you can't tell red and green apart on the screen when you're color blind!

 

Why not make 2 changes.

 

1. Your team always shows up with one color.  Players, NPCs, everything.  The other two teams show up in their own colors with players and NPCs and everything.  So using the present color scheme (which I'll address in point 2) that would mean your team is ALWAYS green.  The other two teams are ALWAYS red and blue.  The colors are instanced.  You see yourself as green, you see the enemy as "other"

 

2. Red, Green, & Blue are a terrible combination.  I know from PvE that red are dangerous and green are friendly, but in WvW there are two dangerous colors.  Lets try Red, Yellow, and Blue teams to avoid the Red/Green color blindness.  And add symbols too.  Right now everyone has a triangle marker.  Lets have allies with little circles, and enemies with either little triangles or little squares (pointy is bad, smooth is good) so that even if we can't tell the colors apart we can see the shapes. 

 

 

There are tons of accessibility guides for UI/UX design or maybe just hire a programmer or QA person with color issues.

[Leo.3428]

@Rogue.8235

Thank you for the excellent feedback! I sent you a modified version that uses the direction of the camera instead. Pings are not suppressed while moving though; would it be be better to suppress them? (until we have everything configurable by the user).

It's great that JAWS can read the text. Later, all the info will be in UI controls that are hopefully accessible without using any OCR.

The primary character coordinates in Mumble should be map coordinates, not world coordinates. I tested changing map and there was no continuity; the (0,0) point seems to be at the center of each map. Did you encounter any exception?

The Mumble coordinates are in meters but I can display them in the in-game unit: inches; or feet or yards or whatever makes sense (another option to add to the configuration).

Here is a link to a wiki page that lists all the info that GW2 exports in the extended Mumble link, please read it to the end, there is a lot of data available. Let me know what you want to have displayed; it can be everything but then we may need a scrollable window.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/API:MumbleLink

 

@Lyssia.4637

Thank you! All thanks to everyone in this long discussion who contributed toward this. Hoping eventually these features will be available in the game itself.

 

@"Nol Fran Shee.1285"

Even when being able to see all the colors, WvW is pretty confusing at first. If I'm on the red team, I'd rather have everything in red, for consistency. Not what you are suggesting, but I support having three shapes for the three teams.

 

 

[alcopaul.2156]

idk if there's this term in ophthalmology called "hue adjustment" where the hue of the screen can be modified in a way that will enhance your remaining eyesight and still the colors are websafe which are melded in a way to make you distinguish forms sharply.

 

or something like that..

and A.NET can add presets of hues in a combobox of the client settings for you to choose from according to your liking..

Edited October 18, 2021 by alcopaul.2156

[nyah.7586]

On 10/6/2021 at 1:28 AM, Leo.3428 said:

I just made a small app that reads the Mumble link and gets the direction the character is facing. What different outputs should it produce, for instance displaying a large "horizontal band" compass for players with low vision, or playing voice tracks or sound effects when crossing a cardinal direction, or triggering a feedback device (the belt that was discussed for instance).

For the band compass to display within the game, I don't think that GW2 offers any addon mechanism, so it would be some complicated transparent DirectX layer that tracks the game window's position and size and displays over it (an overlay).

Sound effects are easier to make.

External devices would require studying the manager or driver software for these.

I wonder if TacO, the Tactical Overlay add-on, could be expanded with accessibility features. It already has an option to display a compass around the character but I'm not sure it is large enough.

Thoughts?

Oh wow I missed a lot while not being active here! Love the work and effort you put into this and I would love to test the app. This is so amazing! Thank you so much!

[nyah.7586]

On 10/6/2021 at 1:46 AM, SexyMofo.8923 said:

As much as I would like to agree, if your eyes are that bad, I would’t waste it on a game.  Go enjoy the world before you lose your eyesight completely. 

 

Hey, That comment is ableist.  Anyone should have the opportunity to do the things they want to do, no matter their disabilities. If something is not accessible it's not the fault nor the responsibility of the disabled person! It never is.

I love gaming. I've always loved gaming.  Yes, my condition, which was caused by a genetic defect, made it harder over time. I lost most of my vision relatively late in life and I had to learn to accept it and live with it, which took me years of hard work (severe depressions & lots of therapy included)!  So don't you or anyone else dare to tell me that I should stop doing what I love because of a condition that I didn't chose to have. Comments like yours are hurtful. They are terribly hurtful, and I wish from the bottom of my heart that you start thinking about what you say and how it can affect others. Especially for those who are more sensitive (which is totally valid and there is nothing wrong with that).

I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, but the thing is - your words did hurt me. I want you to know that.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. You don't need to respond to this. Just think about it before you make a comment like this next time.

[Leo.3428]

@alcopaul.2156

That's right, monitor colors can be adjusted for particular wavelengths, and some more complex transformations. The big question is: Should the whole game screen be adjusted this way, or just the special elements where colors encode for a specific meaning and can create ambiguity?

 

@nyah.7586

Welcome back, and thank you for having started this whole discussion! The app has no enlarged compass yet (let alone a DirectX overlay) and it will take a while to make, as I'm the only one writing the code for the moment, but I will send you by PM the current version that only does directional beeping.

[Leo.3428]

Hello, I started making an interface for configuring things, leveraging the native controls of the OS in the hope they will be more accessible to screen readers -- not out of the box probably, but more apt at interfacing with the automation/accessibility API.

Also started the compass band, an independent window that is currently a slow-refresh normal window but should be upgraded to a fast Vulkan or DirectX window and turned into an overlay.

To allow for fast processing, reading the game state 50 times a second (Mumble recommendation) or more, and reacting instantly with sound and/or graphic card accelerated display, I picked C++ as the programming language.

Please keep feeding the project with ideas 🙂

[Dante.1508]

I agree op and feel its very poor on Anet...

I feel you deserve to be able to play your games like everyone else.. I'd hope Anet would invite you to their development studios and have you help them fix the areas you and others need to be able to enjoy yourselves. I myself would like a bigger font as well. and i'm not legally blind.

 

Will it happen who knows..

[BlueJin.4127]

Given the Mechanist is yet another spec that spams painfully bright flashing lights at the player, and is therefore unplayable for players with sensitive eyes, I think it’s safe to assume that Anet really doesn’t give kitten about players with medical conditions.

Edited October 29, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[Rogue.8235]

10 hours ago, BlueJin.4127 said:

Given the Mechanist is yet another spec that spams painfully bright flashing lights at the player, and is therefore unplayable for players with sensitive eyes, I think it’s safe to assume that Anet really doesn’t give kitten about players with medical conditions.

 

Umm... They've actually made changes based on constructive feedback I've given them.  They've done the same for others who have given detailed feedback.  

This comment is an example of useless feedback.  It's not helpful in identifying what exactly is the problem, nor does it explain the nuances of the disability.  

Someone may think "But why can't you just reduce the brightness of your monitor?"

This post does not provide any explanation for why that isn't a viable solution.  There is no context discussed.

 

We were having actual good discourse in this thread, please don't ruin it.

 

[BlueJin.4127]

4 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

Umm... They've actually made changes based on constructive feedback I've given them.  They've done the same for others who have given detailed feedback.  

This comment is an example of useless feedback.  It's not helpful in identifying what exactly is the problem, nor does it explain the nuances of the disability.  

Someone may think "But why can't you just reduce the brightness of your monitor?"

This post does not provide any explanation for why that isn't a viable solution.  There is no context discussed.

 

We were having actual good discourse in this thread, please don't ruin it.

 

Here is some more context; some of us have given Anet specific examples of what we find unplayable and why. We've also stated that there is nothing left we can do on our own end because we already tried everything. There is no way to adjust just the painfully bright effects without also lowering the brightness of everything else, which makes it hard to see in dark areas. I myself have posted specifics several times. None of them have been fixed. Naturally, many of us are upset and that frustration is going to show, helpful or not.

I do apologize to everybody if I sour the discussion too much, though. I will just stop here.

Edited October 30, 2021 by BlueJin.4127

[Leo.3428]

@BlueJin.4127 - I was hoping that some gamma correction can reduce the brightness of flashes while preserving, or even slightly enhancing, the contrasts between the darker shades, but things are of course much more complicated. Different scenes in a game will be lit differently, requiring a smart, dynamic gamma adjustment that is likely to slow down everything if it is a layer of processing that is external to the game. More and more games include accessibility options, so we can hope that even the older games will join the movement at some point.

 

On the topic of North (what I call the direction app) I am adding options for the interface language. If anybody is interested in translating, please let me know. I am still making changes to the option system so not all the wording of the texts is fully decided yet.

I am unsure what license to choose when uploading the code on GitHub. Would the MIT license with a copyright on the Guild Wars 2 Player Community work?

Although I have not added the layers of automation to the interface panels yet, I tested the app with Microsoft's Accessibility Insights tool and it looks like the tabs and controls are already recognized and the texts are accessed without any optical character recognition involved.

I am still to finish the enlarged compass band. It will initially be a standard window, not a hardware accelerated one.

[Leo.3428]

@nyah.7586 and @Rogue.8235 - The fantastic creator of the Blish HUD add-on, Freesnöw, is interested in making the add-on and its modules more accessible. Which is more, one can create more modules for the HUD and leverage all the power of it without having to develop entire applications.

 

Blish HUD already has a module for a compass that can be scaled up for low vision players.

 

It should be possible to make a module that reads the player's API data and displays a character's inventory in a screen-reader compatible way (without slowing everything down with OCR).

 

I am learning how to integrate modules so the beeping compass can be part of Blish instead of being a standalone app.

 

The Blish HUD website: https://blishhud.com/

[nyah.7586]

On 11/10/2021 at 2:21 AM, Leo.3428 said:

@nyah.7586 and @Rogue.8235 - The fantastic creator of the Blish HUD add-on, Freesnöw, is interested in making the add-on and its modules more accessible. Which is more, one can create more modules for the HUD and leverage all the power of it without having to develop entire applications.

 

Blish HUD already has a module for a compass that can be scaled up for low vision players.

 

It should be possible to make a module that reads the player's API data and displays a character's inventory in a screen-reader compatible way (without slowing everything down with OCR).

 

I am learning how to integrate modules so the beeping compass can be part of Blish instead of being a standalone app.

 

The Blish HUD website: https://blishhud.com/

Oh, that sounds interesting! I need to take a look into that as well ^^Thank you for sharing.

Another thing:

I was wondering if there are possibilities to adjust the colour of the health bars and maybe even enemy AOE effects?
I have some sort of red-green / blue-green blindness, which makes it hard for me to distinguish between those colours sometimes (especially when quick reactions are needed). For example, in PVP I sometimes don't know if it's a player of my team or an enemy player on the point. I mainly pay attention to the big health bar above the player, because I can't see other details unless I take my time (which is not working in PVP for example).
In PVE,  you sometimes have to be able to distinguish between red circles and green circles on the floor for example.

 

I've seen Mods for other games where you could change the colours of health bars and stuff to yellow/blue for example or whatever colour combination helps with the kind of colour blindness people have.. I was wondering if there already exists such a thing for GW2 or if it's possible to add such a feature?

 

At the moment, I use a colour blind overlay that changes the colours of the whole game (everything on the screen). It works fine, but the game obviously doesn't look nice and I always have to turn it off when I colour my characters for the Fashion Game or for taking screenshots or whatever ^^

So I was wondering if there are more convenient ways?

[Leo.3428]

@nyah.7586 - Did you get a chance to test the large compass module of the Blish HUD?

Regarding color blindness, mods are indeed the way to go, but GW2 does not have mods, only overlays which are separate applications, which is very limited.

Some news on the audio compass: I "translated" the C++ North app into a C# Blish module a month ago, but Blish itself is not screenreader ready yet. I will resume North to finish the options interface until then.

Also, we discussed an audio map with @Rogue.8235. The GW2 API returns incorrect data so I'm curating a manual list of waypoints for the audio map to use. It would be great if we could crowdsource other kind of data such as paths, coasts, etc, unless this goes against the Game's terms of service. Any advice on this, anyone?

[Marika.5726]

On 9/25/2021 at 7:51 PM, Rogue.8235 said:

So I use JAWS 21 and have scripted it for limited use with video games.

 

I am not particularly visually impaired, and I rely on in-game sound all the time. It tells me about enemies and more; in certain other games, some mounts are audible from hundreds of meters away. This sort of information can help you lay in wait... not that I would EVER ambush anybody (heh, heh, heh).

 

[Rogue.8235]

On 2/8/2022 at 4:29 PM, Marika.5726 said:

I am not particularly visually impaired, and I rely on in-game sound all the time. It tells me about enemies and more; in certain other games, some mounts are audible from hundreds of meters away. This sort of information can help you lay in wait... not that I would EVER ambush anybody (heh, heh, heh).

Glad to hear someone else using sound to full effect!  And, yeah, some mounts are particularly... vocal (looking at you, various raptor breeds / birds).  And laying in wait for ambushes is great!  Just don't dodge roll as a thief or use the blackpowder/leap combo.  For some reason, thieves are the noisiest people in this game. 😛 

 

Edit: That thief thing is real. This is why I can easily counter d/p thieves in sPvP as a blind player.  they are the most telegraphed profession to assault a node.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Rogue.8235

[Clockzz.4210]

I'm a fellow blind gamer. Would recommend the window and the + key at the same time to zoom in with magnifier then the - to go back to normal i use this with a razer mouse so its easy to press those keys. after magnifier is open you can do CTL + ALT + I to invert colour on a screen that is too bright to invert the colour. works for any game. can help when text is too small in a game for me.
wanna talk blind tips my name Clockzz.4210