2008-06-04 08:42:10

Yes, it's more news from the galactic front, the four way civil war is stil raging, and the next phase is liable to kick off very soon.

Of course what I'm talking about is Smugglers 4, the upcoming sequal to the fantastic screen reader accessible Scifi ship trading game Smugglers 3. With the next installmentnow in private beta and set for a release sometime over the summer, things are getting Tense!

and just to increase that sense of tention, there's a new release from Nielsbaur about the game, which from the sound of it goes beyond even it's predecessor in terms of pirating and pyrotecnics.

But i won't spoil the surprise, just set your ship's shinyist scanning devices this way for the news

If you wish to share some in put directly on the Nielsbaur forum, don't be petrified by the initial screen capture on the account set up page, just send them an E-mail and they'll be glad to set up an account for you, ----- and once set up, everything is perfectly screen reader friendly.

Of course, if your not familiar with Smugglers 3, why not check out the S3 gamelist entry

Now I'd better fly, ---- I think there's a syndicate stargun on my tale!

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2008-06-04 15:16:03

I'm going to get it the first chance I get. three is good and four looks better. Now would you get off my tail before I blast you. Just kidding. Good artical.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
DropBox Referral

2008-06-04 17:49:58

And if you want something like Smugglers but with multiplayer try the accessible mud/moo SlipGate Legacy, currently in alpha with things being added frequently. Only been open not much more than a week and it's going strong.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2008-06-04 21:03:48

Is this one as bad as the other game yall hate. the one the starts with m. I can't think of it at this time.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
DropBox Referral

2008-06-05 06:46:49

Hmmmm, I really don't know what you mean Cw, there's nothing hate worthy in Smugglers 3 at all, and likely to be even less in Smugglers 4.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2008-06-05 08:19:24

I don't like smugglers3, since I struggle to read the dialogues.

To know, and not to do, is not to know.

2008-06-05 08:50:05

Tablen, please let us know what the problem is your having with the dialogues in S3.

I can't remember if you use hal, Window eyes or Jaws (I believe it was Jaws but I'm not sure).

Personally using Hal, i find the game damnably accessible, ----- it was pretty good with hal 7, but with Hal 9 it's absolutely fantastic, ----- even the tutorial is totally readable which is Great!

So if it's Hal your using I can probably give some advice, ---- and I know their are people here who play the game with the other two as well.

I must admit I'm a big fan of S3, and I don't like to think of someone missing out on the game because of screen reader issues.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2008-06-05 14:13:21

I use JAWS, and spesifically JAWS9.0. The text is alright, but the buttons appear as graphical numbers e.g. "graphic 236". Then, I have to ask sighted people to come and help me. I don't like to be dependent on a sighted person if I want to play a game.

To know, and not to do, is not to know.

2008-06-05 15:16:46

Someone said something about moo
SlipGate Legacy on here. here I go to start a new topic. Anyway, I haven't had a problem with smugglers3. May be I lucked out?

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
DropBox Referral

2008-06-05 16:01:18

Hmmmm, that's weerd! I thought everything in the game was labled pretty completely, and I'd agree being dependent upon someone for a game is a bad ideaa, ---- and in my case is in fact not possible.

You are presumably using the jaws curser?

You should be able to click emulate on the names of the various buttons and planets in order to perform actions with them, ---- maybe there's something in your detection settings?

Does this happen withall graphics are just a couple? S3 does feature a few scroll bars, ---- which Hal reads as percentages (very handy for looking at the amount of Xp you've got), but these aren't totally necessary to play the game.

sorry I can't be more help. hopefully someone who's more familiar with jaws will be able to give some answers.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2008-06-05 17:41:21

I admit I find it something of a pain with the Jaws cursor, but more because when boxes pop up I have to reroute the Jaws to the PC cursor again and it gets a pain in the neck. The buttons should appear as text, but you don't always know they're a button. For example planet names are usually clickable, but Jaws doesn't tell you this. Just try using the numpad / to click stuff until you find the one that works. Eventually you get a sort of feel for it.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2008-06-05 18:41:33

That much is also true with Hal, as reguards the planet names and lables, but I didn't find too much guess work was needed in the game because of the extensive labeling. the only thing which really seemed to require some guess work and random buttons, because of the way the columns are laid out is the crew management screen, but I've got that sorted now I think.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2008-07-04 17:01:37

I've just purchased and tried out Smugglers 4. Unfortunately, despite complete success with Smugglers 3, I've had absolutely no success with this new version. I can set up a ship and choose a profession. However, once you get to the game's main screen, nothing seems to work except reading messages in the ship's log. I can't travel or access the control panel at all. The combat screen is completely visual. The author has obviously chosen to go for looks over substance and completely shut us out at the moment. I've written to him and am hopeful he can improve matters.

2008-07-04 19:04:17

The author, Niels Bauer, has just contacted me. He plans to make Smugglers 4 at least as accessible as Smugglers 3 or possibly even more so. Anyone wanting to help the author in this effort should contact him at:
[email protected]

2008-07-07 15:24:33

Good haha I thought it was accessable and I two was having problems getting things to wokr right.

2008-07-07 16:10:00

I am new here and was just wondering with the game before this one I can not accept a mission. I am using window-eyes has anyone else had this problem? I left click on accept and nothing happens any suggestions?

2008-07-08 11:03:30

guess what. i can't eben get it started. it worked once right after the install and then the music was loud and i shuttted it down. when i started it, it would display 1 dialog per second. like this: bbong. bong. bgong. it said that it couldn't open startscreen12highlighted.jpg. so, well. that's my experience hahahaha!

<Insert passage from "The Book Of Chrome" here>

2008-07-28 03:51:17

Hello everyone,
Niels Bauer has made several updates to Smugglers 4.  The travel screen, the combat screen, trade screen, and several others are now much more accessible.  This game could stand to have some scripting done though, I am looking into this.

2008-07-29 08:21:57

to be honest, I've been unwell and so haven't yet tried the game with Hal, which is bad. I'm hoping to this week. thanks for reminding me about the update, it'll get it's own news item.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)