2011-07-31 23:32:16

Hi, I'm Beth, and I hope this is the right place to post my question - please forgive me if I am incorrect.

I am a sighted person learning braille transcription, and I was interested in doing a project involving creating descriptive audio for games like World of Warcraft or Starcraft 2. I am just trying to find out if anyone would be interested in such a thing. I am just at the very beginning stages of researching this.

Please let me know what you think. If you prefer to email me my address is marble at gmail.

Thanks in advance.

2011-08-01 00:20:51

Marble, will your goal be to allow blind gamers to play these games based on the descriptions?  or is it purely an informative project, to let them know what the mainstream games are like?

- Aprone
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2011-08-01 02:13:05

I was mainly thinking of just narrating what I see and what I do, what happens, etc. Both World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 are such that I could control the pacing pretty well so as not to miss a lot of what is going on. I haven't done this before, I am just curious if anyone might find that kind of thing entertaining. I am not sure if this is a good place to ask.

I have played a lot of World of Warcraft, and I like the story / quest aspects, and I think there is a lot of good writing and good characters. I'd edit out the really boring repetitive parts like killing 10 of the same creature, and that sort of thing.

Starcraft 2 is a popular RTS with a thriving pro scene, and there are lots of videos of games being casted by professional commentators. I was thinking that if I did some narrated videos introducing the games, maybe it could help ramp someone up so they could listen to the professional games and understand what is going on, what the various units do, that sort of thing. Or I could take professional casted games in intersperse myself explaining a bit more of what is going on to make it easier to follow the action.

If I do this, I would probably make both videos and separate audio files available. If this is something nobody would be interested in, then I won't bother, I was just wondering if someone might like to listen to that sort of thing. I'd do some initial tests, get feedback, adjust how I do it, etc.

2011-08-01 06:25:46

Well I certainly don't think it could hurt to have them.  You may be right, it could give some people some different ideas about things they want to develop into games.  I am sighted as well, so I'm not the best person to really answer your question of whether or not the community would find this entertaining.  I guess we'll just wait until a few more people reply to this thread.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-08-01 10:23:33

I can see the value of it for two different cases:

Firstly experiencing the story of a game which we couldn't otherwise. This would essentially be using the described game play as a sort of movie type thing, if people have sighted gaming friends it would also allow us to share and discuss the story side of things with them even if not the game play side. This could be extended to any RPG or other story-focussed game in theory, not just World of Warcraft.

Secondly in the same way people watch sports, only more geeky. We might not be able to play Starcraft 2 but then again how many people, even among the sighted, get to drive a formula 1 car? Ability to participate doesn't always seem to be a necessary part for these things to be popular.

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

2011-08-04 21:46:44

Hi,
This would be awsome to listen to! I offten go on youtube and just watch game walkthroughs, I remember getting walkthrough for heavenly sword and getting the vids into mp3 format, and spending a hole week listening to nothing but that game, the battles, the story, and it was fun. I now own the game and although it's not fully playable, there are some accessible parts. But youtube is awsome for this sort of thing, accept that there's no audio description.
Audio description for world of warcraft would be a dream come true for two reasons:
1: on youtube, loads of the vids are music videos, not actual game footage, so I can't hear any sounds. Having an mp3 file with audio commentry and gameplay would solve this issue.
2: Just the fact that things will get described. It will allow the experience of the game in more detail.

2011-08-05 01:01:59

Very true. Far too many "game play" videos on youtube are made with loud obnoxious music instead of the game's own audio. On the occasions when I've looked up game play footage of games out of curiosity to try and get a feel for them I found that a major irritation.

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

2011-08-06 19:11:28

Hi,
It makes me wonder why people do that though. Those vids could really be caught for copyright infringement, more so than the gameplay vids themselves, due to them not explaining why they used the song, or using a fair use disclama about not owning any of the music.

2011-08-06 21:23:09

A lot of videos get closed down for that very reason.

- Aprone
Please try out my games and programs:
Aprone's software

2011-08-07 02:29:55

In any case back on topic you've at least two blind or visually impaired people here expressing interest.

Anyone else out there reading this who's interested please at least post a "me too" so we can tell how much interest there is in this.

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

2011-08-07 17:54:43

Hello.

I'd be interested, but if you're going to do games like SC2 and those that are single player story modes, as well as multiplayer, then I think it would be great if you could include the cut scenes as that'll cut down some of the explaining you might have to do on the story side of things.

I have to say, I used to be able to see, and Starcraft was one of my favorite games, so to be able to hear what is happening in SC2 to continue the saga would completely rock. This way, I'm not reading someone's "spoiler free" interpretation of things, or like has been stated here, trying to youtube things, and getting only annoying overly loud music that drowns out my reader.

I'll be paying attention to see if you do post anything in here on doing this. :-D

Visit my site at VI Tek Talk.
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2011-08-12 01:40:23

I'm in the same position regarding story for Starcraft and SC2, the first one was quite impressive. Having the story for Diablo 3 after I used to play Diablo 2 would be great too but then we're getting into wishlist territory.

On a related note I once listened to a few youtube broadcasts of Eve Online's team tournament, very interesting stuff and I did manage to get some idea of what was going on thanks to the commentators they had.

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