2017-03-15 15:09:21

hello everyone. I'm going to try to advocate to make star citizen accessible to the blind so that we can play it. You guys are making me feel empowered, so I'm going to start to find these kinds of virtual worlds that I like seeing and that you guys mention and if I enjoy them too, I'll do what I can to advocate to make them work for the blind. Although I'm sure you'd do that too. I look at it like this, the absolute worst they could say would be no, so what would it hurt to try? in fact, I've already joined a star citizen group on facebook and the fans and players of the world that are in this group seem to be verry receptive to blind people, at least they're receptive to me, asking me questions about blindness and about how we play games with sound. Now all that needs to be done is to get in contact with the developers and hope that they share the same level of interest. I'm going to try not to get my hopes up too high, but I can't help but feel somewhat excited about all of this because it's up to us to make noise enough to change the video and computer gaming world. Have a wonderful day and wish me luck, I'm going to undertake all of this this weekend.

2017-03-15 18:44:32

oh... god... I just... I sorry but *falls off of chair laughing*. A, who here has the money to play that game, ships cost real dollars, and lots of them. B, you think a game that has been 2 or 3 years in the making is going to turn right around and start looking to put in accessibility changes, hell the whole thing would probably need to be redesigned from the ground up. If not the whole game, at least the space flight part of it. C, do you think they give two shits, literally two shits about us, if you say anything other than hell no, sorry, but that's just naivety. D, what responses are you seeing when you write companies about accessibility. I can tell you the most common ones right here. 1, no, or its not possible. 2, no reply. 3, oh sure we'd love to; several months later, nothing has been done. 4, the least common, something actually gets done and there  is improvement, less than 2% of the time. E, the difficulty of redesigning the game would be immense.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2017-03-15 19:20:06

@ironcross32 I'm sorry to say but that atitude doesn't helps, man. If we want things to be more accessible, the least we can do is try, right? Even
if he doesn't suceed, at least he tried.

2017-03-15 20:14:58

@Iron:

MIssing a response

No because <insert license here> won't let us add accesible features. Or this:

No, <insert country here> culture doesn't recognized disabled gamers. (I ran into that last one from -O devs oddly enough)

Or, my new favorite meme:

No because we don't have enough cash/time/manpower/all of the above

Or.....

No, <publisher> won't allow it.

THat last one is pretty common if you deal with publishers. Until we get more traction and a bigger recognition, then publishers will just ignore us.

Oh and when we get that recognition, they will parade accessibility features on the store pages as marketing tools.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2017-03-15 22:11:42

@ironcross32: If all people had the same thoughts like this, accessibility would never happen at all. How do you think many IOS games are made accessible with VOiceover? Because people have contacted the developers. Why do you think EA Games has registered on this forum? Because I and other blind people have contacted them. So, it's good that not all people have those thoughts which are posted in post 2...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2017-03-15 23:18:54

Hi.
People what the hell? Are you all living in a fantasy world where everything is possible in gaming? You mind dropping the accessibility thought for a seccond and look at the details? You would need to make all the ship systems accessible, moving, space flight, navigating, fighting and what not.
Do you really think it is that easy to just go there and put in some audio cues? No, I tell ya now, it's not. If there is a game not beein accessible, it's star citicen, its just to complex to put in accessibility, just accept this fact for ones.
High contrast, ok, gray scales, ok, sub titles, ok, but no full blown blind accessibility mode.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-03-16 00:44:33

agree with 4 and 6

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2017-03-16 01:08:27

I do not see anywhere in this thread where people have said making games accessible is easy. My full time professional job is to work with people to help them make their user interfaces accessible.  I can tell you from experience that accessibility never happens if there are no discussions about it. @karate25, @SLJ, and others try to make those conversations happen.  Certainly, they may frequently run into deadends. But they do not always find a dead end. Their results can sometimes bare fruit--but that only happens because they are willing to spend their own time and effort to try to start something.
By all means, it is important to share stories and information about past challenges and barriers to accessibility. But let's not discourage them from trying. After all it hurts nothing for them to try, while it actually makes it possible that we will end up with more accessible games.

2017-03-16 16:33:54

you know, Hektor, I completely agree with you. In fact, this facebook group that I've joined about star citizen is full of about 12000 members or so who are all either players or fans like myself of star citizen, and each and every one of them have been so warm kind and inviting as well as asking very legitimate questions as to how certain parts of this world may be made accessible, and thus far, I've been able to answer every single one of them. So with all of that being said, I'm going to set myself up with an account this weekend on star citizen's web site, and per the community's advice for star citizen, I'm going to start a support ticket and see if they'll put me through to at least one or two developers. And if I do manage to get even one posative bite, and I manage to send them over here for feedback, could we please be kind? post 2/ and others? I totally get that we've had bad times in the past with game accessability, but the times they are achanging for the better. And I think from now on, since I seem to get so much negative kickback from here, if I attempt to do something like this again, I won't share it here. Have a wonderful day to you all, and thank you very sincerely to all of you who are on my side in this matter and support me.

2017-03-16 18:07:11

@Ironcross32: I don't know if you've been following the gdc goings on lately. But, keep that in mind. THere's so much more awareness now. Heck, I did not expect someone from EA to come on here and yet, here we are, sure it's another topic, but that's happening now. Nothing's concrete heck I don't think anything ever will be, but we have to try. Karate's righ. The absolute worse that can happen is a dev turns round and says no. So Karate, keep posting here because now we're with you especially with the gdc stuff lately. But remember this: I believe getting devs to implement stuff will take years still. I don't know what will happen regarding star citizen. But I think if a big dev starts, everyone else will follow. This is a slow, slow process. That ship's wheel needs to start to turn. So we're captaining it on a course. We don't know where that course will lead. We'll probably hit yee ol stormy seas, roadblocks, you name it, but we have to try. That ship's wheel might be heavy to turn, but we have to start it turning somehow.

2017-03-16 18:14:57 (edited by JaceK 2017-03-16 18:17:33)

@Aaron:

Awareness is one thing. Actually getting big publishers to do anything is a whole other matter.

Since people do not seem to get how this works.

1. Publishers put up X money for a game, say $150 milion

2. Publishers give the developer a release date

3. Publishers can depending on the contract have a hell of a lot of control, they can demand features removed, cut for DLC or completely and utterly forgotten about.

4. Also, point 3.1 really: Publishers have the final say in what goes into a game.

5. Publishers are the ones calling the shots for games. Even self published ones have devs acting as publishers. Also, I'd strongly suggest everyone who wants to go running to a developer and expeccts to talk to them, reads up on non disclosure agreements and what they entail.There's been games where the publisher has said one thing and behind closed doors got features scrapped for various reasons

Also, @OP:

Don't expect the devs to reveal anything. They are usually under an NDA, which is a legally binding document that means, IN SIMPLE TERMS, since people seem to think developers can and will share everything...

It basically means they cannot talk about things they are not allowed to. Usually development stuff. For mine, I can't actually discuss the specifics of the SMS NDA, but in a broad sense it was 'Do not talk about anything that isn't publically released with press/public/non dev team members'

So, even if you get through to a developer, I for one doubt they will be able to tell you anything. Chris Roberts knows what he's doing and (FWIW) NDas are common in the tech sector. Also, given it's a legally binding contract, the penalties for breaking them are severe. I.e. taken to court, drummed out of the gaming industry and so forth.

Just keep that in mind. Also, NDAs do expire after a period of years, but I will put money on the fact that all of Star Citizen's devs are under NDAs to prevent them discussing internal developer stuff with non developers or rivals.

In short: Devs can't talk about stuff if they signed an NDA

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2017-03-16 22:35:10

Yes, publishers do have a major impact on what is published. How does that impact your dialog with developers? Realize that the developers you are talking with typically don't have the authority to do anything they want. Making a game accessible, may involve more than convincing the developers. This is part of the reason why developing good amicable relationships with people at that company can be invaluable. they may feel more comfortable explaining why something might not be accessible--which improves your chance to provide the appropriate information. A developer may be moved to incorporate accessibility for one reason. A publisher may need another reason to convince them.

With regards to NDA's, I think there are a few things to be aware of.  The primary purpose of an NDA is to help try to protect information a company thinks gives them an advantage against their competitors. Realize when you are talking with a developer that they likely have signed an NDA--so if they are unwilling to share certain information with you, there is a good reason for it. Also, there is always a possibility that you might be asked to sign an NDA. This typically is a good sign. It means they think you can be trusted and they also think that sharing this additional information with you will provide them with something beneficial--likely it means they find your accessibility feedback to be useful.

Typically, NDA's end up covering information about future plans or detailed technical aspects of current products. It would be rare to find an NDA that prevents a developer from discussing current features of a game from a player's perspective.

I probably should mention something else.  There is a tendency to think companies are soley motivated by money and that is all they think about when they make decisions. Money is definitely a major motivation for companies, but it is important to understand that it isn't the sole factor in how companies make decisions.  It is typically a very important factor in decisions, but not necessarily the only factor.

2017-03-17 01:51:39

all of this makes sense hektor, ad to that the fact that these people have been extremely open and forthcomeing with their development of this vast and breathtaking world that I hope to have a hand in making accessible. In fact, I've been getting all sorts of feedback from the players and people who really know this world, that I am right to try to get them to make this world accessible for us to live in, to the point where one gentleman even told me that the folks at cig are good folks which leads me to believe that they would be at least open to hearing me out if nothing else. My hope is that the developers and staff give me as warm a welcome as the folks in this facebook group have done. I have never felt more welcomed in a gaming community to be honest. I'll keep you all posted

2017-03-20 12:52:55

hello there folks, I've got some bad news, I was all set to go and create an account on the site, but my mom actually didn't like the way it sounded because you had to buy a basic ship for between 45-60 dollars. So it looks like I'm not going to be able to do this after all. She said she'd help me get past the security captcha but by then I had gotten out of the facebook group and everything. Sorry to have let you down, believe me, noone's feeling it more than me. I really would've liked to have spoken with these folks but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Again, sorry to let us down.

2017-03-20 15:08:40

It's a shame you can't get trial ships just for testing out the interface.

2017-03-20 18:10:34

I may be able to do this. Give me the Facebook group.

2017-09-01 08:54:17

So I am guessing this didn't happen? A friend of mine reminded me of this topic while talking about reddit.  Their is a subreddit for this game apparently. So does nothing work with it at all?  The reddit group if you'd like to try talking with people their instead of facebook is here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/

2017-09-01 13:24:13

hello everyone, I don't remember the name of the facebook group off the top of my head, but if you go to robertsspaceindustries.com/ you should be able to find it if you look hard enough. If you can get this conversation going, this would be wonderful, and I would of course join in right behind you.