Reply by death 2019-09-20 14:25:05 (edited by death 2019-09-20 14:25:47)

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I agree with both 24 and 25. I understand both are needed here, and I think the exact reason I'm so frustrated is because I only expect one of these things to happen in madden 21 while waiting until madden 22 for any sort of upgrades or patching. If it were a matter of both happening within a few patches I seriously wouldn't fight as hard, but I'm totally expecting the usual formula of one huge accessibility change for the new update and nothing until next year. 25 is absolutely right. Are we a part of the community? If so, we deserve more than just annual  patches. The other players get their voices heard, sometimes multiple times a month, don't we deserve the same?

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Reply by TBlaze 2019-09-20 18:30:28

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and I’m also right there with 26.

Addolis wrote:

Hello to all, I am glad to see that this topic has caused an outpouring of feedback.
This is  a two fold problem that happens to go hand in hand.
If you don't know what your plays are,  you can't know what plays to call for a particular situation. Likewise,  every adjustment, every audible, is based on the play that you call.
The commentary team, needs to inform us of what the defense is doing, or if we are on the defense, what the offense is doing, and what formation they are using.  Back in the days of College games, I had to know my formations in particular, and I knew where certain plays were, because I was good with them.  What you guys are failing to grasp, is that knowing what plays you are comfortable with,  will help you make adjustments. Let's say you call, bench. Bench has two shallow out routs on Y and A (triangle and X respectively. The other two receivers are running two corner routes witch are tied to X and B (Square and Circle respectively.)
When you get to the line, you may hear the defense say watch the run. Or they may say tight ends right, tight ends right. This tells you two things. One, if you hear watch the run, it means you don't have to audible to a run play. If you hear tight ends right, it means that your route on A will be covered. In this situation it is best to throw to the corner routs, or throw to the tight end on the left with the y button.
To supplement what the players say on the field, the commentary team could say, "They are gearing up to stop the run, or It looks like they will press the receivers.  Those are good signs to make adjustments.
In closing I want to say a few words to first my fellow players.
Your concerns are well founded, and I agree with them. However, I submit to all of you that the problems are actually one and the same.  If you don't know the situation you are in IE if you are blitzing or not, you can't know how to adjust. However, if we  don't get  any idea on what the other side is up to, we can't know what we're adjusting from, and what we're adjusting in  to.
Finally I want to send a message to EA.
Stop isolating us.  While accessibility improvements have been  from year to year, we are left out when it comes to patches through out the cycle of a game release.
And for the record, I do know what I'm talking about.  If everyone in the community through the game release cycle gets issues resolved,  then we should to.
Or, perhaps we're not part of the community?
There have been 4 patches released for Madden 20, and the only accessibility change, was  a minor fix in ultimate team for something not reading correctly. While I'm grateful for the bug that was squashed,   our value as consumers should be taken with equal  priority.  What this means for EA, is a shift in focus.  Because accessibility requires more of an effort in development,  then more focus should be placed on it during the release cycle of a game.  At the same time,  when new versions are released, new features in accessibility should also be released, or more things should be added to things like menu narration. Accessibility should not stop once a game is released, but should continue with subsequent  patches and updates. 
Again EA, are you listening?  I spent 5 months of my life working with your teams, and I know what they are capable of.  But everyone on this forum, has done  their part.   posting things in the forums, put in there reports, suggestions,  and all that you have asked. Yet, we see no fruit for our efforts.  We're not asking that entire modes be made accessible during a game cycle.  But it seems to me, and to all of us, that accessibility stops  after the release of the title.

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Reply by Orin 2019-09-20 19:22:44

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Well said, Adolis.

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Reply by sirpdex 2019-09-20 23:05:09

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#OutOfSightOutOfMind

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Reply by cyco 2019-09-21 04:49:03

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I once again agree with Darrell.

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Reply by Addolis 2019-09-21 21:58:00

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If you guys go look at the fifa accessibility thread, you'll find that Karen just truly says it. They focused on polish instead of coverage.

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Reply by Sports Lover Dave 2019-09-24 04:43:39

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Hi fellow players, I purchased Madden 20 a couple of weeks ago.  I have been totally blind since 2000.  Last time I played was Madden 95.  Darrell, your Blitz vedio's have been a big help for me.  I have been listening to the radio during the New Orlean Saints game since 2000 and I get more information from the commentators on formations for offense and defense.  I have the Xbox, and my Tag is Postal Celery 972.  But I am not sure I am ready for yourLeague.  But I am interested in joining if possible.  If no one has the Saints, I would sure like to have them and play if possible.  Dave Thanks

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 04:51:17

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if I could see one change in next year's version, it would be to attempt to improve the speech synthesizer used. I know that it probably has a low cloud footprint, but for people who have hearing loss, it is hard to comprehend sometimes.

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Reply by nolan 2019-09-24 05:18:50

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I'm actually curious as to why there even *needs* to be a speech synthesizer built in. I'm trying to put together an accessible stack for building accessible Xbox games, and it seems SAPI is available, at least to UWP-based titles. I don't see why that wouldn't be true for non-UWP-based games, which is what I'd assume Madden is.

I understand SAPI wouldn't support every platform Madden does, so use it where available and leverage Pico everywhere else. I can't imagine that complicating the build process overly much. It may even simplify things by replacing Pico with a lighter shim where it isn't needed.

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 05:26:40

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So the way that this works at least from what I gather is speech is generated serverside and sent down to the client. This way there is one system doing the processing. Keep in mind that accessibility takes a lower priority, so the challenge was to probably build a system that could be deployed regardless of platform.

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 05:38:38

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Oh to add to that. I didn't realize they were using SVOX Pico TTS. I feel like I should have known that.
I suppose it got picked because.
1. It has a small foot print.
2. It's free to use so no attribution/royalty/other payments had to be made.
It's hard when you have to work on a shoestring budget and most likely have limited resources both monetary and otherwise. I give EA huge props for making a workable solution.

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Reply by nolan 2019-09-24 05:55:19

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It sounds like Pico at least. May also be some variation of Festival or Flite. I could be wrong, but I'd be stunned if they were using a cloud-based process. You'd always have to be online for TTS to work, and even if the bandwidth requirements are low, perpetually maintaining and securing a TTS API endpoint for the entire lifetime of the game is probably more work than just baking in TTS. But either way, baking TTS into the build process is probably more work than just calling out to SAPI, which is already resident in memory and active anyway. There's also the latency issue. Making audio quick enough to ship over the wire in response to quick UI actions may work well on fast links, but it'll fail pretty spectacularly on grandpa's rural satellite or DSL link. smile I've tried to build always-online mobile apps, and they fall down pretty quickly on rural roads or routed via small-town ISPs.

All speculation on my part, of course.

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Reply by Orin 2019-09-24 05:59:54

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nolan wrote:

I'm actually curious as to why there even *needs* to be a speech synthesizer built in. I'm trying to put together an accessible stack for building accessible Xbox games, and it seems SAPI is available, at least to UWP-based titles. I don't see why that wouldn't be true for non-UWP-based games, which is what I'd assume Madden is.

I understand SAPI wouldn't support every platform Madden does, so use it where available and leverage Pico everywhere else. I can't imagine that complicating the build process overly much. It may even simplify things by replacing Pico with a lighter shim where it isn't needed.

I'll tell you why it needs to be built in. The answer is PlayStation and PC, but emphasis is PlayStation here. Unlike xbox one, Sony doesn't have an API or anything to interface with. So if you want your game accessible on PS4 you'd better come up with your own solution. EA is not going to limit features to a specific platform only, say, because xbox one has a speech API that could be used.

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 06:07:19

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yeah. It's cloud. I remember a while back I had a message saying to go online which wasn't spoken, but as soon as I got online TTS kicked up. I also tried the old trick of unplugging the ethernet cable. No speech. Don't be too shocked. Cable boxes like the ones from Comcast do the same thing.

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Reply by nolan 2019-09-24 14:14:23

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@38 Right, but it's pretty simple to detect what platform you're building on and compile different code based on that. They're probably already doing that for Xbox Live API support, because the PS4 definitely doesn't support those. So on PS4, use the cloud-based process. On Xbox, call the system APIs. I imagine each has different graphics/sound hardware too, so speech synthesis would be handled similarly, and the code to send an HTTP request, check for errors, play the resulting file, etc. is probably more complicated than `tts.speak(text, interrupt = true)` or whatever sort of SAPI wrapper they'd come up with.

@39 Wow, didn't realize that. Makes me glad I just upgraded my router, then. smile

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 14:40:38

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38. The only games using the narrator's read to me feature so far have been xbox exclusives. Now saying that, apparently tom clancy's the division 2 has TTS and that might be cross platform. I'm not sure on that one so I can't say for sure. Or maybe it's an exclusive I'm just not sure.

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Reply by Addolis 2019-09-24 18:10:06

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Yes the reason why the Narrator voice is not used is because they had to make a solution that was cross platform.
I will be inviting you to the league anyways, because we have all different types of sskill levels.
I thank you so much for the feedback on the videos, and more willbe coming.

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Reply by Addolis 2019-09-24 18:12:22

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Also, you have been invited to the league, and the saints are clear.

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Reply by ea_accessible 2019-09-24 20:37:01 (edited by ea_accessible 2019-09-24 20:38:02)

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Hi everyone, the purpose of this thread is to get a list of priorities, especially for menu narration, for EA_AaronR to work on.

Aaron is slowly moving off my team and back to the Madden team, and using bug fixing as a means of ramping back up to working on the game itself. Aaron has been at EA for about 14 years, but has only operated without sight for about a year. This, along with the unpredictability of the patch schedule, means I cannot accurately say when or if any changes made will make it into an official patch, but we are actively working on this. Also, having a totally blind Madden developer working on making the game more accessible to himself, along with more accessible to everyone here, bodes well for the future of Madden blind accessibility.

Give us some time. Every game has its own challenges when it comes to accessibility, but we're slowly moving forward in making all games more accessible to all groups. Not all fixes will be of interest to those here, but all are important to someone.

Please, let us know what areas of menu narration you are most interested in seeing gaps filled. Other feedback is also welcome, but menu narration is most applicable to Aaron's current development goals.

Thanks,

Karen Stevens
EA Sports Accessibility Lead

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Reply by sirpdex 2019-09-24 21:36:48

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Wow so it seems the menu warriors have won the war congratulations.  I hope you enjoy cuddling your achievements surfing the menus.
I went against all my morals believing this company would do what is best for accessible gaming.  Oh how I was proven wrong,  good luck.
Until they start focusing on actually allowing us to play a full game without assistance I’m wiping my hands clean from this  scum company.  I hold no grudges or anger towards the accessible team as they are limited in what they can actually do.  Thanks to the overlords Hahaha
Off to  Microsoft and Konami I go. Peace....

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Reply by ea_accessible 2019-09-24 22:59:56 (edited by ea_accessible 2019-09-24 23:00:19)

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I'm not sure I understand all the hostility on this thread.

A Madden game developer went totally blind, is moving back to the team, and is learning how to do game programming again by working on menu narration tasks, as the work to do so is accessible to him, and he needs the game to be more accessible to himself. The purpose of this thread is to gather what in this specific area might also be the most useful to the community, too. This does not preclude work in any other area, or any other game.

I had hoped that the community would be more welcoming to a totally blind game developer who's just learning how to deal with his new condition.

Karen Stevens
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Reply by death 2019-09-24 23:16:24

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Unfortunate, but will have to be patient I suppose. One thing at a time.

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Reply by sirpdex 2019-09-24 23:25:16

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Nobody has hostility towards you or the accessibility team.  I am sure everybody is in agreement to that.
And if you feel that way I apologise.

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Reply by Liam 2019-09-24 23:37:32

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Why do we bite the hand that feeds us?
I for one think any step forward is a good step forward.

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Reply by nolan 2019-09-25 00:49:11

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As a totally blind game developer attempting to work with mainstream engines, I can tell you that this stuff can be very hard, and I cringe every time I have to touch a damned 3-D transform. I can't wait until I reach the point where I don't have to quite as often. It can be a bit mind-bending, and there aren't many good references that don't instantly throw a graphic at you.

All that is to say, I completely understand the desire to start with menu narration. Comparatively, it's a whole lot easier to intercept UI events and expose necessary properties on controls. Let's not get overly worked up because we're not getting what we want on the schedule we'd like it on.

For my part, I'm amazed that EA is taking a blind game developer seriously. I've had a hell of a time getting taken seriously by open source projects, so kudos to a AAA game development shop for doing what some open source projects won't.

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